RT info:eu-repo/semantics/article
T1 Un-gendering the Subject in U.S. Women's Experimental Novels
A1 Simpson, Megan
AB The prevailing philosophical tendencies in Western culture have historicallyconceptualized the feminine as man’s “other” —an absence, amystery, a silent space. If a woman, fictional or otherwise, resists relegationto the realm of otherness by speaking, acting, or otherwise assumingagency, she is perceived as a subject according to the masculine model(i.e. not really a woman). Attempts to represent female subjectivity outsideof this binary bind have been the ongoing work of women novelistsin the twentieth century. But recent intersections between feminist andpostmodern theory have brought forth a framework for re-envisioninggendered subjectivity as a constructed product of language and culture.The wide range of aesthetic and philosophical inquiry this frameworkinvites may be evidenced by the explosion of experimental fiction producedby woman in the U.S. since 1970. This article examines five novelswhose authors engage in formal/linguistic experimentation in orderto explore the discursive processes through which gendered subjectivityis constructed and/or propose radical alternatives to normative Westernmodels of gendered subjectivity: Joan Didion’s Play It as It Lays (1970),Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping (1980), Leslie Dick’s Without Falling(1988), Kathy Acker’s Empire of the Senseless (1988), and Madeline Gins’Helen Keller or Arakawa (1994).
PB Servicio de Publicaciones. Universidad de La Laguna
SN e-2530-8335
YR 1999
FD 1999
LK http://riull.ull.es/xmlui/handle/915/30339
UL http://riull.ull.es/xmlui/handle/915/30339
LA en
DS Repositorio institucional de la Universidad de La Laguna
RD 01-nov-2024