“In 1728, Elizabeth Singer Rowe anonymously published what would become one of the most widely printed books of the 18th-century: Friendship in Death, in Twenty Letters from the Dead to the Living. The collection includes letters such as that from a dead child to his grieving mother, a young woman who was wronged by a lascivious lord. In imagining voices for those who could no longer speak, Rowe’s writing broke through the confines of temporal estrangement, inviting her readers to consider new ways of connecting past and present. As a multimedia project, Voices of the Dead to the Living takes its inspiration from Rowe’s revolutionary format. Our project’s primary aim is to create research ethically and manifest a public voice for women, trans, and non-binary writers that have fallen through the cracks of popular memory. Through the use of audio presentation and creative writing, as well as more experimental creative forms, such as AI-assisted text composition, we aim to create a space in which people can intentionally listen to women, trans and non-binary writers to learn from them lessons from the past. In a constantly evolving academic and social world, our goal is to call students (both undergraduate and graduate) and general public to action-oriented studies, primarily to accentuate the importance of praxis or practice in Humanities.”

Check out the virtual zine here!

Learn more at: facebook.com/votdproject