The Cambridge Companion to Feminist Literary Theory

by Edited by Ellen Rooney

• ISBN13: 9780521001687
• ISBN10: 0521001684
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-07-17
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Feminism has dramatically influenced the way literary texts are read, taught and evaluated. Feminist literary theory has deliberately transgressed traditional boundaries between literature, philosophy and the social sciences in order to understand how gender has been constructed and represented through language. This lively and thought-provoking Companion presents a range of approaches to the field. Some of the essays demonstrate feminist critical principles at work in analysing texts, while others take a step back to trace the development of a particular feminist literary method. The essays draw on a range of primary material from the medieval period to postmodernism and from several countries, disciplines and genres. Each essay suggests further reading to explore this field further. This is the most accessible guide available both for students of literature new to this developing field, and for students of gender studies and readers interested in the interactions of feminism, literary criticism and literature.

Table of Contents

Introduction Ellen Rooney

Part I. Problematics Emerge: 1. On canons: anxious history and the rise of black feminist literary studies Ann duCille

2. Pleasure, resistance, and a feminist aesthetics of reading Geraldine Heng

3. The literary politics of feminist theory Ellen Rooney

Part II. In Feminism's Wake: Genre, Period, Form: 4. What feminism did to novel studies Nancy Armstrong

5. Autobiography and the feminist subject Linda Anderson

6. Modernisms and feminisms Katherine Mullin

7. French feminisms' é

criture fé

minine Kari Weil

8. Feminism and popular culture Nickianne Moody

Part III. Feminist Theories in Play: 9. Poststructuralism: theory as critical self-consciousness Rey Chow

10. On common ground: feminist theory and critical race studies Rashmi Varma

11. Feminists theorize colonial/postcolonial Rosemary Marangoly George

12. Feminist psychoanalytic literary criticism Elizabeth Weed

13. Queer politics, queer theory, and the future of identity: spiralling out of culture Berthold Schoene.