Smith, Adam ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3938-4836 and Barnett-Woods, Victoria (2025) “You must find eyes to read this book—head and heart” : Disrupting Single Stories in Teaching Sancho’s Letters and The Woman of Colour. Journal for Eighteenth Century Studies. (In Press)

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Abstract

This article examines research-informed teaching of eighteenth-century Black British literature, focusing on Charles Ignatius Sancho’s Letters (1781–82) and The Woman of Colour (1808). Using case studies from Loyola University Maryland and York St John University, it explores how students respond when these texts are taught beyond the dominant narrative of Black suffering. By centring Sancho as a writer, entrepreneur, and citizen, educators foster engagement with eighteenth-century print culture as dialogic and intertextual, rather than reductively racialized. The article considers the challenges of confronting “single stories” of historical Black lives and demonstrates how curricular design can disrupt assumptions that Black authors are primarily witnesses to oppression. Similar strategies applied to The Woman of Colour reveal opportunities to foreground domestic fiction, narrative form, and character complexity. The discussion underscores the pedagogical benefits of positioning Black eighteenth-century figures as culturally active, multifaceted agents, enabling students to appreciate both the challenges and joys of their lives. Ultimately, the article advocates for teaching practices that recentre Black voices, cultivate student agency, and expand the interpretive possibilities of eighteenth-century literature.

Item Type:	Article
Status:	In Press
Subjects:	D History General and Old World > DA Great Britain > DA498-503 1714-1760 D History General and Old World > DA Great Britain > DA505-522 George III, 1760-1820 P Language and Literature > PR English literature
School/Department:	School of Humanities
URI:	https://ray.yorksj.ac.uk/id/eprint/14009

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