'Regarding Women: Images and Voices of British Women Writers, 1700-1900' juxtaposed male artists' representations of women from the collection of the Ackland Art Museum with examples of women's writings. The images were paired with excerpts available in the accompanying gallery handout. These pairings demonstrated the complex relationship between vision and language. Some quotes commented playfully or ironically on the images they accompanied, while others were more poignant.

The cases highlighted the diversity and scope of women's output, displaying books, manuscripts, and letters by women culled from the UNC Rare Books Collection and Manuscripts Department. These works illustrated the specific resources available at UNC for the study of women writers.

'Regarding Women' was presented on the occasion of the seventh annual Conference on the Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century British Women Writers, which was held at UNC-Chapel Hill on March 26-28th, 1998. The conference redressed the historical neglect of women's writing from the literary canon. In addition to bringing many new names to light, the conference broadened the definition of "literature" to include letters, diaries, social theory, economic tracts, political theory, theology, and legal writing. This provided a better understanding of the breadth of women's writings. 'Regarding Women' supported the conference's missions of bringing women's writings into critical discussion.