Contemporary Women’s Fiction and the Fantastic

Contemporary Women’s Fiction and the Fantastic PDF Author: L. Armitt
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230598994
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
This volume examines a wide variety of the ways in which the fantastic has impacted upon contemporary women's fiction. Some of the issues addressed include: the importance of the cyborg and the spectre to critical and fictional discourses of gender; the interface between the grotesque and contemporary readings of feminist utopianism; the growing similarity between late twentieth-century gothicism and the magical real. The study is based upon the work of fifteen writers and includes novels by Allende, Atwood, Carter, Head, Morrison, Weldon, Winterson and Wittig.

Contemporary Women's Fiction

Contemporary Women's Fiction PDF Author: Subashish Bhattacharjee
Publisher: Anchor Academic Publishing
ISBN: 3960675275
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 71

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Book Description
Women’s writing in the twentieth century has shown a dramatic shift in its preoccupations and intentions. Rather than occupying itself with the trivialities of the social and domestic spheres, the writing by women in the latter half of the twentieth century and approaching the twenty-first century inheres concerns such as political, historical, questions of gender equity and rights, interrogations of normative and patriarchal practices and other such issues that have not been adequately addressed in women’s writing thus far. The four essays in the present volume are certainly not exhaustive or adequate in this regard — that of addressing this lacuna in literary scholarship — but it may be viewed as a attempt to bridge the proverbial gap. As a precursor to further scholarly works in the area, already existing as well as forthcoming, the essays discuss the works of Toni Morrison, Margaret Atwood, Bapsi Sidhwa, Manju Kapur and Sunanda Sikdar. Although the essays purport to exploring select areas of the authors’ oeuvre, the distinctive fictional structures of the authors help us to explore wider theoretical and critical issues such as postmodernity, postcolonialism, feminism, globalism, nationalism and other related issues.

Contemporary Women’s Fiction and the Fantastic

Contemporary Women’s Fiction and the Fantastic PDF Author: L. Armitt
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230598994
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 268

Get Book Here

Book Description
This volume examines a wide variety of the ways in which the fantastic has impacted upon contemporary women's fiction. Some of the issues addressed include: the importance of the cyborg and the spectre to critical and fictional discourses of gender; the interface between the grotesque and contemporary readings of feminist utopianism; the growing similarity between late twentieth-century gothicism and the magical real. The study is based upon the work of fifteen writers and includes novels by Allende, Atwood, Carter, Head, Morrison, Weldon, Winterson and Wittig.

Myth and Fairy Tale in Contemporary Women's Fiction

Myth and Fairy Tale in Contemporary Women's Fiction PDF Author: Susan Sellers
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1403919208
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
Woman as gorgon, woman as temptress: the classical and biblical mythology which has dominated Western thinking defines women in a variety of patriarchally encoded roles. This study addresses the surprising persistence of mythical influence in contemporary fiction. Opening with the question 'what is myth?', the first section provides a wide-ranging review of mythography. It traces how myths have been perceived and interpreted by such commentators as Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Bruno Bettelheim, Roland Barthes, Jack Zipes and Marina Warner. This leads to an examination of the role that mythic narrative plays in social and self formation, drawing on the literary, feminist and psychoanalytic theories of Julia Kristeva, Luce Irigaray, Helene Cixous and Judith Butler to delineate the ways in which women's mythos can transcend the limitations of logos and give rise to potent new models for individual and cultural regeneration. In this light, Susan Sellers offers challenging new readings of a wide range of contemporary women's fiction, including works by A. S. Byatt, Angela Carter, Anne Rice, Michele Roberts, Emma Tennant and Fay Weldon. Topics explored include fairy tale as erotic fiction, new religious writing, vampires and gender-bending, mythic mothers, genre fiction, the still-persuasive paradigm of feminine beauty, and the radical potential of comedy.

Women's Fiction

Women's Fiction PDF Author: Rebecca Vnuk
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1610695380
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
Offering a fresh perspective on women's fiction for a broad reading audience—fans as well as librarians—this book defines and maps the genre, and describes hundreds of relevant titles. Women's Fiction: A Guide to Popular Reading Interests celebrates the books in this broad genre—titles that explore the lives of female protagonists, with a focus on their relationships with family, friends, and lovers. After a brief introductory history and a chapter that defines the characteristics of women's fiction, the author showcases annotations and suggestions of approximately 300 titles by more than 100 authors. She explains how women's fiction differs from romance fiction, enabling readers to appreciate this rich body of literature that encompasses titles as diverse as Meg Cabot's lighthearted chick lit to the more serious novels of Elizabeth Berg and Maeve Binchy. The book identifies some of the most popular and enduring women's fiction authors and titles, and provides invaluable reading lists and readalike suggestions that will be appreciated by both librarians and general readers.

Women's Fiction

Women's Fiction PDF Author: Deborah Philips
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1441150226
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
Now in its second edition and with new chapters covering such texts as Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love and 'yummy mummy' novels such as Allison Pearson's I Don't Know How She Does It, this is a wide-ranging survey of popular women's fiction from 1945 to the present. Examining key trends in popular writing for women in each decade, Women's Fiction offers case study readings of major British and American writers. Through these readings, the book explores how popular texts often neglected by feminist literary criticism have charted the shifting demands, aspirations and expectations of women in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Irigaray, Incarnation and Contemporary Women's Fiction

Irigaray, Incarnation and Contemporary Women's Fiction PDF Author: Abigail Rine
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1780935986
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
Draws on Irigaray's feminist theory to explore how contemporary women writers refigure ideas of the sacred in their fiction.

Contemporary Fiction

Contemporary Fiction PDF Author: Jago Morrison
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780415194563
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
A much-needed introduction to the field of contemporary fiction studies. Introduces key areas of debate and offers in-depth discussions of the most significant texts. An ideal guide for those studying contemporary fiction for the first time.

The Medusa Gaze in Contemporary Women’s Fiction

The Medusa Gaze in Contemporary Women’s Fiction PDF Author: Gillian M. E. Alban
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527502740
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
The Medusa Gaze offers striking insights into the desires and frustrations of women through the narratives of the impressive contemporary novelists Angela Carter, Toni Morrison, Sylvia Plath, Margaret Atwood, A.S. Byatt, Iris Murdoch, Jeanette Winterson, Jean Rhys and Michèle Roberts. It illuminates women’s power and vulnerability as they construct their own egos in opposition to their hostile alter egos or others facing them in their mirrors, and fixes a panoptic gaze on the women stalking its pages, as they learn how to deflect the menacing gaze of others by returning their look defiantly back at them. Some stare back and win assurance; others are stared down, reduced to psychic trauma, madness and even suicide. The book shows how Freud’s, Sartre’s and Lacan’s androcentric views define the Medusa m/other as monstrous, and how the efforts of mothers to nurture may be slighted as inadequate or devouring. It presents Medusa and other goddess figures as inspirational, repelling harm through the ‘evil eye’ of their powerful gaze. Conversely, it also shows women who are condemned as monstrous Gorgons, trapped in enmity, rivalry and rage. Representing English, American and African American, Canadian and Caribbean writing, the works explored here include realistic, social narrative and magical realist writings, in addition to tales of the past and dystopian narratives.

Contemporary Women's Writing

Contemporary Women's Writing PDF Author: Maroula Joannou
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 9780719053399
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
This wide-ranging study provides a historically grounded account of women's fiction in the 1960s and the 1970s, relating changes in the social structure of Britain and the United States to the literary representations of women's experience.

Contemporary Irish and Welsh Women's Fiction

Contemporary Irish and Welsh Women's Fiction PDF Author: Linden Peach
Publisher: University of Wales Press
ISBN: 1786837285
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 217

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Book Description
Presents a comparative study of fiction by late twentieth and twenty-first century women writers from Ireland, Northern Ireland and Wales. This work is of interest to students interested in women’s studies, gender studies, and cultural studies as well as Welsh, Irish and Celtic studies.