Advancing Sisterhood? : Interracial Friendships in Contemporary Southern Fiction

by Monteith, Sharon

• ISBN13: 9780820322490
• ISBN10: 0820322490
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-01-01
• Publisher: Univ of Georgia Pr

Summary

Though black and white women have long been associated with the heart of southern culture, their relationships with each other in the context of contemporary southern fiction have been largely glossed over until now. InAdvancing Sisterhood?Sharon Monteith offers an enlightening map of this new literary ground. Beginning with an overview of the theory and literary incarnations of friendship,Advancing Sisterhood?examines how prevalent specific relationships between black and white women have become in the works of Ellen Douglas, Kaye Gibbons, Connie Mae Fowler, Lane von Herzen, Ellen Gilchrist, Carol Dawson, and others. Monteith explains that interracial friendships have become an alluring topic for white women writers. She also examines these friendships in relation to the ways black women writers and critics have pictured black and white girls and women in the South.Advancing Sisterhood?explores childhood female relationships in such works asEllen FosterandBefore Women Had Wingsand considers recent ecocriticism and its role in charting the female southern landscape. Monteith also provides an in-depth examination of the archetypal friendship between white housewives and their black servants. Through these discussions,Advancing Sisterhood?demonstrates how contemporary white women writers have broadened their work to include friendships between women of diverse backgrounds and to influence literary expression.

Author Biography

Sharon Monteith is Senior Lecturer in American Studies at the University of Nottingham, England.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Introduction. Setting the Parameters: Women Writers and Interracial Friendship	1	(27)
Advancing Sisterhood? Theoretical and Literary Formulations of Friendship	28	(22)
Between Girls: Friendship as a Monologic Formulation	50	(24)
Envisioning Sisterhood: Eco-Utopian Romance and the Female Pastoral	74	(28)
Across the Kitchen Table: Establishing the Dynamics of Interracial Friendship	102	(32)
The Keepers of the House: A Southern Family Saga	134	(33)
Conclusion. The Trouble with Friendship: Toward ``Happily Ever After''?	167	(10)
Notes	177	(28)
Select Bibliography	205	(24)
Index	229