Long out of print, Charlotte Perkins Gilman's novel "The Crux" is an important early feminist work that brings to the fore complicated issues of gender, citizenship, eugenics, and frontier nationalism. First published serially in the feminist journal "The Forerunner "in 1910, "The Crux "tells the story of a group of New England women who move west to start a boardinghouse for men in Colorado. The innocent central character, Vivian Lane, falls in love with Morton Elder, who has both gonorrhea and syphilis. The concern of the novel is not so much that Vivian will catch syphilis, but that, if...

Long out of print, Charlotte Perkins Gilman's novel "The Crux" is an important early feminist work that brings to the fore complicated issues of gender, citizenship, eugenics, and frontier nationalism. First published serially in the feminist journal "The Forerunner "in 1910, "The Crux "tells the story of a group of New England women who move west to start a boardinghouse for men in Colorado. The innocent central character, Vivian Lane, falls in love with Morton Elder, who has both gonorrhea and syphilis. The concern of the novel is not so much that Vivian will catch syphilis, but that, if...

Dana Seitler offers a provocative exploration of the impact of the human sciences on literature, politics, and culture.