Literature and the Development of Feminist Theory

This book offers an insightful look at the development of feminist theory through a literary lens.

Robin Truth Goodman (Edited by)

9781107126084, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 1 December 2015

297 pages
23.7 x 15.4 x 2.3 cm, 0.56 kg

Literature and the Development of Feminist Theory offers an insightful look at the development of feminist theory through a literary lens. Stressing the significance of feminism's origins in the European Enlightenment, this book traces the literary careers of feminism's major thinkers in order to elucidate the connection of feminist theoretical production to literary work. In addition to considering such well-known authors as Mary Wollstonecraft, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Simone de Beauvoir and Hélène Cixous, this book also reflects on the lasting influence of postcolonialism, liberalism, and specific genres such as science fiction and modernist poetry. Written by leading scholars and focusing on the literary trajectories of feminism's noted contributors, Literature and the Development of Feminist Theory ultimately provides a new perspective on feminism's theoretical context, bringing into view the effects of literary form on the growth of feminist thought.

1. Introduction Robin Truth Goodman
2. 'Original spirit': literary translations and transnational literature in the works of Mary Wollstonecraft Laura Kirley
3. Jane Eyre, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, and the varieties of nineteenth-century feminism Margaret Homans
4. Progressive portraits: literature in feminisms of Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Olive Schreiner Judith A. Allen
5. Feminist poetics: first-wave feminism, theory, and modernist women poets Linda Kinnahan
6. Woolf and women's work: literary invention in an obscure hat factory Robin Truth Goodman
7. Walking in a man's world: myth, literature, and the interpretation of Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex Ashley King Scheu
8. Decapitation impossible: the hundred heads of Julia Kristeva Maria Margaroni
9. Shattering the gender walls: Monique Wittig's contribution to literature Dominique Bourque
10. Hélène Cixous: writing for her life Peggy Kamuf
11. Subversive creatures from behind the Iron Curtain: Irmtraud Morgner's The Life and Adventures of Trobodora Beatrice as Chronicled by her Minstrel Laura Sonja E. Klocke
12. Christa Wolf: literature as an aesthetics of resistance Anna K. Kuhn
13. Naked came the female extraterrestrial stranger: applying Linda M. Scott's Fresh Lipstick to Sue Lange's The Textile Planet Marleen S. Barr
14. Captive maternal love: Octavia Butler and science fiction family values Joy James
15. More than theatre: Cherrie Moraga's The Hungry Woman and the feminist phenomenology of excess Lakey
16. Nawal el Saadawi: writer and revolutionary Miriam Cooke
17. 'The woman who said 'no'': colonialism, Islam, and feminist resistance in the works of Assia Djebar Jane Hiddleston.

Subject Areas: Gender studies: women [JFSJ1], Feminism & feminist theory [JFFK], Literary studies: from c 1900 - [DSBH], Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 [DSBF], Literary studies: general [DSB], Literary theory [DSA]