Germaine - The Life of Germaine Greer

The personal and political story of Germaine Greer as an intellectual, feminist, polemicist and provocateur. Considers her enduring relevance across decades and shifts in ideas.

About the author

Elizabeth Kleinhenz was born in Melbourne, where she has spent most of her life. She enjoyed a long and distinguished career in the Victorian Education Department as a teacher and administrator of English, History, and German. In 2001, she joined the Australian Council for Educational Research and recently retired from the position of senior research fellow. Elizabeth is the author of A Brimming Cup: the Life of Kathleen Fitzpatrick, which was her PhD thesis.

Summary

Intellectual. Feminist. Polemicist. Provocateur.


This riveting biography of Germaine Greer traces the personal and political history of one of the most important, radical, and controversial women of twentieth and twenty-first century feminism. It reveals how her public persona has shifted with time from sixties trailblazer to present-day rabble-rouser, and why she endures as a subject of fascination.


This is the first biography of Greer for two decades, drawing on unprecedented access to her extensive personal archive, opened at Melbourne University in 2016. Kleinhenz has interrogated Greer's personal and professional files, spoken to people who have known her from her school days onwards, and read every word written by and about her. Beginning with Greer’s troubled early life in 1940s Melbourne, it traces her career, relationships with men and women, her travels, and her home life, and examines Greer’s work and ideas from The Female Eunuch to the #MeToo movement. The result is a rich, detailed portrait of a woman rightly both legendary and notorious — revealed here in all her glories, weaknesses, and contradictions.

Foreword

Intellectual. Feminist. Polemicist. Provocateur.

Additional text

‘[A]n informative look at Greer's cultural impact.’

Product details

• Authors: Elizabeth Kleinhenz, Kleinhenz Elizabeth
• Publisher: Faber Factory Plus GBS
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 31.10.2018
• EAN: 9781911617914
• ISBN: 978-1-911617-91-4
• No. of pages: 480
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature > Letters, diaries; Humanities, art, music > History > Contemporary history (1945 to 1989); Non-fiction book > Politics, society, business > Biographies, autobiographies; Popular Culture, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Popular Culture, BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Literary Figures, Biography: literary, Society & culture: general, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Feminism & Feminist Theory, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Women in Politics, Biography: arts & entertainment, Politics & government, Feminism & feminist theory, Gender studies: women