Writing And Sexual Difference

Essays discuss feminist criticism, attitudes toward sexual difference, female identity, and the works of Eliot and Stein

An accessible introduction to French feminist theory and contemporary French women's writing for non-French speakers. The book offers a context to this challenging, controversial body of work by giving clear accounts of the philosophical, post-structural and psychoanalytic debates which have had such an impact on French intellectual life in recent years, and to which French feminist writers offer a response.

Abigail Bray offers a lucid and accessible introduction to Hélène Cixous and her theorisation of writing and sexual difference. This book explores the context of feminist debates surrounding Cixous's work and provides a concise explanation of her major philosophical and literary concepts, including the 'other bisexuality', the 'third body', and l'écriture feminine. Bray demonstrates, through original and provocative readings of texts by James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Clarice Lispector and Angela Carter, the creative potential of Cixous's thought on literature and philosophy. Reading Cixous alongside Nietzsche, Heidegger, Deleuze and Derrida, Bray argues for a recognition of Cixous as one of the important thinkers of our times.

This rereading of Wordworth's The Prelude, in light of post-structuralist and feminist theory, is the first study of the poem from both a Wordsworthian and feminist viewpoint. Through close examination of Romantic autobiography, theatrical politics, and history Jacobus discusses Romantic attitudes towards language, figuration, and voice, analyzing the role of gender in Romantic self-expression and pedagogy. She considers different aspects of the high Romanticism exemplified by The Prelude, and explores the writing of Burke, Rousseau, Hazlitt, Lamb, and De Quincey in relation to literary influence, New Historicism, and the gender-related aspects of Romantic criticism.

Extrait de la couverture : ""Here, for the first time, is a book that brings women's writings out of exile to rethink anthropology's purpose at the end of the century. ... As a historical resource, the collection undertakes fresh readings of the work of well-known women anthropologists and also reclaims the writings of women of color for anthropology. As a critical account, it bravely interrogates the politics of authorship. As a creative endeavor, it embraces new Feminist voices of ethnography that challenge prevailing definitions of theory and experimental writing."

In the light of post-structuralism and feminist theory, this book reappraises "The Prelude" using Romantic autobiography theatrical politics and history, in order to outline the role of gender in Romantic self-representation and pedagogy.

About various theories of gender, sexuality, feminism and masculinity including queer theory, transgender theorizing, modernist liberationism and social constructionism.

"International sex researcher, neuroscientist, and frequent contributor to The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Debra Soh [discusses what she sees as] gender myths in this ... examination of the many facets of gender identity"--

Examines the question ("what does a woman want?") through close readings of autobiographical texts by Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir, Adrienne Rich, Sigmund Freud, and Honore' de Balzac.