Political Gender

In recent years, feminist scholars, through their insistence on the key role of gender in critical analysis, have brought about a profound revitalization of literary and cultural studies. This text draws together work by leading exponents in the field. The essays explore the operations of gender in the production of knowledge and the formation of cultural representations in a wide variety of contexts, from German romantic poetry to the literature of AIDS, from Victorian ethnography to tabloid constructions of race. All of the essays engage in problems of representation, intervening in current debates in critical theory.

Introduction, Sally Ledger, Josephine McDonagh; Part 1 Identities; Chapter 1 Personal Criticism and the Autobiographical Turn, Laura Marcus; Chapter 2 Mixed Feelings, Kadiatu Kanneh; Chapter 3 Gender and Englishness in Villette, Terry Lovell; Chapter 4 Irigaray's Hom(m)osexuality and Gay Writing in Marlowe and Gunn, Lawrence Normand; Part 2 Epistemologies; Chapter 5 Unseating the Philosopher-Knight, Jane Moore; Chapter 6 'Who Fancies Pakis?', Gargi Bhattacharyya; Chapter 7 Sex and Secrets in Central Australia, Lynnette Turner; Chapter 8 From Omphalos to Phallus, Elisabeth Bronfen; Part 3 Aesthetics; Chapter 9 Unblocking the Oedipal, Christine Battersby; Chapter 10 The Gender of Modernity, Rita Felski; Chapter 11 AIDS to Narration, Derek Duncan; Part 4 Repressions; Chapter 12 'The Tyranny of the Passions', Vivien Jones; Chapter 13 The Pornographic Subject, Linda Ruth Williams; Chapter 14 Unsafe Sex?, Joseph Bristow;