“The Great Djuna:” Two Decades of Barnes Studies, 1993–2013

Abstract

AbstractFrom virtual oblivion, to queer feminist rebel, to significant author of the early twentieth century, Djuna Barnes has begun to be regarded an integral figure in studies of modernist literary history. Her work requires a particular attention to “high” and “low” material culture, style and form, and offers productive challenges to (among other things) genre, narratives of trauma, sexual and racial constructions of identity, exilic and transnational subjects. As students and scholars come to the author through recent critical work attuned to her modernist literary and artistic practices, it is important to take stock of this growing field. Intended as an introductory guide focused on three waves of scholarship since 1993, this article maps the key pioneering and influential critical voices, issues and directions that have illuminated Barnes studies over the past twenty years. “The great Djuna,” as one critic called her, is a moniker finally shedding its outdated irony.