French Feminist Research Articles

The Sexual Politics of The Election: French Feminism and the Scottish Playwright Joanna Baillie

Intertexts, Vol. 2, No. 2, 1998 The Sexual Politics of The Election: French Feminism and the Scottish Playwright Joanna Baillie Marjean D. Purinton T e x a s T e c h U n i v e r s i t y While French Feminism and Joanna Baillie may seem to be strangers, Baillie was no stranger as aplaywright to early nineteenth-century Britain. Theauthorof26plays,Bailliewasfrom1798-1851themostrespected andmostimportantplaywrightinBritain,eventhoughonlysevenofher playswereperformedduringherlifetime.^Bytheendofthenineteenth century,Baillie’splayshadfallenoutofcirculation,andithasonlybeen during the last decade that we have seen arevival of interest in Baillie largelyasapartofrecentscholarlyprojectsengagedintherecoveryof women’swritingsfromthenineteenthcenturyandtherecuperationofRo¬ mantic drama as aserious genre. TheElectionappearsinBaillie’ssecondseriesofThePlaysonthePas¬ sions (1802), and in the Preface to the volume, Baillie indicates that it was toserveas^ecomiccounterparttoDeMonfort,atragedyfromthe1798 volume.^ The dramas were companion pieces on the passion of hatred, an herPrefacetothefirstvolumeclearlyidentifies“passions”asanindividual¬ izedandacollectivesitewherepsychologicalaswellassocialconditions wereplayedout.^Elsewhere,1havearguedthatthetragediesinthe1798 volumeengageissuesdebatedbytheBritish“feminist”polemicsofthe early 1790’s.^ The “revolution in female manners” evoked in prose by writ¬ erslikeMaryWollstonecraft,MaryHays,CatherineMacaulay,PrisciUa Wakefield, Hannah More, Clara Reeve, Mary Robinson, Elizabeth Han^ton ,andMariaEdgeworthappearsaslatentcontentinBaillie’sDeMonfort and Count BasilJ’ Rather than situate Baillie’s comedy within the context of its contemporaneous British polemics, Iwill, in this paper, draw upon postmodern French feminism to dislodge the subversive latent content of a playwrittenbyaScottishplaywrightin1802whichcontributedtothecul¬ turaldiscoursesconcernedwithclassandgenderfollowingtheFrench R e v o l u t i o n . The plot of The Election involves acontest between Squire Baltimore and Freeman for the parliamentary seat of Westown, asmall town in Northern England (hence the title of the play. The Election). The aristo¬ cratic, country gentleman Baltimore has fallen into arrears. He and his wife Isabella have no children in whom the familial lineage can be transmitted, andhiscousinCharlesisanidle,youngmanwhosespendingcontributesto 1 1 9 '1 1 2 0 I N T E R T E X T S the estate’s debts. Baltimore’s political and social dissolution is made more painful by the rapidly rising Freeman family. Freeman has acquired alarge fortune from his clothing industry, and the Freemans’ daughter Charlotte embodies bourgeois hopes of generational transference of their newly ac¬ quired economic empowerment. Fighting to retain his parliamentary seat, Baltimore is angered by changing social values and capricious electorates. He and Freeman have become bitter rivals, and his competitive spirit cloudshisperspectivesaboutanymatterinwhichtheFreemansplayapart. For example, he finds the mere sight of Charlotte offensive, and he be¬ comes jealous of the camaraderie that Isabella and Charlotte share. He is convinced by rumors that Freeman has engaged in corrupt and dishonest electioneering: paying Baltimore’s principal creditors for their votes. It Mrs. Freeman who has, in fact, arranged to buy off the election in order to effect her private revenge for what she believes is Isabella’s intrusion into Charlotte’s education as alady. Baltimore is willing to throw away the last of his ruined fortune on the contested election, for the solution to his eco¬ nomic woes ensures Freeman’s victory. Bathos follows pathos. In atwist of fate. Freeman accidently falls into a deep pond and is saved by Baltimore. Baltimore, however, resists any form of gratitude from Freeman and allows himself to be taken by his creditors the common prison. Baltimore’s fnend Tmebridge believes that from his prison cell, Baltimore can win enough sympathy votes to defeat Freeni ^. Upon the advice of their attorneys, Baltimore and Freeman detern ^etoresolvetheirdisputewithaduel.Pistolsaredrawn,butbeforethey arefired,TmebridgeannouncesthatIsabella’sgreatunclehaspaidBalti¬ more’s debts and that Baltimore and Freeman are acmally half-brothers. This deus ex machina effects comic restoration and social stability. Inmanyways,Baillie’scomedyispredictableinitsapplicationoflate eighteenth-centurygenericconventions.Theplotisdecidedlymasculimst public authority is disputed by contests of power. There must be winners and losers. Egocentric pride and control, logo-centric reputation and name,phallo-centricstatusandfamilyareallatstake.Wemightask,whatis BaiUieuptoinsuchaplay?WhatcanFrenchfeminismpossiblyyieldfroma play so seemingly masculinist? Isuggest that it is in the play’s presentation of the ideological constraints of class and family, in their public and domes¬ tic venues, that it is unconventional and radical. The Election works against tile prevailing phallocentric system of the early nineteenth century—a sys¬ tem that relegates women to the margin, to the domestic sphere, asystem that dismisses them as “unstable,” asystem that objectifies them by deny¬ ing female desire. And in order to discover these disruptions in an appar¬ ently masculinist drama, we have to seek the feminism lodged in the mar...

Made in America: "French Feminism" in Academia

Made in America: "French Feminism" in Academia

Nature and the ‘cultural turn’ in human geography

In international human geography one of the most interesting developments in recent years has come from the so-called cultural turn and ‘new’ cultural geography. This article deals with the conceptualization of culture within ‘old’ and ‘new’ cultural geography. It will show that the recent reinterpretation of culture also concerns conceptualizations of nature. What is striking here is that in the process from ‘old’ to ‘new’ cultural geography, the culture-nature relationship has been lost in favour of a society-space relationship. This is the starting point for a critique of conceptualizations of culture from a feminist perspective. The article concludes that an integration of the cultural turn with feminist perspectives (French feminism and environmental feminism) will create a more fruitful approach to the conceptualization of both culture and nature, which is at the core of human geography.

Translation and Gender: Interconnections

This paper examines the gender bias present in texts and discusses interconnections between translation and feminism in revising metaphor, myth and history, in rereading ‘patriarchal’ translations, in bridging the gap between French feminism and Anglo-American feminism, and in devising a feminist translation theory.

Introduction

I n t r o d u c t i o n Hafid Gafai'ti, Paul Allen Miller, and Sharon Diane Nell The essays gathered in this volume all originated as papers given at the Thirtieth Annual Texas Tech Comparative Literature Symposium, “French Feminism Across the Disciplines,” January 30-February 1, 1997. Our ex¬ press piupose in organizing this conference was to examine French Femi¬ nism as atransdisciplinary force in the academy. The organizers saw the dis¬ courses of Cixous, Irigaray, Kristeva, and others not merely as tools that couldbeappliedinavarietyofdisciplinarycontexts,butasmodelsofakind of discourse that seeks to explode the very rigid, categorical thinking that makes the concept of “the disciplines” thinkable. Cixous,forexample,doesnotsimplyinviteustothinkaboutAeschy¬ lusandJoycetogether,butsheinsiststhattheonecannotbethoughtwith¬ out the other, and that their mutual implication elucidates something aboutthenatureofakindofpoeticwritingthatmustbegenderedasfemi¬ nineevenwhenpracticedbymen.Suchaninsightnotonlyspeaksabout thenatureofliteratureandsexualpolitics,butitsveryinsistenceonthear¬ bitrarinessofthegenderedsignforcesustoreconsidertheideologic^and politicalramificationsofapost-Saussurianworldinwhichthefluidityof thesignifierrevealsarealmofpoweranddesirethateludesconsciousar¬ ticulation. Thus Cixous demands that we think literature, lingmstics, poli¬ tics,andpsychoanalysistogether,notsimplythatweapplytheinsightsof onerealmtothoseofanother.Thephallicworldofhardandfesthierarchi¬ cal divisions has no place in this mode of thought. Likewise when Irigaray takes Lacan to task for ignoring history, uses Marx to read women’s status as commodities, and argues that women are subject to the laws of exchange first articulated by Levi-Strauss, where do history,economics,anthropology,andpsychoanalysisendandpoliticsbe¬ gin?Whenshecouchesherwork,moreover,withinacritiqueofphallocentricthoughtfromPlato ’smythofthecavetoHegel’smaster-slavedialectic, and when she demonstrates that the history of western philosophical speculation is founded on ametaphorics that degrades the feminine object andhypostatizesthephallicsubject,inwhatsenseareepistemology,meta¬ physics,andethicsstillmeaningfulasseparateentities?Arenottheseintel¬ lectual divisions of labor ultimately founded on aprivileging of mind over bodyandsubjectoverobjectthatisalwaysenvisionedastheerectionofthe masculine over the feminine? Still, the intermingling of the various modes of inquiry in Irigaray’s work is not to be envisioned as ahostile invasion or violent penetration. Irigaray in no way calls for the rape of the academy. 9 9 I N T E R T E X T S 1 0 0 Rather what she envisions is an envelopment and afluid mechamcs in which all identities, and hence categories of thinking, are provisional and p o r o u s . Kristeva’sthoughtisinsomewaysmoreconventional.Sheadheresto Symbolicnormsandtherulesofdiscoursemorecloselythanhercompatri¬ ots.Shesensesadangerofloomingpsychosisifallstructuresofidentityarc precipitously abandoned. But she supports the reified consciousness im¬ plicitinthestructureofthetraditionalacademicdisciplinesnomorethan CixousandIrigaray.Herworkfromthebeginninghasforegroundedarig¬ orous yet radical fusion of psychoanalysis, linguistics, formal logic, political analysis,literarycriticism,andhistory.Inmorerecentyears,shehasjoined aprofound and almost spiritual meditation on the nature of motherhood, melancholy,andromanticlovetothemorepurelytheoreticalaspectsofher earlywork.Kristeva’stextsmaynotoverturnorsubverttheSymboheper se,butsheradicallycallsintoquestionitsrigidlyforeordained The papers gathered together in the present volume reflect the vibrant VMety and joyful heterogeneity that characterizes French feminist thought.Thepapersthemselvescoverhistoricalperiodsfromthefour¬ teenthtothelatetwentiethcentury.Thetopicsexaminedrangefrom dievalmysticismtothedramaturgyofJoannaBaillieandthepoetryofWalt Wlutman, and from the ethics of psychoanalysis to the linguistics of Knstevascriticaldiscourseanalysis .Intheprocess,Frenchfeminismanditsin¬ sightsarenotodyappliedbutinterrogated.Wearemadetoseethateach ^cannot stand in isolation from the other (or Other). The female mystic, the male homoerotic poet, the psychoanalyst, and the hnguist are all shown to be mutually implicated in webs of language, desire, and power that are both gendered and in excess of any gendered category. jDur first paper, Sharon Hackett’s essay, “Looking into the Mystic Mir¬ ror,” compares the vnitings of Julian of Norwich and Luce Irigaray. These two women writers are separated in time by six centuries, but they bear a deepkinshipwi^oneanotherintheircommonsubversionofpatriarchy’s restrictive defimtions of the feminine. Hackett first provides ahistorical contextualization of the medieval anchorite’s celebration of woman. In general, medeval writers saw the flesh and the feminine as sinful and dan¬ gerous; virginity, denying the body, was seen as one of the few sure paths whereby woman could win redemption. From her womb-like cell at the heart of the church, Julian recounts her visions of the bleeding Christ, her desiretomanifestphysicallythemarksofChrist’spassion,andherimageof Christ as the bodily mother who gives birth and nourishment to her chil¬ dren. This recasting of Christ’s role into the feminine, and the consequent valorization of the female body it entails, set this nun’s writings apart from the medieval tradition. Hackett then turns her attention to the analogous way in which Irigaray subversively revalorizes images and symbols associ¬ ated with the feminine. Not only does Irigaray’s essay, “La mysterique,” bestow apositive value on feminine mysticism, it also offers the body of the s t r u c t u r e . m e - Gafaiti, Miller, and Nell—Introduction 1 0 1 mother as an empowering mirror, aplace for woman’s subjectivity to be concentrated and to flourish...

Only Paradoxes to Offer: French Feminists and the Rights of Man, by Joan Wallach Scott

Only Paradoxes to Offer: French Feminists and the Rights of Man, by Joan Wallach Scott

“France Needs Children”: Pronatalism, Nationalism and Women's Equity

This article examines debates and discussions surrounding French pronatalist policies enacted in the 1980s. Drawing on data collected from a wide range of primary and secondary sources, including daily newspapers, parliamentary debates, and French feminist publications, I explore the following questions: First, does pronatalism spring from conservative nationalist ideologies that conflict with feminist projects? Second, how have French feminists reacted to the pronatalist agenda? Finally, could women's equity serve as an impetus for instituting policies that would encourage births? My analysis suggests that nationalism in France takes many forms, and a wide spectrum of political actors from both the political left and right have supported pronatalist initiatives in the name of “the nation.”

The Linguistics of French Feminism: Sémanalyse as Critical Discourse Analysis

The Linguistics of French Feminism: Sémanalyse as Critical Discourse Analysis

Changing the Subject: Mary Wroth and Figurations of Gender in Early Modern England

Lady Mary Wroth (c. 1587-1653) wrote the first sonnet sequence in English by a woman, one of the first plays by a woman, and the first published work of fiction by an Englishwoman. Yet, despite her status as a member of the distinguished Sidney family, Wroth met with disgrace at court for her authorship of a prose romance, which was adjudged an inappropriate endeavor for a woman and was forcibly withdrawn from publication. Only recently has recognition of Wroth's historical and literary importance been signaled by the publication of the first modern edition of her romance, The Countess of Mountgomeries Urania. Naomi Miller offers an illuminating study of this significant early modern woman writer. Using multiple critical/theoretical perspectives, including French feminism, new historicism, and cultural materialism, she examines gender in Wroth's time. Moving beyond the emphasis on victimization that shaped many previous studies, she considers the range of strategies devised by women writers of the period to establish voices for themselves. Where previous critics have viewed Wroth primarily in relation to her male literary predecessors in the Sidney family, Miller explores Wroth's engagement with a variety of discourses, reading her in relation to a broad range of English and continental authors, both male and female, from Sidney, Spenser, and Shakespeare to Aemilia Lanier, Elizabeth Cary, and Marguerite de Navarre. She also contextualizes Wroth's writing in relation to a variety of nonliterary texts of the period, both political and domestic. Thanks to Miller's sensitive readings, Wroth's writings provide a lens through which to view gender relations in the early modern period.

Introduction

In February 1997 a conference entitled ‘Women give voice to women’ brought together scholars from Britain, Europe and the USA to investigate the relationship between feminist theory and practice on the French stage. The starting point for our discussions was to determine how far French women playwrights of the last thirty years have contributed to remoulding what Marcelle Marini referred to as the ‘socio-symbolic space’. We wanted to explore what was new, in theatrical, political and social terms, in the large number of plays and productions by women during this period. A second question was: how useful is French feminist theory as an aid to the illumination of this work?

Postmodernism -- Local Effects, Global Flows (review)

Reviewed by: Postmodernism—Local Effects, Global Flows Theron Britt Vincent B. Leitch. Postmodernism—Local Effects, Global Flows. Albany: SUNY P, 1996. xiii + 195 pp. There is a specter haunting postmodernism, and in Postmodernism—Local Effects, Global Flows, Vince Leitch makes it visible with remarkable clarity. Threading his way through the critical borderland where universal suspicion meets cultural studies, Leitch’s lucid analysis takes the reader into the labyrinth of postmodernism’s rigorous suspicion of all master narratives; but instead of merely documenting suspicion, he has [End Page 1080] the critical acumen to articulate the productive possibilities of postmodernism’s supposedly “corrosive cultural moment.” In “Poststructuralism Disseminated,” the first of two sections, Leitch rounds up the usual poststructuralist suspects to make a convincing case that postmodernism is in effect poststructuralism writ large at the level of culture. Indeed, a key aspect of this section and all of the readings in Postmodernism is the proposition that poststructuralism is neither ahistorical nor apolitical (as has often been charged), but strategically necessary for understanding and, more importantly, for intervening in institutional networks of knowledge and power. Using Barthes, Derrida, Baudrillard, Miller, Gilbert and Gubar and others, his analysis in this section explores a wide variety of poststructuralist approaches that, to a greater or lesser degree, link the strategies of poststructuralist textual analysis, not to the demonstration of aporias in meaning but to the constructions of history, culture, and political economy. Not everyone comes off well here. J. Hillis Miller’s brand of deconstruction comes in for considerable criticism as promoting, in spite of itself, a “heroic conservatism” that ultimately ignores the ideology of gender, class, and race. Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar (“GG”) get criticized as “pragmatists and institutional players” who utilize French feminism, yet end up requiring “an integrated perspective, a grand narrative, a unified front” of ersatz feminist unity. Barthes, Baudrillard, and Derrida receive informed and detailed criticism as well, though Derrida gets a finally supportive treatment, for his work is crucial for understanding the move “from text to textual system as historically constructed.” Leitch acknowledges Derrida’s own tireless efforts to situate institutions as well as texts within political and historical networks of meaning that constitute and regulate social life. Perhaps the specter that shimmers behind this section of Postmodernism is that much of contemporary cultural studies owes an unacknowledged debt to, or is in some cases uncomfortably haunted by, the strategies of poststructuralism. In his second section, “Postmodernism Pluralized,” Leitch moves from poststructuralist theory to cultural history, taking up the question of postmodernism’s critical potential. Here his analysis ranges widely but remains focused on the social and political: the Finnish poet Pentti Saarikoski figures as an exemplary postmodernist whose work leaves [End Page 1081] aside the refined and distanced seriousness of modernism for the “engaged body tangled in a heterogeneous social field”; the plate paintings of Julian Schnabel serve, in part, as a way into a critical discussion of the problem of pastiche; and pastiche leads into Leitch’s cultural histories of Linda Hutcheon and Fredric Jameson. At this juncture, Leitch defends the notion of pastiche from those who see it as “history at a hollow third remove,” seeing instead that “to deplore postmodern pastiche wholesale is to risk reinvigorating dubious principles of decorum and . . . to indulge in nostalgia for a lost authenticity.” In a similar vein, his critique of Jameson’s “ambivalence” produces a nuanced engagement of Jameson’s methodological gestures—e.g., cognitive mapping—as a way of framing as postmodern Jameson’s apparently totalizing insistence on global systems. Throughout this section, which also includes a section on postmodern pedagogy as examined by Aronowitz and Giroux and a final meditation on political economy, Leitch argues convincingly for the critical power within postmodernism. Yet all through Postmodernism Leitch weaves in an awareness that the critical power of postmodern art and criticism has a spectral presence hovering in the background. The problem that postmodern discourses embody is that they explicitly attempt to resist or denounce totalization of all kinds, but at the same time they speak most often in the name of the values of a leftist/liberal cultural politics. These implied values, liberal or not, produce a problem...

More than Paradoxes to Offer: Feminist History as Critical Practice

Book reviewed in this article: Only Paradoxes to Offer: French Feminists and the Rights of Man By Joan Wallach Scott

Feminism and the Third Republic: Women's Political and Civil Rights in France, 1918-1945.

Why did women in France not win the right to vote until 1945, three-quarters of a century after universal male suffrage had been established? The 1789 Declaration des Droits de l'Homme et du Citoyen had aspired to provide the French people with lasting guarantees of their political and civil rights, whilst the constitutional laws of the Third Republic, established in the 1870s, consolidated a regime based on universal suffrage. For the unenfranchised women of France, however, civil rights had barely advanced since the Napoleonic code in 1904. Frenchwomen were not second-class citizens - they were not citizens at all, although this did not prevent Republicans from demanding sacrifices from women. In this fascinating and ground-breaking study, Paul Smith assesses why Frenchwomen were repeatedly refused the rights of citizenship, while their sisters elsewhere were gradually beginning to enjoy those rights. He examines how feminists in France set about staking a claim for the rights of all women to the vote, to their property, and to their bodies, and how they responded to republican and Catholic discourses on gender roles in the 1920s and 1930s. Finally, he analyses the political relationships established by French feminists in order to achieve their goal.

"Much more is at stake here . . .": A Response to "The Construction of History"

"Much more is at stake here ... ": A Response to "The Construction of History" Judith P. Zinsser Given the current desire on the part of many historians to question and subsequently reaffirm or reformulate the philosophical foundations of the discipline, it is potentially constructive to have a philosopher assist in the endeavor.1 Martin Bunzl brings special qualifications to this enterprise. He has studied "the nature of explanation" in science and, more recently, similar processes in history.2 Tliis investigation of what he calls Joan Scott's "manifesto for the incorporation of poststructuralist philosophy " is part of a longer work. In Real History, Bunzl examines how one approach to historical explanation, "realism" (which he makes synonymous with "objectivity"), has functioned. Bunzl hopes these carefuUy moderated analyses will act as a bridge between philosophers and historians, that they will make each discipUne understandable to writers of the other. He sees his works as "a translation manual from the language of debates in history to those in philosophy."3 Bunzl also has a more specifically historiographical purpose: to study "the tradition" by which both groups of scholars operate, and, in particular, how historians' "practices" do and do not reflect and support the underlying philosophy of history their authors espouse.4 This third task most directly relates to the essay published here, "The Construction of History." In his commentary on Joan Scott's theoretical and practical work, Bunzl responds to her efforts to formulate and use a new epistemology of history.5 The medievalist, Nancy F. Partner, has suggested that when historians venture into epistemology, they are wise to learn from philosophers, who deal regularly with such abstractions in systematic ways. As a phUosopher, Bunzl takes an uncompromisingly literalist approach. He holds Scott to her words, and analyzes the possible meanings and intentions they imply. In careful, structured prose, he describes the logical consequences for Scott's practice of history using these meanings and intentions . "The Construction of History" deals with Scott's work. Elsewhere, Bunzl has done the same for Joyce Appleby, Lynn Hunt, and Margaret Jacob, as well as for Peter Novick.6 Bunzl acknowledges in his endnotes some of the progression in Scotf s theoretical model.7 To chart the vigorous, active process of debate and refinement that has characterized the evolution of her thought, however, is not his purpose. Instead, he fixes her ideas, her intentions, and the mean- © 1997 Journal of Women's History, Vol. 9 No. 3 (Autumn) 1997 Theoretical Issues: Judith P. Zinsser 133 ing of her words for his philosophical analysis. He hypothesizes that he can analyze her whole body of work from her 1988 collection, Gender and the Politics of History, which gives him Scott writing both theory and practice. Thus, Bunzl tells us that he has all the material he needs to demonstrate what he reasons are inherent contradictions in Scott's epistemology and, by impUcation, in all her writings. By close analysis of a few sentences in Gender and the Politics of History, he shows, for example, that despite her desire to have "meanings" locally contextual, never "fixed," "always potentially in flux," Scott does have common, "recurrent references " across time and place. In fact, he avers that neither the scientist nor the historian could do science or history without common referents, and without "minimal generalization."8 When Bunzl discusses Mary Poovey's efforts as a literary critic to resolve these contradictions, he correctly links Scott's project to "deconstruct" the history of "the category of 'women'" with feminist politics . Not surprisingly, however, he chooses to return to the philosophical, and offers a modestly phrased hope that current "work," Uke Scott's new book Only Paradoxes to Offer: French Feminists and the Rights of Man, may help us "to understand how deconstruction (and more generally poststructuralism) may be reconciled with an interest in historically located experience."9 Perhaps because I am a historian, I would like to follow the alternative path suggested by Bunzl's concluding remarks, namely, the political aspects of this ongoing debate. What Bunzl's abstract analysis leaves aside is the emotional vigor of the exchanges between Scott, her critics, and her defenders. For example, one of Scott's essays has...

Early French feminisms, 1830-1940. a passion for liberty

Early French feminisms, 1830-1940. a passion for liberty

“La Querelle des Femmes” in the Late Twentieth Century

Research Article| July 01 1997 “La Querelle des Femmes” in the Late Twentieth Century Joan Wallach Scott Joan Wallach Scott joan wallach scott is Professor of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study. Her most recent book is Only Paradoxes to Offer: French Feminists and the Rights of Man (Harvard UP, 1996). She is now working on a project on the history of international feminism and is on the editorial board of differences. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google differences (1997) 9 (2): 70–92. https://doi.org/10.1215/10407391-9-2-70 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Joan Wallach Scott; “La Querelle des Femmes” in the Late Twentieth Century. differences 1 July 1997; 9 (2): 70–92. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/10407391-9-2-70 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search Books & JournalsAll Journalsdifferences Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright © 1998 by Brown University and differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies1998 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Only Paradoxes to Offer: French Feminists and the Rights of Man, by Joan Wallach Scott

"Only Paradoxes to Offer: French Feminists and the Rights of Man, by Joan Wallach Scott." Canadian Journal of History, 32(1), pp. 108–109

(Mis)representations: What French feminism isn't

Abstract The recognition of a discipline within the academy necessitates some conformity to pre-established parameters and priorities, such as accepted research methods and the dictates of academic fashion. Hence the paradoxical position of women's studies: it is increasingly at risk of losing touch with the movement to which it owes its existence, and often ends up reinforcing assumptions it purportedly set out to challenge. A striking example of this double problem, in western English-speaking countries, is the academic representation of “French feminism” as synonymous with postmodernism and as almost entirely limited to the work of a few academics whose connection with feminism is at best highly questionable. This is both reductionist and dangerous, as it masks both the diversity of feminist debate and practice in France and the problems of manipulation, disinformation and lack of access to a public forum which plague both French feminists and some areas of English-speaking feminist scholarship.

Changing the Subject: Mary Wroth and Figurations of Gender in Early Modern England

Lady Mary Wroth (c. 1587-1653) wrote the first sonnet sequence in English by a woman, one of the first plays by a woman, and the first published work of fiction by an Englishwoman. Yet, despite her status as a member of the distinguished Sidney family, Wroth met with disgrace at court for her authorship of a prose romance, which was adjudged an inappropriate endeavor for a woman and was forcibly withdrawn from publication. Only recently has recognition of Wroth's historical and literary importance been signaled by the publication of the first modern edition of her romance, The Countess of Mountgomeries Urania . Naomi Miller offers an illuminating study of this significant early modern woman writer. Using multiple critical/theoretical perspectives, including French feminism, new historicism, and cultural materialism, she examines gender in Wroth's time. Moving beyond the emphasis on victimization that shaped many previous studies, she considers the range of strategies devised by women writers of the period to establish voices for themselves. Where previous critics have viewed Wroth primarily in relation to her male literary predecessors in the Sidney family, Miller explores Wroth's engagement with a variety of discourses, reading her in relation to a broad range of English and continental authors, both male and female, from Sidney, Spenser, and Shakespeare to Aemilia Lanyar, Elizabeth Cary, and Marguerite de Navarre. She also contextualizes Wroth's writing in relation to a variety of nonliterary texts of the period, both political and domestic. Thanks to Miller's sensitive readings, Wroth's writings provide a lens through which to view gender relations in the early modern period.

Book Reviews

Scruton, Roger Modern Philosophy: An Introduction and SurveyFraser, Nancy and Bartky, Sandra Lee (eds) Revaluing French Feminisms: Critical Essays on Difference, Agency and CultureFriedman, Marilyn What are Friends For? Feminist Perspectives on Personal Relationships and Moral Theory