Women Writing The Nation

Women Writing the Nation: National Identity, Female Community, and the British - French Connection, 1770-1820 engages in recent discussions of the development of British nationalism during the eighteenth century and Romantic period. Leanne Maunu argues that women writers looked not to their national identity, but rather to their gender to make claims about the role of women within the British nation. Discussing texts by Frances Burney, Charlotte Smith, Mary Wollstonecraft, and others in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, Maunu demonstrates that women writers of this period imagined themselves as members of a fairly stable community, even if such a community was composed of many different women with many different beliefs. They appropriated the model of collectivity posed by the nation, mimicking a national imagined community.

In a study that will radically shift our understanding of Civil War literature, Elizabeth Young shows that American women writers have been profoundly influenced by the Civil War and that, in turn, their works have contributed powerfully to conceptions of the war and its aftermath. Offering fascinating reassessments of works by white writers such as Harriet Beecher Stowe, Louisa May Alcott, and Margaret Mitchell and African-American writers including Elizabeth Keckley, Frances Harper, and Margaret Walker, Young also highlights crucial but lesser-known texts such as the memoirs of women who masqueraded as soldiers. In each case she explores the interdependence of gender with issues of race, sexuality, region, and nation. Combining literary analysis, cultural history, and feminist theory, Disarming the Nation argues that the Civil War functioned in women's writings to connect female bodies with the body politic. Women writers used the idea of "civil war" as a metaphor to represent struggles between and within women—including struggles against the cultural prescriptions of "civility." At the same time, these writers also reimagined the nation itself, foregrounding women in their visions of America at war and in peace. In a substantial afterword, Young shows how contemporary black and white women—including those who crossdress in Civil War reenactments—continue to reshape the meanings of the war in ways startlingly similar to their nineteenth-century counterparts. Learned, witty, and accessible, Disarming the Nation provides fresh and compelling perspectives on the Civil War, women's writing, and the many unresolved "civil wars" within American culture today.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Ukrainian literary world has not only experienced a true blossoming of women’s prose, but has also witnessed a number of female authors assume the roles of literary trendsetters and authoritative critics of their culture. In this first in-depth study of how Ukrainian women’s prose writing was able to re-emerge so powerfully after being marginalized in the Soviet era, Oleksandra Wallo examines the writings and literary careers of leading contemporary Ukrainian women authors, such as Oksana Zabuzhko, Ievheniia Kononenko, and Maria Matios. Her study shows how these women reshaped literary culture with their contributions to the development of the Ukrainian national imaginary in the wake of the Soviet state’s disintegration. The interjection of women’s voices and perspectives into the narratives about the nation has often permitted these writers to highlight the diversity of the national picture and the complexity of the national story. Utilizing insights from postcolonial and nationalism studies, Wallo’s book theorizes the interdependence between the national imaginary and narrative plots, and scrutinizes how prominent Ukrainian women authors experimented with literary form in order to rewrite the story of women and nationhood.

The patriarchal structure of the Nation of Islam (NOI) promised black women the prospect of finding a provider and a protector among the organization's men, who were fiercely committed to these masculine roles. Black women's experience in the NOI, however, has largely remained on the periphery of scholarship. Here, Ula Taylor documents their struggle to escape the devaluation of black womanhood while also clinging to the empowering promises of patriarchy. Taylor shows how, despite being relegated to a lifestyle that did not encourage working outside of the home, NOI women found freedom in being able to bypass the degrading experiences connected to labor performed largely by working-class black women and in raising and educating their children in racially affirming environments. Telling the stories of women like Clara Poole (wife of Elijah Muhammad) and Burnsteen Sharrieff (secretary to W. D. Fard, founder of the Allah Temple of Islam), Taylor offers a compelling narrative that explains how their decision to join a homegrown, male-controlled Islamic movement was a complicated act of self-preservation and self-love in Jim Crow America.

For centuries women have been marginalized and overlooked in American literary history. That injustice is corrected in this entertaining and provocative collection of 350 years of poetry and fiction by American women. From Puritan poet Anne Bradstreet to Margaret Fuller to Harriet Beecher Stowe, readers will encounter scores of lesser-known and forgotten writers who fully deserve to be rediscovered and enjoyed by new generations. Our famous women writers, including contemporary stars like Annie Proux and Jhumpa Lahiri, are showcased in their full literary context, offering an epic overview of the canon in one monumental, dazzling volume. This landmark anthology features the best work of our best American women, and was inspired and informed by the author's groundbreaking history celebrating women writers, A Jury of Her Peers.

This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. Elleke Boehmer's work on the crucial intersections between independence, nationalism and gender has already proved canonical in the field. 'Stories of women' combines her keynote essays on the mother figure and the postcolonial nation, with incisive new work on male autobiography, 'daughter' writers, the colonial body, the trauma of the post-colony, and the nation in a transnational context. Focusing on Africa as well as South Asia, and sexuality as well as gender, Boehmer offers fine close readings of writers ranging from Achebe, Okri and Mandela to Arundhati Roy and Yvonne Vera, shaping these into a critical engagement with theorists of the nation like Fredric Jameson and Partha Chatterjee. This edition will be of interest to readers and researchers of postcolonial, international and women's writing; of nation theory, colonial history and historiography; of Indian, African, migrant and diasporic literatures, and is likely to prove a landmark study in the field.

In 'Writing the Nation: A Concise Introduction to American Literature 1865 to Present,' editors Amy Berke, Robert Bleil, Jordan Cofer, and Doug Davis curate a comprehensive exploration of American literary evolution from the aftermath of the Civil War to contemporary times. This anthology expertly weaves a tapestry of diverse literary styles and themes, encapsulating the dynamic shifts in American culture and identity. Through carefully selected works, the collection illustrates the rich dialogue between historical contexts and literary expression, showcasing seminal pieces that have shaped American literatures landscape. The diversity of periods and perspectives offers readers a panoramic view of the countrys literary heritage, making it a significant compilation for scholars and enthusiasts alike. The contributing authors and editors, each with robust backgrounds in American literature, bring to the table a depth of scholarly expertise and a passion for the subject matter. Their collective work reflects a broad spectrum of American life and thought, aligning with major historical and cultural movements from Realism and Modernism to Postmodernism. This anthology not only marks the evolution of American literary forms and themes but also mirrors the nations complex history and diverse narratives. 'Writing the Nation' is an essential volume for those who wish to delve into the heart of American literature. It offers readers a unique opportunity to experience the multitude of voices, styles, and themes that have shaped the countrys literary tradition. This collection represents an invaluable resource for students, scholars, and anyone interested in the development of American literature and the cultural forces that have influenced it. The anthology invites readers to engage with the vibrant dialogue among its pages, fostering a deeper understanding and appreciation of the United States' literary and cultural heritage.

This book explores the gendered contexts of the Indian nation through a rigorous analysis of selected women’s fiction ranging from diverse linguistic, geographical, caste, class, and regional contexts. Indian women’s writing across languages, texts, and contexts constitutes a unique narrative of the post-independence nation. This volume highlights the ways in which women writers negotiate the patriarchal biases embedded in the epistemological and institutional structures of the post-independence nation-state. It discusses works of famous Indian authors like Amrita Pritam, Jyotirmoyee Devi, Mannu Bhandari, Mahasweta Devi, Mridula Garg, Nayantara Sahgal, Indira Goswami, and Alka Saraogi, to name a few, and facilitates a pan-Indian understanding of the concerns taken up by these women writers. In doing so, it shows how ideas travel across regions and contribute towards building a thematic critique of the oppressive structures that breed the unequal relations between the margins and the centre. The volume will be of interest to scholars and researchers of gender studies, women’s studies, South Asian literature, political sociology, and political studies.

Women Telling Nations highlights how, from the 16th to the 19th centuries, European women, as readers and writers, contributed to the construction of national identities. The book, which presents twenty countries, is divided into four parts. First, we examine how women belonged to nations: they represented territories and political or religious communities in their own style. Second, we deal with the ways in which women wrote the nation: the network of relationships in which they were involved that were not necessarily national or territorial. The legitimation that women writers succeeded in finding is emphasised in the third section, while in the fourth we analyse how and why women were open to the outside world, beyond the country’s borders. Women Telling Nations underlines the quantitative importance of the circulation of these women’s writings and demonstrates the extent as well as the impact of the international cross-fertilisation of nations, especially by and for women: focusing on routes rather than roots.

Women, States and Nationalism counters this attitude and examines the many and contradictory ways in which women negotiate their places in 'the nation'. The volume includes theoretical essays that explore the multiple ways in which the very concept of 'nation' is based upon notions of family, sexuality and gender power which are often overlooked of downplayed by 'male-stream' scholarship. It gathers together an outstanding panel of feminist scholars and area studies specialists, who, through a series of focused case studies, analyse diverse issues which include; *gender and sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland *the paradox of Israeli women soldiers *women, civic duty and the military in the USA *the Hindu Right in India *power, agency and representation in Zimbabwe *political identity and heterosexism. This timely volume is a highly valuable resource for students and scholars of Nationalism, Internationalism Studies and Women's Studies.