Twentieth-Century Women Novelists: Feminist Theory into Practice / Edition 1

by Susan Watkins

Overview

This provocative, lively book discusses two of the most significant influences on writing and thinking in the twentieth century: women novelists and feminist theory. It demonstrates, in an accessible but imaginative manner, ways of reading women's novels alongside work by feminist theorists. Each chapter situates a small number of theoretical texts in their intellectual context and then links them with a widely taught novel to produce fresh interpretations. The novels and theorists represent examples of extremely significant, but also pedagogically useful feminist writing this century.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780333683460
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	10/26/2000
Edition description:	2000
Pages:	218
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.48(d)

About the Author

SUSAN WATKINS is Senior Lecturer in English Literature in the School of Cultural Studies at Leeds Metropolitan University.
SUSAN WATKINS is Senior Lecturer in English Literature in the School of Cultural Studies at Leeds Metropolitan University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction
First Wave Feminism: Virginia Woolf
A Room of One's Own, Simone de Beauvoir
The Second Sex, Doris Lessing
'To Room 19'Liberal Feminism: Betty Friedan
The Feminine Mystique and The Second Stage, Alison Lurie
The War Between the Tates
Marxist Feminism: Sheila Rowbotham
Woman's Consciousness; Man's World, Michèle Barrett
Women's Oppression Today: The Marxist Feminist Encounter, Doris Lessing
The Golden Notebook
Psychoanalytic Feminism: Juliet Mitchell
Psychoanalysis and Feminism, Nancy Chodorow
The Reproduction of Mothering
Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender, Margaret Atwood: Lady Oracle
Poststructuralist Feminism: Hélène Cixous
'The Laugh of the Medusa', Luce Irigaray
'When our Lips Speak Together', Julia Kristeva
'From One Identity to Another', Virginia Woolf: Orlando
Postmodernism and Feminism: Alice Jardine
Gynesis: Configurations of Women and Modernity, Seyla Benhabib
'Feminism and the Question of Postmodernism', Angela Carter: Nights at the Circus
Lesbian Feminism and Queer Theory: Adrienne Rich
'Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence', Monique Wittig
'One is Not Born a Woman', Jeanette Winterson: Sexing the Cherry
Black Feminism and Post-Colonial Theory: Barbara Smith
'Toward a Black Feminist Criticism', Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
'Subaltern Studies: Deconstructing Historiography', Bell Hooks
'Postmodern Blackness', Toni Morrison: Sula
Concluding Note/Postscript
Bibliography
Index.

Editorial Reviews

Progressing from first-wave feminism through postcolonial black feminism, Watkins (English literature, Leeds Metropolitan U.) interconnects a narrative of eight phases of feminism with literary embodiments of each. E.g., the author links her analysis of liberal feminism with Friedan's and and Lurie's . Novels by Jardine, Benhabib, and Carter ground in practice the theoretical discussion of postmodernism and feminism. Other feminisms discussed are Marxist, psychoanalytic, poststructuralist, and lesbian/queer. She concludes that "...feminism has always been in dialogue with other transformative theories...." Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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