Determined Women: Studies in the Construction of the Female Subject, 1900–90 PDF
Preview Determined Women: Studies in the Construction of the Female Subject, 1900–90
DETERMINED WOMEN Also published by Jennifer Birkett SAMUEL BECKETT: Waiting for Godot THE BODY AND THE DREAM: French Erotic Fiction, 1464-1900 THE SINS OF THE FATHERS: Decadence in France and Europe, 1870-1914 Determined Women Studies in the Construction of the Female Subject, 1900-90 Edited and introduced by JENNIFER BIRKETT Professor of French Studies, University of Strathclyde and ELIZABETH HARVEY Lecturer in German, University of Salford M MACMILLAN Editorial matter and selection © Jennifer Birkett and Elizabeth Harvey 1991 Chapter 4 ©Stan Smith 1991; Chapter 5 ©Coral Ann Howells 1991; Chapter 7 ©Patricia Harbord 1991; Chapter 8 ©Robin Adamson 1991; Chapter 9 ©Helga Geyer-Ryan 1991. All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 33-4 Alfred Place, London WClE 7DP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. First edition 1991 Published by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Determined women: studies in the construction of the female subject, 19~90 1. Literature. Women writers. Special themes: Women - Critical studies I. Birkett, Jennifer II. Harvey, Elizabeth 809'.89287 ISBN 978-0-333-44839-7 ISBN 978-1-349-21292-7 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-21292-7 Contents Acknowledgements vii Notes on the Contributors ix 1 Introduction 1 Jennifer Birkett and Elizabeth Harvey 2 Private Fantasy and Public Intervention: Girls' Reading in Weimar Germany 38 Elizabeth Harvey 3 Doubly Determined: the Ambition of Storm Jameson 68 Jennifer Birkett 4 The Negative of a Person: Media, Image and Authenticity in Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar 95 Stan Smith 5 A Question of Inheritance: Canadian Women's Short Stories 108 Coral Ann Howells 6 Whistling like a Woman: the Novels of Alice Walker 121 Jennifer Birkett 7 Beyond Paper Heroines: Maxie Wander's Guten Morgen, du SchOne and its reception in the GDR 146 Patricia Harbord VI Contents 8 Sexism in French: a Case Study 173 Robin Adamson 9 The Castration of Cassandra 195 Helga Geyer-Ryan Index 208 Acknowledgements Robin Adamson wishes to thank the Scottish Universities French Language Research Association for the grant she received for travel to Paris for research on her chapter. Jennifer Birkett wishes to acknowledge the kind assistance of the British Academy in financing the research for her chapters. Elizabeth Harvey would like to thank the Research Committee of the University of Salford for assistance with research expenses. Coral Ann Howells wishes to thank the British Association for Canadian Studies and the Research Board of the University of Reading for financial assistance in her research. Notes on the Contributors Robin Adamson is Lecturer in French and Director of the Language Unit at the University of Dundee. Her research has focused on computer-assisted stylistics and advanced language learning. She contributed to and edited Le Franr;ais en faculte (2nd edn, 1986) and En fin de compte ... (1988). Jennifer Birkett is Professor of French Studies at the University of Strathclyde and Convenor of the M.Litt. in Women's Studies. Her publications include The Body and the Dream: French Erotic Fiction 1464-1900 (1983), The Sins of the Fathers: Decadence in France and Europe 1870-1914 (1986) and Samuel Beckett: 'Waiting for Godot' (1987). She has also written essays and articles on English, American and French women writers and she is currently preparing a book on Sexuality, Politics and Fiction in the French Revolution and complet ing (in collaboration with James Kearns) The Macmillan Guide to French Literature. Helga Geyer-Ryan is Associate Professor in Comparative Literature at the University of Amsterdam and has taught German literature at the Universities of Geneva and Cambridge. She has published widely on literature and feminism, popular culture and literary theory, and her major publications include Der andere Roman: Versuch uber die verdriingte Asthetik des Populiiren (1983), Popular Literature in the Third Reich (1980), Literary Theory Today (co editor, with Peter Collier) (1990) and Fables of Desire: Essays in Feminist Criticism (forthcoming, 1991). Patricia Harbord lives in Edinburgh. She has translated articles by West German feminists and has published an interview with the film maker Jutta Bruckner. She has written on the representation of femininity in the work of several East German women writers. X Notes on the Contributors Elizabeth Harvey is Lecturer in German at the University of Salford. Her publications include a study of youth welfare in Weimar Ger many and articles on youth unemployment during the Depression. She is currently preparing a book on Youth and the State in Weimar Germany. Coral Ann Howells lectures in English at the University of Reading, where she teaches courses on British fiction and Canadian women's fiction. Her publications include Private and Fictional Words: Canad ian Women Novelists of the i970s and 80s (1987), Love, Mystery and Misery: Feeling in Gothic Fiction (1978) and essays on Ann Radcliffe, George Eliot, Margaret Laurence, Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro, Audrey Thomas and Marian Engel. She is currently completing a book on Jean Rhys, to be followed by one on Margaret Atwood. Stan Smith is Professor of English at the University of Dundee. He has published widely on modern literature, and his books include A Sadly Contracted Hero: The Comic Self in Post-War American Fiction (1981), inviolable Voice: History and Twentieth-Century Poetry (1982), W. H. Auden (1985), Edward Thomas (1986) and W. B. Yeats: A Critical introduction (1990). He co-edits the Longman Critical Reader series, with Raman Selden.
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