This course will examine the recent, dramatic rise in the number of women writing and publishing essays. This new wave of literary production, driven in part by the spirit of the #metoo movement, has inspired Cheryl Strayed to call it the essay’s “golden age.” By studying the works of contemporary prose writers, we will explore the causes and effects of this phenomenon. We will also investigate how women are using and re-shaping the essay to foreground their experience and to confront difficult topics such as rape, harassment, abuse, and shaming. Throughout, we will be mindful of the range of identities that are sometimes or always women-centered, and we will read essays by authors who are cisgender, transgender, and gender non-conforming. The rise of all these voices is changing our literary and social landscape, and it is even shifting the form of the essay itself. Students will study this movement and contribute to it through their own writing.