{"id":204930,"date":"2023-09-25T07:35:22","date_gmt":"2023-09-25T11:35:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=204930"},"modified":"2023-09-25T15:11:46","modified_gmt":"2023-09-25T19:11:46","slug":"celebrating-the-fallen-woman-30-from-uconn-tell-their-stories-to-keep-the-conversation-going","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2023\/09\/celebrating-the-fallen-woman-30-from-uconn-tell-their-stories-to-keep-the-conversation-going\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating the ‘Fallen Woman’: 30 from UConn Tell Their Stories to Keep the Conversation Going"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gina Barreca keeps candy in her office, but Kit-Kats aren\u2019t why former students keep in touch.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a reason 125 UConn English majors and minors are members of the private Facebook group \u201cGina\u2019s Greatest,\u201d where they post job openings, offer advice, and wait for the day Barreca, Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor<\/a> in the English department<\/a>, pops in to say hi.<\/p>\n

Maybe creative writing students are drawn to her class because she simply gives them permission \u2013 like her father did when dropping her off at Dartmouth College and told his Mona Lisa Vito<\/a>, \u201cYou don\u2019t like it, you take the next bus home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maybe it\u2019s because she bans electronic devices in class \u2013 yes, for all 150 minutes – almost requires students to learn each other\u2019s names, and in the process develops a close-knit community that genuinely begins to care for one another.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not because they owe me money,\u201d she quips.<\/p>\n

OK, maybe it\u2019s the humor and quick wit on which she\u2019s built a career and reputation.<\/p>\n

Whatever the reason, Barreca has a following and wants to help those students \u2013 current and former \u2013 in the same way she says her teachers helped her: \u201cThey almost literally saved my life. So, I have a naturally high opinion of many educators, from my favorite teacher in high school to the ones I had in college and graduate school. And what they all told me was to make sure to follow through when I was able to give back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lately, that\u2019s meant giving UConn-connected writers a book with an actual ISBN in which to publish their work.<\/p>\n

A big ask and a big yes<\/strong><\/p>\n

Emma Corby \u201921 (CLAS) says Barreca didn\u2019t even have her new email address after graduation from UConn. Luck, happenstance, fate, maybe good timing prompted Corby to contact her favorite former professor for reading suggestions as she advanced in her graduate program at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.<\/p>\n

\u201cI must have taken six or seven of Gina\u2019s classes at UConn. I always needed one on my schedule,\u201d Corby says. \u201cOnce I took one, I was addicted. I would leave her classes feeling smarter every day. Where else can you find that?\u201d<\/p>\n

Right away, Barreca sent Corby at least 15 book suggestions, along with a big ask: Would she like to write a piece for a collection of essays Barreca was compiling for a new book project?<\/p>\n

Duh. Of course. Yes, please.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can see how big I\u2019m smiling,\u201d Corby says as she grins from ear to ear. \u201cIt\u2019s a world that I never really pictured myself living in, and I feel so lucky and so happy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Corby had months, then only days to produce her essay \u201cEmerald Shoes,\u201d while Erin Brochu \u201921 (CLAS SFA) didn\u2019t need quite the same lead time for \u201cGood as Nude,\u201d an essay she\u2019d produced for class one semester and Barreca remembered.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a little bit of a what-happens-in-Vegas-stays-in-Vegas story that\u2019s now published for everyone to see,\u201d Brochu jokes. \u201cSo, my first reaction when Gina asked if she could use it was \u2018Oh God, of course this one.\u2019 But seriously, I was very excited when she sent the email. English was a second path in my life that I wasn\u2019t necessarily expecting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brochu says she always was attracted to the performing arts and when a go at an acting major didn\u2019t quite pan out, she counted on a double major in music and English to marry stage and script. She\u2019s now pursuing her master\u2019s in vocal performance at NYU.<\/p>\n

But it was a 65-degree day in California one January that inspired her to write.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was visiting family in San Diego, and I knew there was a nude beach, but every time we visited, we stayed on the clothed side,\u201d she explains. \u201cThis time, though, we were with my cousins, they\u2019re really big surfers and they were out in the water all day, so my friends and I were left to our own devices. We were like, \u2018Let\u2019s go take a walk down there and check it out.\u2019 I really didn\u2019t think we were going to participate, but one thing led to another.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thus came a story of sisterhood, love between friends, and acceptance of oneself.<\/p>\n

The latter \u2013 acceptance \u2013 is a theme also strewn throughout Corby\u2019s piece, in which she details the slow demise of a 2\u00bd-year relationship that never felt wrong, yet never felt right.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t carry anything with me from the relationship that I benefitted from, that I enjoyed particularly,\u201d she says. \u201cEvery couple has great days, but when I look back on the time that we spent together, it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth, I guess. \u2018Emerald Shoes\u2019 gave me the closure I needed to leave those negative feelings behind. And since then, I\u2019ve had so many positive experiences that I never would have had if I hadn\u2019t left that relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018The only woman who\u2019s interesting is the fallen woman\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

Both essays are part of a collection of 75 that comprise \u201cFast Fallen Women,\u201d<\/a> the third book Barreca has edited in the \u201cFast \u2026 Women\u201d series by Woodhall Press, whose CEO David LeGere \u201906 (CLAS) was one of Barreca\u2019s students. It was released this month.<\/p>\n

\""Fast
“Fast Fallen Women” is the third book in Gina Barreca’s “Fast … Women” series. It includes essays from 30 women who have a connection to UConn. (Contributed art)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Of the 75 essays \u2013 which include pieces by bestselling authors Amy Tan, Jane Smiley, and Caroline Leavitt \u2013 30 were written by those with ties to UConn, including emeritus faculty, staff, and graduates. Thirty-one if you include Barreca.<\/p>\n

Each of the works looks at the idea of the \u201cfallen woman\u201d \u2013 the one who goes nude on a beach, has an affair, parents a situation poorly, parties too much, supports the right to choose, talks back, or even speaks up.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom Eve onward, the only woman who\u2019s interesting is the fallen woman,\u201d Barreca says. \u201cWe\u2019ve been taught to identify with the good girl, but it\u2019s only the fallen woman who\u2019s intriguing.\u201d<\/p>\n

She compares the collection to a dinner party with 75 women \u2013 different in age, race, and experience \u2013 enjoying an evening together.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike with any dinner party, there\u2019s a bunch of them sitting there laughing, drinking, and having a riotous time. Then there are a couple of them who are crying on the veranda. There\u2019s somebody at the head of the table who\u2019s having tonic with a slice of lime and is listening very carefully \u2013 and you know she\u2019s going to write the next essay about what she\u2019s overhearing. But there\u2019s a seat at the table for everybody,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Because, honestly, every woman has fallen, she notes, and most have picked themselves up to carry on.<\/p>\n

Corby says she fell into a stereotype when her on-again-off-again boyfriend gave her an ultimatum \u2013 get back together and plan a life that\u2019s forever, at 19.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was kind of blind and I agreed to it,\u201d she says. \u201cThen, suddenly, I just felt everything crumbling. I felt like I was falling more and more every day. I never really felt in love, but I still felt like I was falling out of love, and then I felt him falling away from me.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an almost literal way, Brochu\u2019s fall came as her bathing suit hit the ground.<\/p>\n

\u201cWomen today, with social media, are at a higher risk of scrutiny and judgment than almost ever before,\u201d she says. \u201cThe online criticism of our bodies makes it especially important to convey that it\u2019s OK to exist in a natural state. We need to encourage women to keep going even when they\u2019ve fallen.\u201d<\/p>\n

And once a woman has gotten back up and dusted herself off, she should be celebrated, Corby says. No one should be ashamed of falling because the experience not only shapes the person but allows to her get to know herself better, maybe even appreciate herself more.<\/p>\n

Life is too short, she adds, to brush away experiences as if they didn\u2019t happen, as if they weren\u2019t bound to affect a person throughout life.<\/p>\n

As politics rage and things like Roe v. Wade overturn, for Barreca, considering and discussing womanhood with all its ups and downs is just as important as it was 50 years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things I have noticed is the women, men, and nonbinary students in my classes take for granted that the rights that protect our health and sexual autonomy and our ability to rise once we fall are coming not only under scrutiny, but are in real danger of being taken away,\u201d she says. \u201cRights can never be taken for granted. They can always be removed because they are not givens. They must be maintained and fought for, and for that to happen those rights must be made visible and be part of the conversation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis series keeps the conversation lively and current, and that\u2019s why it\u2019s important to have women writers who are established, significant, major voices that we are used to listening to, along with emerging voices that are looking at how the world has prepared them,\u201d she adds. \u201cEspecially with \u2018Fallen,\u2019 these would have been private conversations, yet they\u2019re astonishingly universal in women\u2019s lives.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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