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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Feminist literary criticism'
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MacKeen, Alison. "From discovery to creation : feminist literary criticism's aesthetic turn." Thesis, McGill University, 1989. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=59590.
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This thesis challenges the way feminist literary criticism has been represented as a field polarized between American and French positions. As an alternative to the American/French distinction, I propose one between feminist criticism oriented to research and feminist criticism oriented to aesthetics. In keeping with this alternative distinction, I relocate the shift in feminist criticism within American feminism. The "aesthetic turn" inaugurated by American "gynocriticism" is itself identified in relation to a more general philosophical shift from discovery to creation. While the relativistic and voluntaristic tendencies which distinguish the latter pole are exemplified by French feminism, I argue that they are anticipated by American feminism's "aesthetic turn." Finally, this thesis not only relocates and redefines the shift in feminist literary criticism, but provides arguments in favour of a research-oriented feminist criticism.
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Mayes-Elma, Ruthann Elizabeth. "A Feminist Literary Criticism Approach to Representations of Women's Agency in Harry Potter." Oxford, Ohio : Miami University, 2003. http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd/view.cgi?miami1060025232.
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Potts, Tracey. "Can the Imperialist read? : race and feminist literary theory." Thesis, University of Warwick, 1997. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/63653/.
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Since the mid 1980's it has been unthinkable for white feminist literary critics to neglect race in their theoretical work. Strong challenges from black feminists have been effective in placing race high on the critical agenda. No longer is the kind of exclusivity that marked early (white) feminist literary theory possible. However, despite the evident commitment to addressing the race question in their work, the black feminist challenge has been greeted with a considerable degree of anxiety by white feminist critics. I suggest that the main source of anxiety is a failure to square the pressing need to 'include' race on the feminist agenda with doubts about straying into what is perceived to be black feminist territory. In other words, white feminist critics have yet to resolve their relation to the black feminist project. This anxiety has meant that a concern over the notion of exclusion has given way to that of appropriation. This has tended to place the white feminist reader in the paralysing position where there seems little available ground between the twin poles of exclusion and appropriation. Typical questions that have arisen out of this dichotomy are: should white feminists teach black women's writing? Should white feminist critics produce critical readings of texts authored by black women? Can white women readers read black women's writings without imposing onto them their own critical agendas? Is a non-appropriative reading relation possible? How should white feminists deal with the fact of their own race privilege and what bearing does this privilege have upon the readings they, potentially, might produce? This project examines some of the ways in which white feminists have attempted to address their relation to the race question in feminist literary criticism. Over the space of six chapters I focus on a number of specific reading strategies offered as positive critical interventions. My main contention is the impossibility of a guaranteed anti-imperialist theory or reading position. I also argue for the necessity of asking the question: whether the imperialist can read, as a complement to that of whether 'the subaltern can speak'. Chapter 1 questions the white feminist ambition of arriving at the truth of the black text as a means of decolonising the text. Through an examination of the Rodney King events some of the perils of appeals to pure seeing are highlighted. Chapter 2 explores the implications of white feminist abstention from the race debates. Chapter 3 looks at the issue of identification as a basis for reading. Chapter 4 questions the identifications that inhere in applying theory to a text. Chapter 5 challenges the use of contextualisation as a source of textual limits. Chapter 6 examines the limits of self-reflexivity as an anti-imperialist method.
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Rose, Patricia Elizabeth. "The Role of medieval and matristic romance literature in spiritual feminism /." [St. Lucia, Qld.], 2001. http://www.library.uq.edu.au/pdfserve.php?image=thesisabs/absthe16284.pdf.
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Mayes-Elma, Ruthann. "A Feminist literary criticism approach to representations of women's agency in Harry Potter." Oxford, Ohio : Miami University, 2003. http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd/view.cgi?miami1060025232.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Miami University, Dept. of Educational Leadership, 2003.Title from first page of PDF document. Document formatted into pages; contains vii, 147 p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 125-141).
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Brennan, Zoe. "Representations of older women in contemporary literature." Thesis, University of the West of England, Bristol, 2003. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.271040.
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This study argues that novels by contemporary women writers, such as Doris Lessing, May Sarton, Barbara Pym and Jenny Diski, through their representation of older female protagonists, create alternative discourses of ageing to those that dominate Western society. By placing these figures at the centre of their narratives, the texts counteract the silence and pejorative stereotyping that routinely surrounds the lives of the aged. The technique of studying literary representations of women is not new; in fact, it is a trusted part of feminist methodology. However, one of the assertions of this dissertation is that it is rarely used to investigate texts about the senescent, reflecting feminism's failure to include the older women in their theories. Part one of the dissertation examines such issues in depth, setting out the theoretical orientation of the study. It considers popular representations and paradigms of ageing, as well as considering the power of normalising discourse and dynamics of representation. Part two uses this material to analyse the strategies that British and North American authors have employed, since the 1960's, to challenge common stereotypes of older women. The first three chapters focus on novels that portray protagonists who display emotions, not usually associated with the old, which are revealed in relation to different aspects of ageing: anger and frustration (dependency); passion and desire (sexuality); and contentment (daily life). Chapter 7, 'The Wise and Archetypal Older Woman', shifts its attention away from more realist texts to study characters who emerge from the covers of ratiocinative fiction. It argues that conventional critiques of the genre often negate its more polemical elements, which is a result of their failure to use an age- and gender-aware approach and a problem that generally greets intelligent novels about female senescence. This thesis sees itself as part of a movement that aims to create a space in which older female characters' voices can be heard and recognised. It contends that the authors treated here produce visions of ageing that are not solely concerned with stagnation and decline. They represent a varied and compelling group of protagonists and, in doing so, illustrate that older women are worthy of literary, social and feminist interest.
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Lucas, Caroline. "Writing for women : a study of woman as a reader in Elizabethan romance." Thesis, University of Exeter, 1989. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.328713.
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Dunn, Angela Frances. "The continental drift : Anglo-American and French theories of tradition and feminism." Thesis, McGill University, 1987. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=63972.
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Sireci, Fioravanti. "Literary criticism as feminist argument in Mary Wollstonecraft's 'A Vindication of the Rights of Woman'." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/29366.
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Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman makes its feminist argument primarily through literary criticism. Recent scholarship has generally considered the literary critical dimension of Rights of Woman as a minor component of Wollstonecraft’s explicit political argument and cultural critique. This thesis locates and analyses three literary critiques in Rights of Woman in order to illustrate the specificity of Wollstonecraft’s methods. Wollstonecraft’s critique of Milton utilises a practice of quotation and commentary, and interrogates his prominent role in literary and political canons. Her critique of Rousseau’s Emile is highly instructive because she both attacks its content and attempts to undercut the modes by which this paradigmatic statement of the submissive domestic female had become ‘a prevailing opinion of a sexual character’. Wollstonecraft’s critique of John Gregory, the author of the influential conduct book A Legacy to His Daughters, claims that this work perpetuates Rousseau’s repressive norms, even without the conscious knowledge of its apparently capable author. In doing so, Wollstonecraft theorizes the existence of a self-reproducing ‘male’ literary tradition, one which comprises a broad range of texts, whether by ‘great’ writers or less gifted men, a notion which challenges benevolent images of a purist canon of aesthetic value. In the development of her criticism, Wollstonecraft draws from two contemporary critical traditions. The first is that of the bluestocking women, whose public mastery of literary knowledge gives them the status to promulgate social agendas. The second is the literary periodical, which stands at the very centre of print culture in the eighteenth century. A specific analysis of the literary critical dimension of Rights of Woman illuminates new aspects of the organisation and rhetoric of this key work.
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Liladhar, Janine. "Third wave feminist analysis : an approach to the exploration of discourses of femininity." Thesis, Sheffield Hallam University, 2001. http://shura.shu.ac.uk/20746/.
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This thesis suggests that whilst feminist theory has been, and remains, a significant political influence which has contributed to wholesale legislative and social changes, the climate in which this theory circulates is now markedly different from that of the 1960s, when Second Wave Feminism began. Consequently, a new form of feminist theory is developing, which attempts to respond to an increasingly more complex situation, without losing sight of the many important elements of the earlier work. This thesis is situated within this movement and I term the approach it takes Third Wave Feminist Analysis. Third Wave Feminism seeks to challenge sexism and to explore notions of femininity as they are manifested in texts, looking for both the restrictions these seek to impose on women and for the potential these offer for liberatory ways of behaving and being. As this reference to texts might suggest, Third Wave Feminist Analysis is primarily a form of literary criticism. However, it does not only draw on work from that discipline. Instead, it employs ideas and approaches used by feminists working in other fields, in order to formulate a more comprehensive analysis than was generally found in earlier feminist literary criticism. Moreover, the thesis is not limited to an exploration of only literary texts but also explores other cultural forms. This diversity is important because constructions of knowledge and subjectivity are enabled by all types of representations. Thus, interdisciplinarity moves analysis on from a straightforward identification of the Tacts' of literary cultures to an exploration of cultural identities, a step which is assisted by Third Wave Feminist Analysis's insistence on the importance of extra-textual features, including the analyst's own background knowledge of the society in which the texts being explored are produced and interpreted. The object of this emphasis on the cultural and the societal is a more equitable world; in other words, I am claiming that Third Wave Feminist Analysis aids feminist praxis. As part of this attempt, Third Wave Feminist Analysis attempts to interrogate the ways in which femininity is defined in the case studies explored. In this thesis three texts in circulation in the 1990s are examined: Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres (1992); The Rector's Wife by Joanna Trollope (1991); and the TV Soap Opera archetype, the Soap Queen. As part of this examination, femininity is understood as one of a number of inter-connecting discourses which not only reflect but shape gender. Thus, discourses disseminate social and institutionalised values and also create them, influencing people's behaviours and attitudes, although individuals do have the potential to resist or challenge this influence. A recurrent discursive theme in the three case studies explored here is the association of femininity with the 'private' or domestic realm of home and family. In many ways, this association is rooted in an outdated notion of femininity; the Victorian concept of the feminine domestic ideal. To this extent, this thesis argues that its case studies are implicated in the promulgation of anachronistic discourses. However, all three texts also subvert this ideal in a number of ways and the ways in which this subversion occurs are also explored.
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Sloan, Jacquelyn Le Gall. "Oppositional structure and design in D.H. Lawrence's culture critique : a feminist re-reading /." Thesis, Connect to this title online; UW restricted, 1998. http://hdl.handle.net/1773/9465.
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Kuykendall, Sue A. Morgan William Woodrow Strickland Ron L. "The subject of feminist literary practices radical pedagogical alternatives (teaching subjects/reading novels) /." Normal, Ill. Illinois State University, 1993. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/ilstu/fullcit?p9411040.
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Thesis (D.A.)--Illinois State University, 1993.Title from title page screen, viewed February 23, 2006. Dissertation Committee: William Morgan, Ronald Strickland (co-chairs), Victoria Harris, Thomas Foster, Anne Rosenthal. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 228-242) and abstract. Also available in print.
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Cremin, Kathleen Mary. "Women, domesticity and Irish writing : foundations for a new kitchen?" Thesis, University of York, 1999. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.313905.
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Kollmann, Elizabeth. "Jane Austen re-visited a feminist evaluation of the longevity and relevance of the Austen Oeuvre." Thesis, University of Port Elizabeth, 2003. http://hdl.handle.net/10948/299.
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Although many might consider Jane Austen to be outdated and clichéd, her work retains an undying appeal. During the last decade the English-speaking world has experienced an Austen renaissance as it has been treated to a number of film and television adaptations of her work, including Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Mansfield Park and Sense and Sensibility. Film critics such as Bill De Lapp (1996) and Sherry Dean (1996) have commented on the phenomenal response these productions received and have been amazed by Austen’s ability to compete with current movie scripts. The reasons for viewers and readers enjoying and identifying with Austen’s fiction are numerous. Readers of varying persuasions have different agendas and hence different views and interpretations of Austen. This thesis follows a gynocritical approach and applies a feminist point of view when reading and discussing Austen. Austen’s novels - Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, and Persuasion – are re-read and reevaluated from a feminist perspective in order to call attention to Austen’s awareness of women’s second-class position in her society. Women’s experiences in Austen’s time are compared to women’s experiences in society today in order to illustrate, in some way, the tremendous progress the feminist movement has made. In addition, by examining what Austen reveals about the material reality of women in her time, it is possible to explore the legacy that modern women have inherited. Literary critics such as André Brink (1998), Claudia Johnson (1988), and Gilbert and Gubar (1979) believe Austen to create feminist awareness in her novels. There are critics, however, who do not view Austen as necessarily feminist in her writing. Nancy Armstrong writes in Desire and Domestic Fiction (1987) that Austen’s objective is not a critique of the Abstract iv old order but rather a redefinition of wealth and status. In Culture and Imperialism (1993) Edward Said implicates Austen in the rationale for imperial expansion, while Barbara Seeber argues in “The Schooling of Marianne Dashwood” (1999) that Austen’s texts should be understood as dialogic. Others, such as Patricia Beer (1974), believe Austen’s fiction primarily to be about marriage since all her novels end with matrimony. My own reading of Austen takes into consideration her social milieu and patriarchal inheritance. It argues that Austen writes within the framework of patriarchy (for example by marrying off her heroines) possibly because she is aware that in order to survive as a woman (writer) in a male-favouring world and in a publishing world dominated by men, her critique needs to be covert. If read from a feminist perspective, Austen’s fiction draws our attention to issues such as women’s (lack of) education, the effects of not being given access to knowledge, marriage as a patriarchal institution of entrapment, and women’s identity. Her fiction reveals the effects of educating women for a life of domesticity, and illustrates that such an education is biased, leaving women powerless and without any means of self-protection in a male-dominated world. Although contemporary women in the Western world mostly enjoy equal education opportunities to men, they suffer the consequences of a legacy which denied them access to a proper education. Feminist writers such as Flis Henwood (2000) show that contemporary women believe certain areas of expertise belong to men exclusively. Others such as Linda Nochlin (1994) reveal that because women did not have access to higher education for so many years, they failed to produce great women artists like Chaucer or Cézanne. Austen’s fiction also exposes the economic and social system (of which education constitutes a major part) for enforcing marriage and for enfeebling women. In addition, it illustrates some of the realities and pitfalls of marriage. While Austen only subtly refers to Abstract v women’s disempowerment within marriage, contemporary feminist scholars such as Germaine Greer (1999) and Arnot, Araújo, Deliyanni, and Ivinson (2000) explicitly warn women that marriage is a patriarchal institution of entrapment and that it often leaves women feeling unfulfilled. The issue of marriage as a patriarchal institution has been thought important and has been addressed by feminists because it contributes to women’s powerlessness. Feminist scholars today find it imperative to expose all forms of power in order to eradicate women’s subordination. bell hooks comments in Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center (2000) on the importance of revealing unfair power relations in order to eliminate oppression of any kind. Austen does not necessarily express the wish to eradicate forms of power or oppression in her novels. Yet, if we read her work from a feminist point of view, we are made aware of the social construction of power. From her fiction we can infer that male power is enshrined in the very structure of society, and this makes us aware of women’s lack of power in her time. Austen’s novels, however, are not merely novels of powerlessness but of empowerment. By creating rounded women characters and by giving them the power to judge, to refuse and to write, Austen challenges the stereotyped view of woman as either overpowering monster or weak and fragile angel. In addition, her novels seem to question women’s inherited identity and to suggest that qualities such as emotionality and mothering are not natural aspects of being a woman. Because she suggests ways in which women might empower themselves, albeit within patriarchal parameters, one could argue that she contributes, in a small way, to the transformation of existing power relations and to the eradication of women’s servile position in society.
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MacDonald, Deneka C. "Locating resistance/resisting location : a feminist literary analysis of supernatural women in contemporary fantastic fiction." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2003. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/5344/.
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In this thesis I examine the ways in which feminist and human geographies intersect with contemporary women-centred fantasy fiction. In particular, I consider space and place to be significant to female characters in their role as a physical presence as well as an intangible location. Thus I explore the forest, the body and the mind as territories occupied by the supernatural women. These various spatial themes, I suggest, outline distinctive locations for supernatural female characters and enable them to engage in a position of resistance from patriarchal ideologies. Through a spatial analysis of selected fiction, I reflect on challenges to notions that construct identity, gender and sexuality as well as conflict among women. I argue that the supernatural woman in fiction has been frozen in one-dimensional representation within traditional male-centred texts. This one-dimensionally, I suggest, hinges on the juxtaposition of the overly simplistic good/bad binary that has often illustrated female characters within fantasy fiction. As fantasy is a genre typically more concerned with worlds than characters, the women-centred fantasy text is unique in its exploration and pursuit of the literary character. Given the contemporary and interdisciplinary nature of this thesis, I have drawn upon filmic adaptations of texts at times to illustrate a further level of cultural awareness. The main emphasis is, however, on literary texts and, thus, reference to film is meant to supplement my textual analysis.
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Burnett, Linda Avril. "The argument against tragedy in feminist dramatic re-vision of the plays of Euripides and Shakespeare /." Thesis, McGill University, 1998. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=35857.
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This dissertation examines the arguments against tragedy offered by feminist playwrights in their "re-visions" of the plays of Euripides and Shakespeare.In the first part, I maintain that feminist dramatic re-vision is one manifestation of an unrecognized tradition of women's writing in which criticism is expressed through fiction. I also argue that the project of feminist dramatic re-vision embodies a feminist "new poetics."
In the second part, I examine the aesthetics and politics of tragedy from a feminist perspective. Feminist arguments against tragedy are, in effect arguments against patriarchy. But it is the theorists and critics of tragedy---not the playwrights---who are unequivocally aligned with patriarchy. Playwrights like Euripides and Shakespeare can be seen to destabilize tragedy in their plays.
In the third part, I show how recent feminist playwrights (Jackie Crossland, Dario Fo and Franca Rame, Deborah Porter, Caryl Churchill and David Lan, Maureen Duffy, Alison Lyssa, The Women's Theatre Group and Elaine Feinstein, Joan Ure, Margaret Clarke, and Ann-Marie MacDonald) counter tragedy by extrapolating from the arguments presented by Euripides and Shakespeare in The Medea, The Bacchae, King Lear, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet and Othello , and by allocating voice and agency to their female protagonists.
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Biggs, Karen L. Holland 1953. "Disturbing (dis)positions : interdisciplinary perspectives on emotion, identification, and the authority of fantasy in theories of reading performance." Thesis, McGill University, 1993. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=28459.
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This thesis is about a problem of interest to reading theorists, psychological anthropologists and cultural studies researchers alike: why we find some narratives, plots, and images compelling and what this phenomenon can tell us about the cultural bases of human motivation. Gesturing to the interdependence of emotion, cognition, and motivation, the notion of the '(dis)positioned self' is proposed as a conceptual tool by which to address how motivation is both acquired and expressed in the way the self as 'feeling-mind' reads, that is, negotiates an interpretation of the signifying systems of a text to render it personally meaningful. (Dis)position allows us to overcome the sociocultural determinism of French structuralist and some poststructuralist reductions of the self to a precipitate of cultural constructs by reconceptualizing the interpreting self as an embodied, affective agent who employs unconscious knowledge that itself draws on another form of sociality. On this account, reading performance is culturally informed action and interpretations are motivated. Emotion is introduced as symptomatic of the intrapsychic investments which mediate how readers internalize cultural knowledge. The thesis looks at three soundings from social discourse--Janice Radway's Reading the Romance; The Singing Detective, a contemporary metafictional text; and the literature and group therapy practices associated with the codependency movement--in order to examine how presuppositions about emotion and the psychical reality of fantasy appear in cultural representations of the 'ill self as reader' while being fundamental to psychological notions of the self upon which healing practices themselves depend for their efficacy.
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HOLLAND, ANYA B. "BLURRING BOUNDARIES: ISSUES OF GENDER, MADNESS, AND IDENTITY IN LIBBY LARSEN'S OPERA 'MRS. DALLOWAY'." University of Cincinnati / OhioLINK, 2005. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1122913675.
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Dantas, Ana Luiza Libânio. "The autonomous sex female body and voice in Alicia Kozameh's writing of resistance /." Ohio : Ohio University, 2008. http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd/view.cgi?ohiou1212634746.
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Allen-Johnstone, Claire. "Dress, feminism, and British New Woman novels." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2018. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:dd38da33-efbb-463f-86fd-9fcc1c4f707e.
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This thesis examines the close and complex relationship between dress, feminism, and British New Woman novels. It provides in-depth analysis of six New Woman novels and draws comparisons with numerous other works. The case study texts are Olive Schreiner's The Story of an African Farm (1883) and From Man to Man: Or Perhaps Only ... (1926, posthumously), Sarah Grand's Ideala: A Study from Life (1881) and The Heavenly Twins (1893), and Grant Allen's The Woman Who Did (1895) and The Type-Writer Girl (1897). I explore why dress was so important to such novels, and examine the diverse, individual, developing, and shared ways in which authors engaged with dress as a feminist strategy and feminist concern. Areas considered include From Man to Man's use of functional clothes and dress production to celebrate female labour, Grand's interest in both dress reform and dressing to impress, Allen's shift in focus from the white-clad free lover to the sensibly-dressed working woman, and authors' use of deceptively clean clothes to address male immorality and disease. The thesis looks beyond as well as within New Woman narratives, demonstrating that writers, and publishers, were broadly concerned with dress in its various literal and more metaphorical manifestations. Focuses include self-styling, authorial cross-dressing, and bindings. Dress does not, however, always seamlessly support these texts' feminisms, I argue. For example, Grand elevated cross-class feminism, but she belittled middle-class women's taste, side-lined poor women's most pressing sartorial concerns, and dressed to impress. I also stress that dress, being so closely bound up with New Woman novels' feminisms and their ambiguities, is a revealing lens through which to read such texts, and one often capable of prompting re-readings. Attention to Allen's rejection of sartorial realism in parts of The Woman Who Did problematises the dominant conception of this novel as straightforwardly pro-free union, for instance. The thesis, as well as gesturing towards dress's centrality to the production and interpretation of literary feminisms and anti-feminisms broadly, emphasises the importance of dress to New Woman literature and its analysts, and uses dress to provide fresh readings of various novels and genre-wide issues.
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Prandini, Beatrice. "Femminismo nel genere letterario Young Adult: analisi del fenomeno attraverso la prosa di Holly Bourne e proposta di traduzione di What’s a Girl Gotta Do?" Master's thesis, Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna, 2019. http://amslaurea.unibo.it/17755/.
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This final dissertation is aimed to analyse the different ways in which feminism can influence and convey its ideas and values through literature, especially Young Adult fiction. In fact, this dissertation relies upon the translation of various paragraphs of Holly Bourne’s YA novel, What’s a Girl Gotta Do?
As for the structure of the dissertation, the first chapter will explore the contributions to literature of feminist translators and critics, by illustrating their aims and strategies. As evidence, the second chapter will establish a general framework regarding the role of women in the history of the Italian publishing market. Moreover, the chapter also contains a study that I performed analysing the digital catalogues of five different Italian publishing houses: Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, Fanucci Editore, DeA Planeta Libri, Casa Editrice Nord and Il Saggiatore. From the third chapter on, the focus is shifted to Young Adult literature, so the chapter will introduce thoroughly this type of narrative, by illustrating its features, its main themes and its role in conveying feminist values to teenagers. Then, the following chapter will focus on Holly Bourne, by presenting her biography and her novels, however the emphasis will also be on her idea of feminism and on the introduction of the main characters of What’s a Girl Gotta Do? The fifth chapter will delve into the feminist critical analysis of the novel, by taking into consideration the main themes of the book, particularly feminism, the way in which the main female characters are portrayed and the nature of their relationship with male characters. In the end, it will be considered if the novel provides young readers some positive and realistic female role models. Finally, the last chapter will present the translation of the selected paragraphs of What’s a Girl Gotta Do?, including an analysis of the difficulties faced during the translation process and the solutions adopted.
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Gallagher, Maureen. "Thinking Back through Our Fathers: Woolf Reading Shakespeare in Orlando and a Room of One's Own." unrestricted, 2008. http://etd.gsu.edu/theses/available/etd-07112008-152735/.
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Thesis (M.A.)--Georgia State University, 2008.Title from file title page. Randy Malamud, committee chair; Meg Harper, Paul Schmidt, committee members. Electronic text (61 p.) : digital, PDF file. Description based on contents viewed Oct. 3, 2008. Includes bibliographical references (p. 58-61).
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Youngkin, Molly C. "Men Writing Women: Male Authorship, Narrative Strategies, and Woman's Agency in the Late-Victorian Novel." Connect to this title online, 2002. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=osu1037376119.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2002.Document formatted into pages; contains ix, 322 p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 303-322). Abstract available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center; full text release delayed at author's request until 2006 Sep. 25.
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Dunn, Jennifer Erin. "Ambiguous and ambivalent signatures : rewriting, revision, and resistance in Emma Tennant's fiction." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2007. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:6a4e8319-422a-48b9-8e43-cd05d742450f.
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While existing criticism of Emma Tennant's work emphasizes its feminist agenda, less attention has been paid to her rewriting of different narratives and discourses. Tennant's career has centered on challenging literary values as well as generic categories, realist conventions, and gender stereotypes. Contrary to implications that rewriting is "re-vision," an "act of survival" that corrects or subverts earlier texts, this thesis argues that Tennant's characteristic resistance to categories also extends to the work of rewriting and revision. Her texts suggest that the act of "writing back" is not as straightforward as it may seem, but deeply ambiguous and ambivalent. Developing theories of the "signature" that return the writer-as-agent to the otherwise anonymous field of intertextuality, this thesis traces Tennant's figurations of writing, metafictional devices, and intertextual allusions to show how these relate to themes in the fiction. Examining groupings of the texts from different critical perspectives, each chapter shows how Tennant's rewritings destabilize notions of originality, identity, and agency, and represent political discourses and social progress in an ambivalent way. While this thesis offers very specific insights into Tennant's work, the close readings also encompass broader themes, such as feminism and postmodernism, the gothic, myths of home and exile, and the ventriloquistic techniques of pastiche and biofiction. The arguments centered on her work contribute to the larger discourse on rewriting in two ways. First, in problematizing assumptions that rewriting inherently strives toward progress or correction, this thesis argues that rewriting can dramatize the ambiguity and ambivalence that haunt acts of resistance. Second, in advancing challenges to the idea that intertextuality functions anonymously, it argues that rewriting can return agency to the text by offering representations of authorship that engage with literary and cultural history.
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Thompson, Jay. "Sex and power in Australian writing during the Culture Wars, 1993-1997 /." Connect to thesis, 2009. http://repository.unimelb.edu.au/10187/6714.
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I address a selection of texts published in Australia between 1993 and 1997 which engage with feminist debates about sex and power. These texts are important, I argue, because they signpost the historical moment in which the culture wars and globalisation gained force in Australia. A key word in this thesis is ‘framing’. The debates which my texts engage with have (much like the culture wars in general) commonly been framed as conflicts between polarised political factions. These political factions have, in turn, been framed in terms of generations; that is, an ‘older’ feminism is pitted against a ‘newer’ feminism. Each generation of feminists supposedly holds quite different views about sex. I argue that my texts actually provide an insight into how various feminist perspectives on sex diverge and intersect with each other, as well as with certain New Right discourses about sex. My selected texts also suggest how the printed text has helped transport feminism within and outside AustraliaMy texts fit into two broad genres, fiction and scholarly non-fiction. The texts are: Helen Garner’s The First Stone (1995), Sheila Jeffreys’ The Lesbian Heresy (1993), Catharine Lumby’s Bad Girls (1997), Linda Jaivin’s Eat Me (1995) and Justine Ettler’s The River Ophelia (1995). I engage with various critical responses to these texts, including reviews, essays and interviews with the authors. I draw also from a range of theoretical sources. These include analyses of the culture wars by the American theorist Lillian S. Robinson and the Australian scholars McKenzie Wark, David McKnight and Mark Davis. Davis has provided a useful overview of how the metaphor of ‘generational conflict’ circulated in Australian culture during the 1990s. I draw on Arjun Appadurai’s model of “global cultural flows” and Ann Curthoys’ history of feminism in Australia. I engage with research into the increasingly ‘globalised’ nature of Australian writing, as well as a number of feminist works on the relationship between sex and power
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Compion, Marlette. "'n Ondersoek na Scheherazade as moontlike voorganger in 'n vroulike verteltradisie in enkele Afrikaanse literêre tekste /." Link to the online version, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/10019/998.
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Hestetun, Øyunn. "A prison-house of myth? symptomal readings in Virgin land, The madwoman in the Attic, and The political unconscious /." Stockholm : Almqvist & Wiksell, 1993. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb35577879j.
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Wiechmann, Natalia Helena [UNESP]. "Tell all the truth but tell it slant: subtexto e subversão na poesia de Emily Dickinson." Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP), 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/11449/145002.
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O objetivo desta tese de doutorado consiste em analisar a poesia de Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) sob a perspectiva da crítica literária feminista estadunidense utilizando o conceito de subtexto literário enquanto recurso poético que revele na obra dickinsoniana diversas formas de subversão de normas sociais e literárias do patriarcado. Para isso, nosso corpus de análise se compõe de dezoito poemas e nosso trabalho está estruturado em quatro seções. A primeira discute algumas questões caras à crítica literária feminista estadunidense, como o conceito de autoria feminina e a tradição literária para, então, teorizar sobre o conceito de subtexto literário relacionando-o à ideia de subversão. Também nessa primeira seção analisamos do poema “Tell all the Truth but tell it slant – ”. Já na segunda parte de nossa tese apresentamos o contexto da produção literária estadunidense no século XIX e discutimos o fato de Emily Dickinson ter se recusado veementemente a publicar seus poemas. Os poemas analisados nessa seção são “Publication – is the Auction”, “Fame of Myself, to justify”, “Fame is the tint that Scholars leave”, “Fame is the one that does not stay” e “Fame is a fickle food”. Na sequência, examinamos o ideal de feminilidade do século XIX e as formas como Dickinson subverte esse ideal nos poemas “To own a Susan of my own”, “Her breast is fit for pearls”, “I gave myself to Him – ”, “She rose to His Requirement – dropt”, “Title divine – is mine!” e “I started Early – Took my Dog – ”. Por fim, analisamos poemas em que Dickinson empreende a subversão da imagem de Deus ao apontar as vulnerabilidades da fé e da condição humana e questionar preceitos religiosos: “I never lost as much but twice”, “It’s easy to invent a Life – ”, “A Shade upon the mind there passes”, “God is indeed a jealous God – ” e “God gave a Loaf to every Bird – ”. Como suporte teórico, recorremos a diversos autores que compõem a fortuna crítica de Emily Dickinson bem como a importantes nomes da crítica literária feminista estadunidense, além de outros autores cujos estudos também dialogam com nossa pesquisa. Alguns dos autores utilizados neste trabalho são Virginia Woolf, Sandra Gilbert e Susan Gubar, Elaine Showalter, Betsy Erkkila, Helen Vendler, Maria Rita Kehl, Susan Howe e Carlos Daghlian.
The aim of this dissertation is to analyze the poetry of Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) from the perspective of American feminist literary criticism drawing on the concept of literary subtext as a poetic resource that reveals in Dickinson’s work several ways of subverting the social and literary norms of patriarchy. To these ends, I analyze a corpus of eighteen poems, and the text is organized into four sections. The first section discusses some issues that are important to American feminist literary criticism, such as the concept of female authorship and literary tradition; it is then theorized about the concept of literary subtext and I relate it to the idea of subversion. Also, in this first section, I analyze the poem “Tell all the Truth but tell it slant – .” In the second part of this work, the context of American literary production in the nineteenth-century is presented and the fact that Emily Dickinson emphatically refused to have her poems published is considered. The poems analyzed in this section are “Publication – is the Auction”. “Fame of Myself, to justify”, “Fame is the tint that Scholars leave”, “Fame is the one that does not stay” and “Fame is a fickle food”. After the discussion of the poems, in the third section I examine the ideal of womanhood in the nineteenth century and the ways Dickinson subverts this ideal in the poems “To own a Susan of my own”, “Her breast is fit for pearls”, “I gave myself to Him – ”, “She rose to His Requirement – dropt”, “Title divine – is mine!” and “I started Early – Took my Dog – ”. Finally, in the closing section I study some poems in which Dickinson undertakes the subversion of God’s image, points out the vulnerabilities of faith and human condition, and questions religious precepts: “I never lost as much but twice”, “It’s easy to invent a Life – ”, “A Shade upon the mind there passes”, “God is indeed a jealous God – ” and “God gave a Loaf to every Bird – ”. To provide theoretical underpinning, several critics who have written on Dickinson’s work were consulted and significant names in American literary feminist criticism are also discussed, as well as other authors whose studies intersect with our research as well. Included among the writers, critics and researchers mentioned in our work are Virginia Woolf, Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, Elaine Showalter, Betsy Erkkila, Helen Vendler, Maria Rita Kehl, Susan Howe, and Carlos Daghlian.
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Silva, Mariana Souza e. "O retrato de uma subjetividade feminina em The portrait of a lady, de Henry James." Universidade de São Paulo, 2017. http://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/8/8147/tde-07062017-085440/.
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The Portrait of a Lady (1881), obra de Henry James, conta a história da formação de Isabel Archer, uma jovem americana que se destaca por desejar ser livre e independente em um contexto em que se esperava da mulher que desempenhasse um papel apenas decorativo; por isso, é possível que sua caracterização seja associada a uma protagonista com características feministas. Porém, o desenvolvimento do enredo a leva a um casamento infeliz motivado por determinantes alheios, principalmente pelo interesse financeiro de outras personagens. Este trabalho tem o objetivo de analisar de que maneira a construção da subjetividade feminina da protagonista reflete, ou não, as questões sócio-históricas que marcaram seu contexto de criação, dentre os quais se destacam o início de uma consciência voltada à valorização feminina e busca pelos direitos das mulheres demonstrada pelo movimento pelo sufrágio universal. Em nossa análise consideramos os fatores sociais e políticos da época em que a obra foi escrita e revista, assim como os pressupostos da crítica literária feminista e crítica materialista, de forma a detectar na narrativa jamesiana as características que corroborem com um ponto de vista feminista sobre Isabel Archer, estendendo nossa leitura às personagens e fatos mais relevantes da obra. Assim, chegamos à conclusão de que a protagonista de The Portrait of a Lady apresenta características feministas, como o desejo pela independência, mas não pode ser considerada uma personagem feminista por ter sido subjugada e oprimida pelo poder patriarcal representado pelas figuras masculinas mais importantes à sua volta, principalmente por Gilbert Osmond, seu marido, que personifica nesta obra a dominação masculina total sobre a mente feminina. Contudo, sentimos que o enredo contém outras personagens e fatos que demonstram a força do insconsciente político daquele contexto, que se faz presente mesmo à revelia de seu autor, dentre eles outras personagens que caracterizam atitudes feministas. A importância deste estudo é posicionar uma forte protagonista feminina de Henry James dentre os estudos feministas sobre o Realismo do século XIX.The Portrait of a Lady (1881), Henry James novel, tells the story of the formation of Isabel Archer, an young American lady who stands out for her desire to be free and independent in a context where nothing more was expected from a woman than having a decorative role; for that, it is possible that her charcterization is associated to a protagonist with feminist traits. However, the development of the plot leads her to an unhappy marriage motivated by outward determinants, especially by other characters financial interest. The objective of this work is to analyze how the construction of the protagonists feminine subjectivity either reflects or not the social and historical matters that marked its context of creation, among which the beginning of a consciousness aimed at a feminine appreciation and the search for the womens rights shown by the international suffrage movement. In our analysis we consider the social and political factors of the time when the novel was written and revised, as the assumptions of the feminist literary criticism and materialist criticism, in order to detect, in the Jamesian narrative, the characteristics that corroborate with a feminist point of view about Isabel Archer, and we extend our reading to the most relevant characters and events of the novel. So, we got to the conclusion that the protagonist in The Portrait of a Lady shows feminist characteristics, as the desire for independence, but she cannot be considered a feminist character for having been subjugated and oppressed by the patriarchal power represented by the most important masculine figures around her, mostly by Gilbert Osmond, her husband, who impersonates the total male domination over the female mind in this novel. Nevertheless, we feel that the plot contains other characters and events that demonstrate the strength of the political unconscious from a context that makes itself present even if unwanted by its author, and among them there are other characters that show feminist attitudes. The importance of this research is to establish a Henry James strong feminine protagonist in the feminist studies about the 19th century Realist literature.
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Rhodes, Molly Rae. "Doctoring culture : literary intellectuals, psychology and mass culture in the twentieth-century United States /." Diss., Connect to a 24 p. preview or request complete full text in PDF format. Access restricted to UC campuses, 1997. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/ucsd/fullcit?p9809139.
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Muus, Elaine Janice. "Articulate bodies, or, Encore, en corps, sense-ing the body as (re)presentation of women's subjectivities." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1997. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp01/MQ26934.pdf.
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Neufeld, Christine Marie. "Xanthippe's sisters : orality and femininity in the later Middle Ages." Thesis, McGill University, 2001. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=38251.
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This dissertation contributes to medieval feminist scholarship by forging new insights into the relationship between gender theory and developing notions of orality and textuality in late medieval Europe. I examine three conventional satirical depictions of women as deviant speakers in medieval literature---as loquacious gossips, scolding shrews and cursing witches---to reveal how medieval perceptions of oral and textual discursive modes influenced literary representations of women. The dissertation demonstrates that our comprehension of the literary battle between the sexes requires a recognition and understanding of how discursive modes were gendered in a culture increasingly defining itself in terms of textuality. My work pursues the juxtaposition of the rational, literate male and the irrational, oral female across a wide range of texts, from Dunbar and Chaucer's courtly literature, to more socially diffused works, such as carols, sermon exempla and the Deluge mystery plays, as well as texts, like Margery Kempe's autobiography and witchcraft documents, that pertain to historical women. I demonstrate the social impact of this convention by anchoring these literary texts in their socio-historical context. The significance of my identification of this nexus of orality and femininity is that I am able to delineate an ideology profoundly affecting the way women's speech and writings have been received and perceived for centuries. This notion of gendered discourse can also redefine how we perceive medieval literature. Mikhail Bakhtin's discursive principles---ideas that stem from his application of the dynamics of oral communication and performance to the literary text---help to liberate new meanings from old texts by allowing us to read against the grain of convention. Both Bakhtin's theory of dialogism and Walter Ong's summary of the psychodynamics of orality suggest that orally influenced discourse is less interested in monolithic truth than in the art of tellin
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Anderson, Elizabeth Joan, and n/a. ""Lest we lose our Eden" : Jessie Kesson and the question of gender." University of Otago. Department of English, 2006. http://adt.otago.ac.nz./public/adt-NZDU20060906.095909.
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My doctoral thesis focuses on the twentieth-century Scottish writer, Jessie Kesson, examining the effects of the cultural construction of gender from a feminist psychoanalytic perspective.
Although my primary focus is on the detrimental effects traditional gender roles have on girls and women, recently published studies claiming that 'masculinity' is in a state of crisis are of particular value to my work. The reasons contemporary critics offer for this 'crisis in masculinity' vary widely. There are those who are convinced that women are to blame for abandoning their traditional roles as wives and mothers and moving too far into areas of society that are traditionally 'male'. This, they believe, results in a 'feminised' society that has an adverse effect on the development and well-being of boys and men. Those who support this argument generally believe that social, emotional and psychological distinctions between the genders are biologically inherent rather than socially constructed, and would prefer to see gender positions polarised rather than assimilated. At the other end of the scale are those who believe that the behaviours associated with traditional 'masculinity' are outmoded, fostering a form of emotional distrophy that is responsible for the increase in male suicide and autistic-like behaviours. Those who support this argument believe that males should develop a new set of behavioural traits more closely aligned to those traditionally thought of as 'feminine': traits like spontaneity, expressiveness, empathy and compassion.
I have found the latter arguments exciting on two counts: firstly because an increasing number of male critics are joining female critics in acknowledging that many of the traits and behaviours traditionally associated with 'masculinity' are life-denying for both sexes; secondly, and most importantly, because these critics are echoing the findings of the feminist psychoanalytic critic, Jessica Benjamin, whose work I have found so stimulating. But, where critics have pointed to the problem ('masculine' behaviour) and recommended that it be modified to something more closely resembling 'feminine' behaviour, Benjamin has not only identified the source of the problem, she has developed a revised theory of human development, 'Intersubjectivity', which offers a positive and transformative approach to human behaviour. I examine Benjamin�s theory closely in Chapter Two, and make use of it in succeeding chapters.
In May 2000, financed by the Bamforth Scholarship fund (with help from the Humanities Division of the University of Otago), I attended a conference at the University of St Andrews entitled 'Scotland: The Gendered Nation', which gave me a wider view of the concerns of contemporary Scottish writers and scholars. The paper I presented at the conference, "That great brute of a bunion!": the construction of masculinity in Jessie Kesson�s Glitter of Mica�, was published in the Spring 2001 issue of Scottish Studies Review. Following the conference I spent the rest of May in Scotland finding out more about Kesson and her writing under the generous tutelage of Kesson�s biographer, Dr Isobel (Tait) Murray, from the University of Aberdeen. Kesson wrote many plays for the BBC, and I was able to read Dr Murray�s copies of some of these unpublished works in the security of the Kings College Library, along with back copies of North-East Review to which Kesson contributed. In Edinburgh I visited the National Library of Scotland which holds back copies of The Scots Magazine containing pertinent articles by Kesson and her contemporaries. Then I travelled to those parts of North-East Scotland which feature most precisely in Kesson�s life and writing. My Scottish month was invaluable for its insight into the critical literary climate of Scotland, and for allowing me to reach Jessie Kesson imaginatively: through the boarded-up windows of the Orphanage at Skene; by the ruined Cathedral at Elgin; at the top of Our Lady�s Lane; and on the steps of her cottar house at Westertown Farm. [SEE FOOTNOTE] It was a privilege to trace Kesson�s footsteps and then to return to the other side of the world with a much keener sense of her 'place'. I would like to think this has carried over into my work, the structure of which is as follows:
Chapter One gives a brief history of Jessie Kesson�s life and writing. Chapter Two focuses on Jessica Benjamin the feminist psychoanalytic critic whose work provides the main theoretical framework for my thesis. Chapter Three considers the expression of female sexuality in the novella Where the Apple Ripens, and the way society conspires to have it diminish rather than enhance a sense of female self-hood. Where the Apple Ripens is not Kesson�s first published work but, because it introduces the central concerns of my thesis through the experiences of an adolescent girl, I have chosen to begin with it rather than with The White Bird Passes and to work towards increasingly complex gender relations in succeeding chapters.
In Chapter Four, The White Bird Passes, I look at the way Kesson depicts girls and women as instruments of male sexuality, controlled by a nervous patriarchy whose institutions (family, education, church) take away the promise of her female characters.
Chapter Five is centred on The Glitter of Mica, and considers the consequences of a masculinity constructed around the destruction of 'the Mother'.
Chapter Six considers the fate of the anonymous young woman in Another Time, Another Place, and examines the conventions of the social order that deny her self-definition.
Chapter Seven also examines the social conventions that shape and limit the lives of Kesson�s female characters - this time in a selection of Kesson�s short stories and poems.
In Chapter Eight I look at selected writers from the eighteenth to the twentieth-century whose work, in diverse and often contradictory ways, has contributed to an interrogation of gender in Scottish literature. This is not an historical and systematic survey of gender relations in Scotland; it is not even an historical and systematic survey of gender questions in Scottish literature. Rather, it is an impressionistic account of such matters in some selected Scottish literature - selected in part to cover some highly influential figures, and in part from Jessie Kesson�s more immediate context: feminine, rural, the North East. There is a place for such historical and systematic work, of course, and I hope that someone will do it. All I can hope for is that I may have provided some beginning but more importantly, that my work in this chapter will sharpen, further, an understanding of Jessie Kesson.
I begin with the life and work of the poet, Robert Burns. As well as featuring in Kesson�s Glitter of Mica, Burns and his legacy are matters of influence in the gendered ideal of 'Scottishness' for both laymen and writers at home and abroad. Following Burns, I contrast the unconscious gender ideology which permeates Neil Gunn�s writing with the progressive awareness of gender issues that characterises the work of Lewis Grassic Gibbon and aligns the latter with Kesson�s. I then examine the idealised landscapes and sentimentalised characters of the Kailyard era and the hostile response of the anti-Kailyard writers. This leads into an examination of Hugh MacDiarmid�s poem, A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle. MacDiarmid, like Burns, was monumental on the Scottish literary scene and his efforts to rekindle the spirit of the primitive Scot through literature have made him influential with a smaller but equally significant group. What is of particular relevance to my work is that the ideal of 'Scottishness' fostered by writers such as Burns and MacDiarmid is heavily dependent on prescribed gender positions which promote the exploitation of women while rendering them subservient to men and politically powerless. It is from within this environment of gender-based Scottishness that Jessie Kesson and other women writers, were writing and arguing. Therefore, lastly, in Chapter Eight, I concentrate on those women writers whose work has the most relevance to the time, place and ideological content of Kesson�s writing: Violet Jacob, Catherine Carswell, Lorna Moon, Willa Muir and Nan Shepherd. The writing of all of these women is concerned with psychic well-being centred on human relations and/or self-determination and, of the five, the writings of Willa Muir and Nan Shepherd are considered more fully because of the particular contribution they make to my examination of Jessie Kesson: Willa Muir commented, both directly and indirectly, on gender matters. Nan Shepherd, quite apart from being a friend of many years to Jessie Kesson, wrote novels in which gender issues are entirely central.
FOOTNOTE: I am indebted to Sir Maitland Mackie for giving me a guided tour of Westertown Farm, the setting for Darklands in The Glitter of Mica.
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Wiedeman, Megan. "A Queer and Crip Grotesque: Katherine Dunn's." Scholar Commons, 2018. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/7244.
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The grotesque has long been utilized in literature as a means for subverting societal constraints and inverting constructions of normalcy. Unfortunately, in many instances, it has been constructed at the expense of disabled characters using their embodiment as metaphorical plot devices rather than social and political agents. Criticism of the grotesque’s use of bodily difference has prompted this analytical project in order to rethink disability as socially and politically positioned within texts, rather than simply aesthetics for symbolic means. The aim of this paper is to explore the ways the literary grotesque can be reread using queer theory and crip theory as frameworks for constructing agential disabled embodiments in Katherine Dunn’s Geek Love. Ultimately, the potential of queer and crip interventions necessitates an examination of the systems of power disabled subjects operate within in these narratives.
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Barry, Juli. "American families in fact and fiction : decentering a constrictive ideal /." Diss., Connect to a 24 p. preview or request complete full text in PDF format. Access restricted to UC campuses, 1998. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/ucsd/fullcit?p9835407.
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Compion, Marlette. "'n Ondersoek na Scheherazade as moontlike voorganger in 'n vroulike verteltradisie in enkele Afrikaanse literêre tekste." Thesis, Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/2024.
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Thesis (MA (Afrikaans and Dutch))—University of Stellenbosch, 2005.The aim of this study is to investigate the position that has been allocated to women authors by literary theorists. Some literary theorists are of the opinion that the action of writing can be compared to fatherhood, ownership and being a creator, all of which are male dominated images. Women writers have historically been marginalized by literary theorists, since there is a perception that women cannot write because they are not male. Harold Bloom has postulated that a male writer looks to a precursor in order to write and find his own voice. Before the writer can claim his own, original voice, he must enter into an Oedipal battle with the precusor, and, figuratively speaking, ‘kill’ him in his writing. According to Gilbert & Gubar, who serve here as representatives of the feminist literary theorists, women writers make use of monsterlike figures which serve as metaphors for the inner battle they have to endure to put pen to paper. The problem, however, is that women writers have no (female) precursors to look to. Elaine Showalter postulates 4 models that women writers may use in search of a female precursor or female body of writing, but she does not offer a clear solution. I am of the opinion that women writers can identity with a female figure or role model. The figure that I propose is Scheherazade, a storytelling character from the Thousand and One Nights, who told stories for a thousand and one nights in order for escape death. I identify a few texts from international literature that make use of this figure, whether as a character in the text, a metaphor for the female character who tells stories or as a metaphor for the author herself. This study focuses on texts from 3 genres in Afrikaans literature, namely children’s stories, short stories and a novel. It appears from the analysis of the texts that women writers have successfully made use of the Scheherazade character, to address issues concerning the social role and position allocated to women by a patriarchial society. Along with this women writers’ search and longing for a voice of their own and their own identity gets highlighted with the use of a Scheherazade-like female character who tells stories. Lastly it became clear that this figure is also being used by women writers to contemplate the dynamics of writing and to contextualise the role that self-doubt and self-actualisation play in telling and writing stories. Scheherazade thus becomes a vehicle for finding a voice as well as agency.
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Alvandi, Nazanin. "Literary Theory in Upper Secondary School : Should It Be Used Before Higher Education?" Thesis, Högskolan i Jönköping, Högskolan för lärande och kommunikation, 2019. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hj:diva-44612.
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This essay examines the use of literary theory when teaching literature before higher education. The objective isto see how and if the integration of literary theory facilitates students’ engagement with and understanding of literature. The study is conducted with the qualitative method of interviews. Four teachers, certified for upper secondary school, were deemed appropriate to interview about their current use of literary theory, as well as their attitudes towards an increased use of literary theory. Besides the data collected through interviews, this study finds its theoretical foundation in the literary theories feminist, Marxist and postcolonial theory as well as in the Swedish curriculum for English at upper secondary level. Presently, the teachers do not use literary theory distinctly; however, they do consider the use of literary theory together with literature to be beneficial for the students’ understanding of literature and the world around them. Teachers stated that while some students only will grasp the idea of the theories, other students will be able to use and apply them. The curriculum supports the use of literary theory in the core values for students of upper secondary level.
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Swanson, Kj. "A liberative imagination : reconsidering the fiction of Charlotte Brontë in light of feminist theology." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/11051.
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This thesis seeks to show the ways in which Charlotte Brontë's fiction anticipates the concerns of contemporary feminist theology. Whilst Charlotte Brontë's novels have held a place of honor in feminist literary criticism for decades, there has been a critical tendency to associate the proto-feminism of Brontë's narratives with a rejection of Christianity—namely, that Brontë's heroines achieve their personal, social and spiritual emancipation by throwing off the shackles of a patriarchal Church Establishment. And although recent scholarly interest in Victorian Christianity has led to frequent interpretations that regard Brontë's texts as upholding a Christian worldview, in many such cases, the theology asserted in those interpretations arguably undermines the liberative impulse of the narratives. In both cases, the religious and romantic plots of Brontë's novels are viewed as incompatible. This thesis suggests that by reading Brontë's fiction in light of an interdisciplinary perspective that interweaves feminist and theological concerns, the narrative journeys of Brontë's heroines might be read as affirming both Christian faith and female empowerment. Specifically, this thesis will examine the ways in which feminist theologians have identified the need for Christian doctrines of sin and grace to be articulated in a manner that better reflects women's experiences. By exploring the interrelationship between women's writing and women's faith, particularly as it relates to the literary origins of feminist theology and Brontë's position within the nineteenth-century female publishing boom, Brontë's liberative imagination for female flourishing can be re-examined. As will be argued, when considered from the vantage point of feminist theology, 'Jane Eyre', 'Shirley', and 'Villette' portray women's need to experience grace as self-construction and interdependence rather than self-denial and subjugation.
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Rocha, Izaura Regina Azevedo. "Crítica, romance e gênero: uma perspectiva convergente da obra de Lucia Miguel Pereira." Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora (UFJF), 2010. https://repositorio.ufjf.br/jspui/handle/ufjf/2710.
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Esta dissertação focaliza a produção da romancista, crítica literária e historiadora da literatura brasileira Lucia Miguel Pereira pelo duplo ponto de vista da teoria literária e da crítica feminista. A interseção dessas duas disciplinas se faz necessária para compreender a aparente fratura entre a obra ficcional e a de crítica literária da autora. Partindo da constatação de que uma preocupação com a condição feminina na primeira metade do século XX perpassa inegavelmente o conjunto dos quatro únicos romances de Lucia, enquanto sua produção crítica se revela quase indiferente ao desprestígio da autoria feminina no cânone da literatura brasileira, procura-se investigar caminhos de convergência entre as duas vertentes dessa produção aparentemente contraditória. Numa perspectiva metacrítica, o trabalho mapeia o pensamento da autora sobre o exercício da crítica literária e da criação ficcional e estabelece seu sistema e método de abordagem da literatura. A categoria do romance, como gênero literário de particular interesse nos estudos de Lucia, desponta como chave para percepção da unidade da obra da autora, na medida em que é por ela compreendido como campo de experimentação sobre a existência. No processo, a pesquisa acompanha o amadurecimento intelectual de Lucia Miguel Pereira rumo à sistematização de suas formulações teóricas sobre o romance e revê o lugar dessa intelectual pioneira na história da crítica e da literatura brasileiras.
This dissertation focuses on the production of the novelist, literary critic and historian of Brazilian literature Lucia Miguel Pereira by the dual perspective of literary theory and feminist criticism. The intersection of these two disciplines is needed to understand the apparent rift between the author‘s fictional work and literary criticism. Based on the observation that a preoccupation with the female condition in the first half of the twentieth century undeniably pervades the whole of her four novels, while her critical output reveals to be almost indifferent to the discredit of female authorship in the canon of Brazilian literature, seeks to investigate ways of increasing convergence between two seemingly contradictory aspects of this production. In a metacritique perspective, the work maps the author's thinking on the exercise of literary criticism and the fictional creation and sets her system and approach to the literature. The category of the novel as a literary genre of particular interest in Lucia‘s studies emerges as key to understand the unity of her work, insofar as it is understood as a field of experimentation on life. In the process, the research followed the intellectual maturation of Lucia Miguel Pereira towards the systematization of her theoretical formulations about the novel and review the place of this intellectual pioneer in the history of Brazilian literature and criticism.
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Persson, Örtman Lisa. "The suppressed goddess of Beowulf : A feminist reading of Grendel’s mother as a representation of Norse goddess Gefion in a changing world order." Thesis, Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för språk (SPR), 2019. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-82020.
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The aim of this study has been to investigate in feminist terms whether or not the character Grendel’s mother symbolizes early matrilineal tribes in the form of the Norse goddess Gefion, also claimed to be the Earth goddess. The claim has been brought forward in an article by Frank Battaglia on the grounds that the chthonic deity is mentioned on several occasions in Beowulf. However, Grendel’s mother’s possible connection to the goddess has not been treated extensively in a feminist context, despite the apparent link between feminism and matrilineal tribes in a patriarchal hierarchy. The modern translations of her character as a monster stand in stark contrast to the original manuscript where she is depicted as an aglӕcwif, “female warrior”. The subject has given rise to a number of feminist researches on the theme of the so called “woman-as-monster” stereotype. These argue that Grendel’s mother has fallen victim to enforced marginalization due to etymological faults as well as sexist stereotypes in Anglo-Saxon literary culture. On the background of Moi’s definition of a woman and Kristeva’s concept of the abject, results demonstrate that Grendel’s mother may very well symbolize the female Other in a new social order, embodied or represented as the Earth goddess.
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Silva, Franciane Conceição da. "Armadilhas do corpo: uma leitura de gênero em Isabel Ferreira." Universidade Federal de Viçosa, 2014. http://locus.ufv.br/handle/123456789/4895.
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Previous issue date: 2014-03-06Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior
This thesis aims to study the novel O guardador de memórias (2008), the Angolan writer Isabel Ferreira. In this context, in critical reading on the novel, initially, was an attempt to highlight the process of deterritorialization of language and of the characters Kiluva and Ana Medrante, which escaped through a discourse of insubordination. For this analysis, it has been used the theories by Deleuze and Guattari, in the book Kafka: por uma literatura menor (1977). Besides the criticism about female characters, we also analyzed the male characters Kafrique and Hunende, men who see themselves compelled to redefine their subjectivity against the freedom of women. For a better understanding of the context in which it sets out the voice of the author, it discusses the process of formation and solidification of Angolan literature. Thus, considering the long road traveled by women to be recognized as authors of their own stories, by making a brief trajectory of the feminist movement, bringing forth an approach to black feminism, based on the assumptions of bell hooks. To complement that, we have brought a discussion about the identity crisis of contemporary men, who when faced with the emancipation of women, has been forced to revise their roles in patriarchal society. Thus, the approaches developed with this thesis aim primarily to make the voice of black to be heard, women, writers or not, who have undergone a process of exclusion and silencing throughout its history.
Esta dissertação tem como objetivo estudar o romance O guardador de memórias (2008), da escritora angolana Isabel Ferreira. Nesse contexto, na leitura crítica da obra, inicialmente, atentou-se ao processo de desterritorialização da linguagem das personagens Kiluva e Ana Medrante, que se libertam através de um discurso de insubmissão. Para essa análise, nos embasamos nas teorias de Deleuze e Guattari, presentes no seu livro Kafka, por uma literatura menor (1977). Além da crítica das personagens femininas, analisamos também os personagens masculinos Kafrique e Hunende, homens que se veem impelidos em redefinir sua subjetividade perante a liberdade das mulheres. Para uma melhor compreensão do contexto em que se enuncia a voz da autora, discutimos o processo de formação e solidificação da literatura angolana. Desse modo, considerando-se o longo percurso percorrido pelas mulheres para que fossem reconhecidas como autoras de suas próprias historias, fizemos uma breve trajetória do movimento feminista, trazendo à tona uma abordagem do feminismo negro, embasando-nos nas teorias de bell hooks. Para complementar essa abordagem, trouxemos uma discussão sobre a crise de identidade do homem contemporâneo, que ao se deparar com a emancipação feminina, viu-se obrigado a rever os seus papéis na sociedade patriarcal. Assim, as abordagens desenvolvidas nessa dissertação pretendem, sobretudo, fazer ouvir a voz das mulheres negras, escritoras ou não, que foram submetidas a um processo de exclusão e silenciamento durante toda a sua história.
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Tenor, Carina. "Bitterfittan och förmödrarna : Om litterära rötter som feministisk motståndsstrategi i Maria Svelands debutroman." Thesis, Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för film och litteratur (IFL), 2014. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-35239.
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Baffoni, Valentina. "The quest for agency - how Margaret Atwood and Madeline Miller make modern heroines out of the Odyssey’s Penelope and Circe." Bachelor's thesis, Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna, 2021.
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The word odyssey has become part of the common English vocabulary as “a series of experiences that teach you something about yourself or about your life.” The aim of this thesis is to demonstrate that the women of the Odyssey, in particular the two who are featured the most, Penelope and Circe, have benefitted from contemporary revisions by authors Margaret Atwood and Madeline Miller. Their works add to a tradition of literary retellings by women writers from the Romantic and Modernist period. These creators approached myth, an inhospitable terrain for women, and embarked on an odyssey of their own, a journey of self-actualization and self-realization through the re-writing of epic female figures. Atwood and Miller expand the stories of Penelope and Circe, exposing the misogynistic narratives of the original epic in which they were reduced to archetypes. By further exploring and developing their stories, they demonstrate that characters don’t have to be either wholly good or wholly evil but that there can be a balance in their attributes. These even-handed portrayals of beloved mythological figures can teach modern readers something new about themselves, their lives and the role of women in narrative fiction and contemporary society.
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Camargo, Monica Hermini de. "Versões do feminino: Virginia Woolf e a estética feminista." Universidade de São Paulo, 2001. http://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/8/8147/tde-03072002-231829/.
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Esta dissertação tem como objetivo analisar as condições e possibilidades do feminismo de Virginia Woolf à luz do momento sócio-econômico e cultural em que viveu e do qual foi um dos ícones. Por causa de sua formação e do panorama histórico da época, suas posições assumem um caráter extremamente ambíguo. Este estudo mostra que a autora oscila entre ser ícone de toda uma geração e outsider, romancista e crítica literária, intelectual e leitora comum, senhora das letras e feminista, crítica do gosto e proponente de uma nova estética literária, vitoriana esnobe e modernista. Tanto sua natureza criativa quanto os elementos propostos em sua estética literária resultam de sua visão de mundo e de sua relação ambígua com a realidade.The aim of this dissertation is to analyze the conditions and possibilities of Virginia Woolfs feminism in the light of the social, economical and cultural environment in which she lived and of which she became one of the icons. Because of her background and of the historical setting of her time, her positions take on an extremely ambiguous character. This study shows that the author bends from a whole generation icon to an outsider, from novelist to literary critic, from highbrow to common reader, from lady of letters to feminist, from woman of taste to proponent of a new literary aesthetics, from Victorian snob to modernist. Both her creative nature and the elements she suggests in her literary aesthetics result from her view of the world and from her ambiguous relationship with reality.
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Törnqvist, af Ström Richard. "Ordning och Kaos : En receptionskritisk granskning av Jordan B. Petersons bibliska bruk av kön och sexualitet, samt hur hans narrativ förhåller sig till historisk-kritiska och feministiska läsningar av Genesis 1-3." Thesis, Uppsala universitet, Teologiska institutionen, 2020. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-428273.
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Davis, K. Octavia. "Geographies of the (M)other : narratives of geography and eugenics in turn-of-the-century British culture /." Diss., Connect to a 24 p. preview or request complete full text in PDF format. Access restricted to UC campuses, 1998. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/ucsd/fullcit?p9835399.
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Becker, Charity Dawn. "Constructing the mother-tongue, language in the poetry of Dionne Brand, Claire Harris, and Marlene Nourbese Philip." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1999. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk1/tape9/PQDD_0016/MQ54604.pdf.
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Jelena, Stefanović. "Rodni stereotipi u romanima lektire drugog ciklusa osnovne škole." Phd thesis, Univerzitet u Novom Sadu, Asocijacija centara za interdisciplinarne i multidisciplinarne studije i istraživanja, 2016. http://www.cris.uns.ac.rs/record.jsf?recordId=101600&source=NDLTD&language=en.
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U radu se, primenom feminističke književne kritike, analiziraju rodni stereotipi u svih četrnaest romana iz lektire za drugi ciklus obrazovanja. Pokazuje se da su rodni stereotipi prisutni u različitim aspektima ovih romana, kao što su zastupljenost i konstrukcija likova, sadržaj i način oblikovanja priče. Takođe, predstavljaju se metodički modeli nastavnih interpretacija ovih romana, koji uvažavaju rodnu perspektivu. Primena ovih modela omogućava da učenice i učenici prepoznaju rodne stereotipe, razumeju njihovu funkciju i zauzmu kritički odnos prema njima.The dissertation analyzes gender stereotypes by applying feminist literary criticism in all fourteen novels included in the second cycle of the primary education curriculum. It is indicated that gender stereotypes are present in various aspects of the novels, such as characters’ presence and construction, content and method of creating stories. Furthermore, the methodical models of educational interpretations of these novels, which respect the gender perspective, are also presented. The application of these models allows pupils to recognize gender stereotypes, understand their function and take a critical attitude towards them.
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Kaloski-Naylor, Ann. "Elements of a bisexual reading." Thesis, University of York, 1997. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.245962.
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Marzi, Laura. "« I’m not only a casualty, I’m also a warrior » : LA personnage de la travailleuse domestique : exemples d'héroisme de genre dans les récits littéraires de travail du care." Thesis, Paris 8, 2015. http://www.theses.fr/2015PA080096.
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Cette thèse est une recherche interdisciplinaire entre care et littérature, basée sur l'hypothèse d'un lien d'interdépendance entre les deux perspectives. Mon travail s’appuie sur l'idée que la littérature peut être un instrument particulièrement adéquat de recherche sur le travail et la relation de care justement parce que les romans racontent des histoires ordinaires. En effet, le care n’est pas un principe ontologique général, il est lié à des situations particulières, concrètes. De même, les récits littéraires de Slow Man de John M. Coetzee et Maria de Lalla Romano, sur lesquels va porter mon analyse, inversent la condition d'invisibilité sociale qui dans notre société touche les travailleuses de care. Dans les romans et les ouvrages sociologiques analysés les femmes care-givers occupent la scène principale : elles sont des héroïnes, non pas dans le sens de l'héroïsme universel masculin, mais de celui qui émerge des récits de care au prisme du genre. Enfin l'analyse des romans Maria et Slow Man a aussi nourri la réflexion sur le Unheimliche. En effet, le personnage de la care-giver est source d'inquiétante étrangeté, parce qu'elle est une femme, et que son travail consiste à s'occuper de ce qui est familier, mais aurait dû rester caché : la vulnérabilité humaine. De plus, très souvent la care-giver est une femme étrangère qui trouble l’espace de la domesticité et de l’intime. À travers la double perspective de la critique littéraire féministe et de l’éthique du care nous proposons une nouvelle lecture genrée de l’inquiétante étrangère familière au niveau des représentations sociales, littéraires et symboliquesThis thesis is an interdisciplinary research between care and literature, based on the assumption of an interdependence between the two perspectives. My work relies on the idea that literature can be a research instrument particularly suitable on work and care relation, precisely because novels can recount ordinary stories. Indeed, care is not a general ontological principle, it is related to specific situations, concrete. Then, literary narratives Slow Man by John M. Coetzee and Maria by Lalla Romano, basis of my analysis, reverse the condition of invisibility that affects care workers in our society. In novels and sociological works analyzed, care-givers occupy the main stage : they are heroines, not in the sense of universal male heroism, but in one that emerges from the care stories read from a gender perspective. Finally, the analysis of novels Maria and Slow Man has also inspired reflection on the Unheimliche. The character of the care-giver is a source of uncanny, because she is a woman, and that her job is to take care of what is familiar, but should have remained hidden: the human vulnerability. Moreover, very often the care-giver is a foreign woman who disturbs the space of domesticity and intimacy. Through the double perspective of feminist literary criticism and ethics of care we propose a new gendered reading of the uncanny in social representations, literary and symbolic