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This chapter focuses on an early British female writer's course offered at Ripon College, a small liberal arts institution in Ripon, Wisconsin, USA. The course was first offered during the spring of 2017 as Donald J. Trump began his term as president of the United States. The students and instructor aimed to make their classroom a place for honest and open discussions about the difficult socio-political environment as they continually sought connections between their own social concerns and those of the early women writers they studied. The essay focuses specifically on the group's study of eighteenth-century British author Eliza Haywood, her novella Fantomina, and her periodical The Female Spectator. Through their study of these texts, the group came to understand how their own stories mattered. They saw that their creativity was a tool with which they could navigate and resist political change. This realization manifested itself in the creative capstone project for the course – a student-author periodical based on The Female Spectator. The essay explains the instructor's pedagogical approach toward this project and features samples of the students' writing from both the periodical and their end-of-term reflective writings.

This edited volume brings feminist theory, critical pedagogy, and trauma theory in conversation with one another in order to analyze how gender-based violence is being discussed in educational settings. Lines of inquiry include how and why this topic is being carried out, suggestions for the future, as well as recognition and respect for the emotional toll embedded within these important conversations. In the introduction to the volume, the editors lay the foundation for understanding how the genres and topics communicate with one another to contextualize learning as intellectual, emotional, reciprocal, and ever-changing.