Theorising Muriel Spark Gender, Race, Deconstruction

by McQuillan, Martin

• ISBN13: 9780333794142
• ISBN10: 0333794141
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-03-20
• Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan

Summary

Drawing together a range of significant names in the field of contemporary literature and critical theory, this collection of essays deals with the full range of Spark's literary output. It has a particular emphasis on gender, psychoanalysis, post-colonial, and deconstructive reading strategies. It concludes with a new interview with Muriel Spark

Author Biography

Martin McQuillan is Lecturer in Cultural Theory and Analysis, University of Leed

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	vii
Abbreviations	viii
Notes on the Contributors	ix
Introduction: `I Don't Know Anything about Freud': Muriel Spark Meets Contemporary Criticism	1	(34)
Martin McQuillan
Part I Gender
Tales of Love: Narcissism and Idealization in The Public Image	35	(14)
Susan Sellers
The Future Perfect's Perfect Future: Spark's and Duras's Narrative Drive	49	(18)
Judith Roof
The Suggestive Spectacle: Queer Passions in Bronte's Villette and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie	67	(11)
Patricia Duncker
In Bed with Muriel Spark: Mourning, Metonymy and Autobiography	78	(17)
Martin McQuillan
Part II Race
Writing against Conversion: Muriel Spark the Gentile Jewess	95	(18)
Bryan Cheyette
Muriel Spark Shot in Africa	113	(14)
Eleanor Byrne
A Bit of the Other: Symposium, Futility and Scotland	127	(14)
Alan Freeman
Part III Deconstruction
Muriel Spark's Uselessness	141	(14)
Jeremy Idle
Muriel Spark's Mary Shelley: A Gothic and Liminal Life	155	(15)
Julian Wolfreys
Not to Deconstruct? Righting and Deference in Not to Disturb	170	(19)
Willy Maley
Memento Mori	189	(15)
Nicholas Royle
Grimacing Catholicism: Muriel Spark's Macabre Farce and Muriel Spark's Latest Novel: The Public Image	204	(6)
Helene Cixous
`The Same Informed Air': An Interview with Muriel Spark	210	(20)
A Muriel Spark Bibliography	230	(12)
Index	242