Women's writing

ON NOT GETTING WHAT WE WANT AND LEARNING TO BE GRATEFUL FOR WHAT WE HAVE BY CAROL P. CHRIST

by Feminism and Religion

Originally posted on the Feminism and Religion project

Many women’s dreams have not been realized. How do we come to terms with this thealogically?

Although I am... more Many women’s dreams have not been realized. How do we come to terms with this thealogically?

Although I am as neurotic as the next person, I am also really wonderful—intelligent, emotionally available, beautiful (if I do say so myself), sweet, caring, and bold. I love to dance, swim, and think about the meaning of life. I passionately wanted to find someone with whom to share my life. I did everything I could to make that happen—including years of therapy and even giving up my job and moving half way around the world when I felt I had exhausted the possibilities at home.

'We'll Wear Out Great Ones': Maria Pickersgill, Letitia Landon and the Power of the 'Improvisatrice'

by David Moberly

Romantic Textualities, 20 (Winter 2011): 7-23.

Maria Pickersgill, whose largest work, Tales of the Harem, was published in 1827, was the wife of Henry William... more Maria Pickersgill, whose largest work, Tales of the Harem, was published in 1827, was the wife of Henry William Pickergill, the most prominent London portrait artist of his day. Maria's well-connected husband and their London home provided her with several contacts who aided her in her desire to publish. Her first poetic work, “The Oriental Nosegay,” was printed in 1825 as part of a collection of poems in Letitia Landon's The Troubadours. Maria's husband had completed Landon's portrait after several long sittings in 1822 or 1823, at which time Maria likely met Landon and showed her some of her work, which Landon later published. Thereafter, Landon seems to have heavily influenced her work. Landon's poetry, in fact, is Maria's works'closest analogue. Maria embraces Landon’s depiction of the woman poetess’ role as that of an “improvisatrice,” whose poetry flows spontaneously out of emotion in something more like performance than poetry (if one strictly follows Wordsworth’s definition of the term). Maria uses the performances of harem women in Tales of the Harem as a metaphor for the way in which women’s poetry can subvert and “wear out” the patriarchal powers that be. As such, this interdisciplinary paper offers a detailed view of the way in which one London woman negotiated her poetry into publication, and what that negotiation reveals about her poetic style and the place she carved for herself in the London art world.

Der involvierte Leser. Immersive Lektürepraktiken in der spätmittelalterlichen Mystik-Rezeption, in: Immersion im Mittelalter, hg. von Hartmut Bleumer (Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik 167, 2012) (in Druckvorbereitung)

by Balázs J. Nemes

The article approaches the immersive potential of Mechthild von Magdeburg's “Fließendes Licht“, dispensing the reader... more The article approaches the immersive potential of Mechthild von Magdeburg's “Fließendes Licht“, dispensing the reader from his role as a spectator and turning him into a participant, something which has frequently been claimed by the new German medieval studies. This particular kind of recipient is, certainly, an ideal-typical reader, a literary construct with the function to display the strategies of persuasion in “Fließendes Licht“ and the special literacy or the functional inclusion of the text. It should be all the more interesting to have a look at a specific historical recipient as this allows making the text's calculated aesthetic impacts plausible or outlining them with regard to the history of receptions. The instructions by Heinrich von Nördlingen from the first half of the 14th century, addressed to Margareta Ebner and the Dominican nuns of Maria Medingen near Dillingen, which told them how to incorporate and read „Fließendes Licht“ will be the centre of my analysis. This particular example and the recourse to circulating thoughts about the phenomenology of immersion shall show which requirements have to be fulfilled in a special religious context of reception to obtain the effect of immersion. Heinrich's directives are perfectly suitable for this line of questioning as they create the model of an involved reader, amounting to the requirement to get into the diegesis of the text and to identify with the literary figure.

Im Beitrag geht es um das in der neueren germanistisch-mediävistischen Forschung vielfach behauptete immersive Potential des „Fließenden Lichts“ Mechthilds von Magdeburg, den Leser seiner Rolle als Beobachter (spectator) zu entbinden und ihn zu einem Teilnehmer (participant) der textuell entworfenen virtuellen Realität zu machen. Freilich handelt es sich bei diesem Typ vom Rezipienten um einen idealtypischen Leser, ein literaturwissenschaftliches Figurenkonstrukt also, dessen Funktion darin besteht, die im „Fließenden Licht“ verfolgten Persuasionsstrategien und damit die besondere Literarizität bzw. funktionale Einbindung des Textes sichtbar zu machen. Umso interessanter dürfte es sein, den Blick auf einen konkreten historischen Rezipienten zu lenken, ermöglicht er doch, die von der Forschung beobachteten kalkuliert wirkungsästhetischen Effekte des Textes zu plausibilisieren bzw. rezeptionsgeschichtlich zu perspektivieren. Im Mittelpunkt meiner Untersuchung stehen die an Margareta Ebner und die Dominikanerinnen von Maria Medingen bei Dillingen gerichteten Anweisungen von Heinrich von Nördlingen aus der Mitte des 14. Jahrhunderts, wie sie das „Fließende Licht“ aufnehmen und lesen sollen. An diesem Fallbeispiel und im Rückgriff auf die kursierenden Überlegungen zur Phänomenologie der Immersion gilt es zu zeigen, welche Voraussetzungen speziell in einem religiösen Rezeptionskontext erfüllt werden müssen, damit es überhaupt zum Effekt der Immersion kommt. Heinrichs Direktiven eignen sich für diese Fragestellung insofern bestens, als sie das Modell des involvierten Lesers entwerfen, laufen sie doch auf die Forderung hinaus, sich in die Diegese des Textes zu begeben und sich mit der Textfigur zu identifizieren

Contemporary Women's Writing and Classical Reception: A Cautionary Reading of Aristophanes' Lysistrata

by Polly Toney

Paper given at the CA Conference 2012 at the University of Exeter as part of a four paper panel on Contemporary Women's Writing and Classical Reception.

The Un-becoming

by Lindsey Grace

written by Lindsey Rundlett. 2011.

This is a paper about Jean Rhys' novel, Good Morning, Midnight. This is a paper about Jean Rhys' novel, Good Morning, Midnight.

El descubrimiento del trópico en Las ceremonias del verano (1966)*

by Sarah González de Mojica

draft only

Con Las ceremonias del verano Marta Traba se lanza a una nueva carrera como escritora de ficción, decisión que toma en... more Con Las ceremonias del verano Marta Traba se lanza a una nueva carrera como escritora de ficción, decisión que toma en Bogotá, en medio de una significativa encrucijada en su vida personal y pública. Su conversión en novelista no parecía haber despertado la atención de sus amigos escritores ni de los intelectuales de esa ciudad que ella misma había fundado como centro de su proyección latinoamericana en función de su carrera como crítica artística y cultural. Para los colombianos, Marta Traba fue una figura polémica que transformó la manera de mirar el arte y estableció el canon moderno.

Marvel Moreno (Barranquilla1939- París1995)

by Sarah González de Mojica

to be published in Pensamiento Colombiano, col. ?, Instituto PENSAR

Marvel Moreno, una de las grandes autoras de la literatura del siglo XX en Colombia, renunció  a los 30 años a... more Marvel Moreno, una de las grandes autoras de la literatura del siglo XX en Colombia, renunció  a los 30 años a vivir en el país y la ciudad que la vieron nacer, para instalarse definitivamente en París. Allí pudo realizar su deseo de dedicarse enteramente a escribir, asumiendo grandes sacrificios en medio de serios quebrantos de salud. En su obra de ficción construye la memoria poética de un mundo íntimo y sufrido de mujeres en sociedades que conservan todavía prácticas patriarcales premodernas. Por fuera de su país al que no quiso regresar jamás, por fuera del boom latinoamericano y de las vanguardias que estaban en su ocaso, su oficio como escritora transcurrió en una gran soledad.

Sainte Brigitte de Suède et Alfonso de Jaén : une "amitié spirituelle" / saint Bridget of Sweden and Alfonso de Jaén : a Female-Male friendship in Late Medieval Italy (Language : French)

by Giulia Puma

published in Arzanà. Cahiers de littérature italienne médiévale, n. 13, juin 2010, p. 329-364.

Ecritures et pratiques de l'amitié dans l'Italie médiévale
Describing and experiencing Friendship in Medieval Italy

Publications de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris III.

Par « amitié spirituelle », on entend au Moyen Âge l’unisson des amis dans l’amour du Christ, qu’en est-il d’une... more Par « amitié spirituelle », on entend au Moyen Âge l’unisson des amis dans l’amour du Christ, qu’en est-il d’une amitié mixte, entre une femme et un homme ? Les mots employés par sainte Brigitte de Suède (1303-1373) dans ses Révélations pour décrire son rapport à son dernier confesseur, Alfonso de Jaén (1329-1389), constituent des documents précieux pour la connaissance de l’amitié mixte. Ils se rencontrent à Rome en 1368, puis séjournent ensemble auprès du pape. Alfonso sert à la fois à Brigitte de confesseur et d’interprète lors de son entrevue avec Urbain V, visant à le persuader de rentrer d’Avignon à Rome. Alfonso a une très bonne connaissance du latin, ce qui conduit Brigitte à rendre encore plus étroite leur collaboration. Elle reçoit plusieurs révélations où Marie et le Christ lui ordonnent explicitement de confier à l’ermite espagnol le travail de révision et de publication des Révélations. Brigitte est ainsi la dépositaire de la parole divine et Alfonso le récipiendaire de ce précieux trésor. Si l’ami est traditionnellement un alter ego, la relation de Brigitte et d’Alfonso, qui présuppose une profonde similitude morale, aboutit à l’altérité pragmatique de leurs rôles, complémentaires mais hiérarchisés : leur amitié mixte est légitimée, formalisée, codifiée par les interventions divines, qui président en même temps à sa mise en pratique, pour que le message oral des Révélations accède au statut de livre.

After her husband's death in 1344, Bridget of Sweden (1303-1373), a mother of eight, starts having divine revelations and decides to dedicate her life to God, promoting the return of the pope in Rome, city where she lives from 1349 until her death. The paper focuses on the nature of her relationship to her last confessor, the spanish ermit, former bishop, Alfonso de Jaén (1329-1389), also known as Alfonso Pecha da Vadaterra. The documents of her canonization process as well as some of her revelations, edited in Latin by Alfonso, point out their different but complementary role as "amici Dei", God's friends but also friends through God. Bridget and Alfonso seem to be good candidates for what recent research (Sahlin 2001, Coakley 2006) has identified as "amicitia spiritualis". Spiritual friendship, a particular form of Female-Male relationship, would typically tie a charismatic/mystical woman to her confessor, acting both as a spiritual guide to her and as a promoter to the external world of the divine messages she would receive.

Entre tourisme et engagement: autour de L'Amérique au jour le jour

by Yan Hamel

Dans KRISTEVA, Julia (dir.). (Re)découvrir l’œuvre de Simone de Beauvoir du Deuxième sexe à La cérémonie des adieux, Paris, Éditions Le bord de l’eau, 2008, p. 239-247.

‘No hay rambla ni plaza ni iglesia ni nada. El mundo es esta casa’: Escritoras uruguayas contemporáneas/ ‘There’s no river, no square, no church, no nothing. This house is the whole world’: Contemporary Uruguayan Women’s Writing

by María Soledad Montañez

Lux, Christina. “The House Facing the Sea." Translation from the French of “La Maison face à la mer” by Marie-Célie Agnant. Metamorphoses: The Five College Faculty Seminar on Literary Translation, 11.1 (Spring 2003): 193-199.

by Christina Lux

also listed under translator's former name, "Vander Vorst"

Translation of a short story by Haitian author Marie-Célie Agnant; originally appeared in the collection Le Silence... more Translation of a short story by Haitian author Marie-Célie Agnant; originally appeared in the collection Le Silence comme le sang (1997).

Keywords: Haiti, short story, Agnant, Canada, women, gender, violence, conflict, Caribbean

"Mary Robinson and the Dramatic Art of the Comeback." Co-written with Terry Robinson. Studies in Romanticism 48 (2009): 219-256.

by Michael Gamer

Winner of the Nineteenth-Century Studies Association Article Prize prize for Best Essay, 2010.

The Female Aesthetic Subject Questions of Taste, Sublimity and Beauty In Women's Prose, 1778 to 1828, With Particular Reference to the Works of Clara …

by Fiona Price

Subversion, intertextuality, the ethics of care and multivocality in women's ways of writing: An introduction and annotated bibliography

by Cynthia Mahaffey

An examination of the "women's ways of writing" movement as subversive and interrogative of early views of... more An examination of the "women's ways of writing" movement as subversive and interrogative of early views of gendered writing

Julia Franck, Die Mittagsfrau: Historia Matria and Matrilineal Narrative

by Valerie Heffernan

in: Emerging German-Language Novelists of the Twenty-First Century, ed. by Lyn Marven & Stuart Taberner, (Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2011), pp. 148-161.

Moral De-values

by Mohamed Eno

A poem, excerpt from my forthcoming poetry volume Corpses on the Menu

The verse depicts how women are victims of senseless acts of violence and social immorality in war-torn nations. The... more The verse depicts how women are victims of senseless acts of violence and social immorality in war-torn nations. The poem is dedicated to all women in the world who have undergone such a mayhem; and those who advocate for the rights and well-being of women.

The world according to Bridget Jones: discourses of identity in chicklit fictions

by Katarzyna Smyczyńska

Motherhood: Still Women’s Most Valued Creative Contribution to Society? by Ivy Helman

by Feminism and Religion

Originally published on the Feminism and Religion Project.

I’m expecting…

The stork is delivering as we speak!  I hope you can join me in celebrating this joyous... more I’m expecting…

The stork is delivering as we speak!  I hope you can join me in celebrating this joyous news  – although you should know, the stork is the United States Postal Service, and I am expecting my first book, not  my first baby!

It sounds somewhat crass (even to me whose book this is) to even try and pass off a book in the same way in which women announce they are expecting baby/babies.  Sadly, writing books, which is one use of a woman’s creative energy, does not seem to be as valued as a woman’s ability to procreate, another use of a woman’s creative energy.  Among the circle of friends I grew up with, children still seem to hold a more cherished place.  On facebook.com, my “friends” post weekly updates as to the progress of their babies, pictures of their “baby bumps” and pictures of their newborns.  Just through reading comments, the excitement is palpable.

"I was compelled to write poems..."

by Douglas Basford

Formes Poétiques Contemporaines 8 (2011): 11-14. My translation of the Editors' preface from the French. In hard copy only at present; will post link when it becomes available.

(Review) Mechthilds von Magdeburg »Frühwerk«. Buch I des „Fließenden Lichts der Gottheit“. Rezension über Mark Emanuel Amtstätter, Die Partitur der weiblichen Sprache. Sprachästhetik aus der Differenz der Kulturen bei Mechthild von Magdeburg. Berlin: trafo verlag 2003, in: IASLonline [30.10.2004] URL: http://iasl.uni-muenchen.de/rezensio/liste/Nemes389626253X_1084.html

by Balázs J. Nemes