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This volume explores contemporary French women's writing through the prism of one of the defining moments of modern feminism: the writings of the 1970s that came to be known as «French feminism». With their exhilarating renewal of the rules of fiction, and a sophisticated theoretical approach to gender, representation and textuality, Hélène Cixous and others became internationally recognised for their work, at a time when the women's movement was also a driving force for social change. Taking its cue from Les Femmes s'entêtent, a multi-authored analysis of the situation of women and a celebration of women's creativity, this collection offers new readings of Monique Wittig, Emma Santos and Hélène Cixous, followed by essays on Nina Bouraoui, Michèle Perrein and Ying Chen, Marguerite Duras and Mireille Best, and Valentine Goby. A contextualising introduction establishes the theoretical and cultural framework of the volume with a critical re-evaluation of this key moment in the history of feminist thought and women's writing, pursuing its various legacies and examining the ways theoretical and empirical developments in queer studies, postcolonial studies and postmodernist philosophies have extended, inflected and challenged feminist work.
List of contents
Margaret Atack/Alison S. Fell/Diana Holmes/Imogen Long: Introduction: Epistemologies, Politics, Fictions - Chloé Jacquesson: Le Brouillon pour un dictionnaire des amantes (1976) de Monique Wittig et Sande Zeig : une entreprise littéraire du savoir féministe ? - Emma Murdoch: (Re)Reading Trauma and Schizophrenia in the Work of Emma Santos - Beatrice Ivey: Hélène Cixous's L'Indiade ou l'Inde de leurs rêves: Gendering Memories of Colonialism in Algeria and India - Martina Williams: Looking Again at La Jeune Née: Feminine Poets in Hélène Cixous's Voile noire voile blanche - Maribel Peñalver Vicea: La scène «primultime» de la mort : corps mourant, corps parlant ou les mécanismes de la greffe scripturale dans Homère est morte ... d'Hélène Cixous - Gabrielle Parker: The Gendering of Space: A Study of Michèle Perrein's Gemma lapidaire (1976) and Ying Chen's Espèces (2012) - Stephanie Schechner: Marguerite Duras and Mireille Best: A Forgotten Literary Legacy - Annick Durand: Transgressing the Rules of Autobiography: Nina Bouraoui's La Voyeuse interdite - Margaret Atack: Body, Narration, History: Valentine Goby's Occupation Novels - Margaret Atack/Alison S. Fell/Diana Holmes/Imogen Long: Conclusion
About the author
Margaret Atack is Professor of French at the University of Leeds.
Alison Fell is Professor of French Cultural History at the University of Leeds
Diana Holmes is Professor of French at the University of Leeds
Imogen Long is Lecturer in French at the University of Hull.
