Literature and the Development of Feminist Theory

Literature and the Development of Feminist Theory offers an insightful look at the development of feminist theory through a literary lens. Stressing the significance of feminism's origins in the European Enlightenment, this book traces the literary careers of feminism's major thinkers in order to elucidate the connection of feminist theoretical production to literary work. In addition to considering such well-known authors as Mary Wollstonecraft, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Simone de Beauvoir and Hélène Cixous, this book also reflects on the lasting influence of postcolonialism, liberalism, and specific genres such as science fiction and modernist poetry. Written by leading scholars and focusing on the literary trajectories of feminism's noted contributors, Literature and the Development of Feminist Theory ultimately provides a new perspective on feminism's theoretical context, bringing into view the effects of literary form on the growth of feminist thought.

1. Introduction Robin Truth Goodman; 2. 'Original spirit': literary translations and transnational literature in the works of Mary Wollstonecraft Laura Kirley; 3. Jane Eyre, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, and the varieties of nineteenth-century feminism Margaret Homans; 4. Progressive portraits: literature in feminisms of Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Olive Schreiner Judith A. Allen; 5. Feminist poetics: first-wave feminism, theory, and modernist women poets Linda Kinnahan; 6. Woolf and women's work: literary invention in an obscure hat factory Robin Truth Goodman; 7. Walking in a man's world: myth, literature, and the interpretation of Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex Ashley King Scheu; 8. Decapitation impossible: the hundred heads of Julia Kristeva Maria Margaroni; 9. Shattering the gender walls: Monique Wittig's contribution to literature Dominique Bourque; 10. Hélène Cixous: writing for her life Peggy Kamuf; 11. Subversive creatures from behind the Iron Curtain: Irmtraud Morgner's The Life and Adventures of Trobodora Beatrice as Chronicled by her Minstrel Laura Sonja E. Klocke; 12. Christa Wolf: literature as an aesthetics of resistance Anna K. Kuhn; 13. Naked came the female extraterrestrial stranger: applying Linda M. Scott's Fresh Lipstick to Sue Lange's The Textile Planet Marleen S. Barr; 14. Captive maternal love: Octavia Butler and science fiction family values Joy James; 15. More than theatre: Cherrie Moraga's The Hungry Woman and the feminist phenomenology of excess Lakey; 16. Nawal el Saadawi: writer and revolutionary Miriam Cooke; 17. 'The woman who said 'no'': colonialism, Islam, and feminist resistance in the works of Assia Djebar Jane Hiddleston.

Robin Truth Goodman is Professor of English at Florida State University. Her previous books include Gender Work: Feminism after Neoliberalism, Feminist Theory in Pursuit of the Public: Women and the 'Re-privatization' of Labor and Policing Narratives and the State of Terror. She has also contributed to such journals as College Literature, Philosophy Today, Contemporary Literature, Symploke and Conradiana.