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Feminist Literary Criticism

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17 · Feminist Literary Criticism

Books

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01

Books · Feb 2022

Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again: Women and Desire in the Age of Consent

Katherine Angel

A provocative examination of women's sexuality, desire, and agency in the contemporary era of affirmative consent. Angel challenges simplistic narratives about sexual empowerment and explores the complex relationship between consent, desire, and female sexual autonomy in the wake of #MeToo.

02

Books · Oct 2019

The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction

Ursula K. Le Guin

Ursula K. Le Guin retells technological origins through the container rather than the weapon and imagines fiction as a bag holding people, relations, and ordinary continuance against linear progress and heroic conquest.

03

Books · Oct 2017

Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny

Kate Manne

A groundbreaking philosophical analysis that redefines misogyny not as hatred of women, but as a system designed to police and punish women who challenge patriarchal norms. Manne provides a rigorous framework for understanding how misogyny functions as the enforcement branch of patriarchy.

04

Books · Aug 2014

Bad Feminist

Roxane Gay

A collection of essays that explores the complexities of contemporary feminism with humor and honesty, acknowledging that feminists can be contradictory and imperfect.

05

Books · Apr 2014

Men Explain Things to Me

Rebecca Solnit

A modern feminist classic that deeply explores the phenomenon of 'mansplaining' and its impact on women. Solnit's sharp writing reveals gender power relations in everyday life, providing important perspectives for understanding contemporary women's circumstances.

06

Books · Jan 1983

In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens

Alice Walker

A collection of essays, speeches, and reviews spanning 20 years by Pulitzer Prize winner Alice Walker, focusing on the intersection of personal and political, from civil rights movement to anti-nuclear sentiment, from literary criticism to personal reflections of Black women, mothers, and feminists. Called 'womanist prose' by the author, it provides profound perspectives for understanding late 20th-century feminism.

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01

Papers · Dec 2000

But the empress has no clothes! Some awkward questions about the 'missing revolution' in feminist theory

Liz Stanley & Sue Wise

This provocative 2000 article challenges the state of contemporary feminist theory, arguing that while feminist epistemology, methodology and ethics have undergone revolutionary transformation, feminist theory remains trapped within parallel structures to mainstream/malestream social theory. Stanley and Wise call for a fundamental feminist autocritique and the development of feminist metatheory.

02

Papers · Dec 2000

Feminist Epistemology and Value

Alison Assiter

This 2000 article by Alison Assiter develops a distinctive approach to feminist epistemology centered on the concepts of 'emancipatory values' and 'epistemic communities.' Assiter argues that knowledge production is fundamentally shaped by the values of the communities in which it occurs, and that feminist epistemology should focus on creating communities whose values promote emancipation rather than oppression. The paper offers a modernist feminist epistemology that is collective rather than individualist, value-centered rather than value-neutral.

03

Papers · Aug 2000

Being reasonable, telling stories

Rita Felski

This essay explores the relationship between rational argumentation and narrative knowledge in feminist theory, questioning traditional oppositions between theory and story, abstract and concrete, argument and narration. Felski argues that narrative is not the opposite of rationality but an important mode of feminist knowledge production, and the two should be seen as complementary rather than opposed.

04

Papers · Aug 2000

Thinking Through Breasts: Writing Maternity

Alison Bartlett

A groundbreaking exploration of how maternal embodiment, particularly breastfeeding, transforms academic writing and knowledge production. Bartlett develops an 'epistemology of breasts' that challenges traditional boundaries between personal experience and scholarly practice.

05

Papers · Aug 2000

Writing trash: Truth and the sexual outlaw's reinvention of lesbian identity

Kathleen Kennedy

This essay analyzes Dorothy Allison's short story collection 'Trash' to explore how 'sexual outlaws' use truth discourse to establish legitimate subject positions within lesbian feminism. Kennedy examines how sexually radical lesbians challenge cultural feminism's normative definitions of lesbian identity and the complex intersections of class, sexuality, and truth.

06

Papers · Jan 1975

The Laugh of the Medusa

Le Rire de la MéduseHélène Cixous

This groundbreaking 1975 essay introduces the concept of 'écriture féminine' (feminine writing), calling for women to reclaim their bodies and desires through writing. Cixous reinterprets the myth of Medusa, transforming her from a monstrous figure into a symbol of feminine power and creativity, challenging patriarchal language systems and advocating for the revolutionary potential of women's writing.