Women's Writing in Western Europe: Gender, Generation and Legacy by Adalgisa Giorgio, Julia Waters

Abstract

MLR, 104.1, 2009 149 Manson:AmericanIcon'(Stephen Perrin). A lesscontroversial andmorediscursive workshopconsiderstheroleof theacademyas a cultural ambassador, withpapers on theimpact ofstudy-abroad programmes (Mark Bernheim),faculty and student exchange programmes (Giovanna Franci),andnewAmericanstudies programmes inEastern Europe (Rodica Mihaila). One workshopbears theprovocative title'What Was Modernism?'. Itspapers offer theoretical perspectives (Jonathan Culler, RonaldBush,AndersonAraujo) as well as practicalreadings of MarianneMoore (PaolaNardi),Mina Loy (Antonella Francini), DerekWalcott (Andrea Molesini), and 'contemporary modernist' Amy Newman (Paola Loreto). But the reader will seek invain for a simple answer to the title question. The lasttwo workshopsare more compact, oneof them considering 'TheImpact ofAfrican AmericanStudies'(Annalucia Accardo onGrace Paley) and theother addressing from a historian's perspective thetimely issueof 'Democracy in Amer icaafter TwoCenturies'. As an indication ofhowAmbassadorsoftensucceedsin surprising thereader, thelatter workshopcontains a paper inItalian byFerdinando Fasce,ominously entitled'Esportare lademocrazia?', which,however, turns out to be devoted to an important radio show of the 1950S, America's Town Meeting of the Air,a programme thatfostered faith inUS democracy bystimulating exchange. Fasce'spaperconcludes withananecdote aboutanoccasion when the Americansin volved with theradioshowfound that they couldnotdinetogether ina Washington hotel,someofthem beingblack.Fascequotesfrom a report: InEurope,the MiddleEast,in Asia and Africathetwenty-six Americans couldassociate together incomplete democracy-in Washington they couldnot. Onewonders whatthe episode willdo totherecently renewed faith in US democracy whichthe Town Meeting party created. One can only hope that along with the news of discrimination by the Hotel Carlton will travel the fact that rightacross the street theStatlerHotel served the party promptly andcourteously. (p.509). CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OFMILAN FRANCESco ROGNONI Women's Writing inWestern Europe: Gender, Generation and Legacy. Ed. by ADAL GISA GIORGIoand JULIA WATERS. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2007. xi+463 pp. ?44.99. ISBN 978-1-84718-165-7. In a lecture givenat the University of Warwickon 16 June 2007,entitled'Wanted Dead orAlive:LocatingContemporary Women'sWriting', Mary Eagletondrew attention tothefactthat while thecategory of 'Women's Writing'seemstobe dying inbookshop managementand academicpublishing, and inconsciousopposition to the'death of theauthor'proclaimed byRolandBarthesand embraced bypost structuralist thought, individual womenwritersarevery much aliveandpromoted bycritics and reviewers. Thisvolume-collectingtwenty-seven papersdelivered ata conference held in2005-is testimony totheimportant workstill beingcarried out onwomenwriters as a field ofenquiryinliterary studies. Itsaim isto 'draw compar isonsandcontrasts between different generations of writers andcritics andbetween 150 Reviews different countries, and toexamine howwomen's literary production has responded tothesocio-political anddemographic changesthat have shapedan ever-evolving Europe' (p. 1). In the wake of literary-critical feminist projectsandothertheoreti callyinformed work,the volumeposesquestionsconcerning contemporary women writers'relationship with their female predecessors asevidencedinthetexts, aswell as their self-identity aswriters'of a truly international women'sculture acrossever more fluid national borders'(p.xi),who repeatedly distancethemselves from a now established line of women's writing andabodyoffeminist criticism outsidethetexts. Afterintroducing thevolume'skey areas of commonconcern-'gender', 'ge neration', and 'legacy'-theeditors definetheseterms. The chapters fromthefirst section cover Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis (Nancy K.Miller);Colette'slegacy(Diana Holmes); parodyandpasticheinthereworkings ofaGerman feminist text byIrm traud Morgner (Lyn Marven); foremothers inItalian women's fiction of thel990S (ClaudiaBernardi);PascaleRoze's explicit acknowledgement ofdebtto Marguerite Duras (Julia Waters); feminist reinterpretations ofcanonicalBritishtexts bymale authors(Monica Germania); howexplicit disavowal ofdebttofemale precursors and disconnection from politicsarecontradicted bytextual evidencein worksbyJudith Hermann,SarahKirsch,andChrista Wolf (ClaudiaGremler)and in thenew ge neration ofFrench womenwriters(Shirley Jordan); ElsaMorante's legacy(Adalgisa Giorgio). The first four chapters whichmake up thesecondsectionreinvestigate thecen trality of the mother figure in feminist theories and inwomen'swriting. Maggie Humm examinestheintertextual influence ofVirginia Woolf on SimonedeBeau voir. Heather Ingman applies French feminist theories of thematernal to three contemporary Irishnovelsbywomen.NicolettaDi Ciolla investigates female sub jectivity incrimefiction by Italian womenwriters, andElianaMaestri showshow Irigaray's theories of the maternal influenced theItalian Diotima group'snotion of 'female realism', and how this in turn informs the representation of themother in the Italian translation of works by A. S. Byatt. The texts covered in the sub sequentthree chapters-which bypassthevexed mother-daughter relationship in favour ofa re-evaluation ofthefather figure-areconcerned with therepresentation of illegitimate daughters intwentieth-century Portugueseliterature (ClaudiaPazos Alonso); maternal and paternal paradigms in Sibilla Aleramo and Dacia Maraini (UrsulaFanning);and intertextual links betweenJulia Kristeva'sTalesofLoveand Nadia Fusini'sI voltidell'amore (Elena Minelli). The remaining chapters fromthis sectionfocus on the grandmother as analternative modelof intergenerational influ ence:Claudia Capancioni explorestheinfluence of...