Although I am not suggesting that we attempt again to read literature as the New Critics asked us to (but could not themselves do)--that is, divorced from any consideration of the history and culture that influenced the work--I do like to teach works of literature that undermine authors' reputations and thus remind us not to jump to conclusions about a work based on biographical knowledge of its creator.  For example, in order to help my students understand why they cannot assume that the first-person persona of a poem is the poet herself, I read Emily Dickinson's "Wild Nights," then ask my students to contrast the speaker with the poet, as her reclusive, apparently celibate life is described in their anthology's introduction.

Two of my favorite Hemingway stories are "Indian Camp" and "Hills Like White Elephants."  I teach these stories in spite of Hemingway's reputation as a misogynist and my own feminist sensibilities.  I teach them not only because I recognize Hemingway's genius with the craft of the short story and not only to illustrate minimalism, but also to show students that they should not make assumptions about a writer's work based on his supposed prejudices.

 I approach these two Hemingway stories from a "feminist" perspective in the tradition of Judith Fetterley, who advocated re-examining male-centered texts from the woman's perspective, but I do so with a twist:  I am a "resisting reader" (Fetterley's term), but what I resist is pre-judging the work because of who its author is.  I show how Hemingway's objectification of a woman in "Indian Camp" serves to negatively characterize Dr. Adams.  The woman giving birth is treated like a dog having puppies, but by the doctor, not by the author, and the author does not seem to approve of the doctor's behavior.  I discuss characterization via dialogue in "Hills Like White Elephants," leading my students to a recognition of how the author's depiction of the woman in the story is more sympathetic than his portrayal of the man.  Indeed, then, this story is not even so male-centered as other Hemingway works. . . .