Transgressing the Canon and the Fiction of Contemporary Portuguese Women Writers (1980-2015)
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Beyond the Mirror: Transgressing the Canon and the Fiction of Contemporary Portuguese Women Writers (1980-2015) A thesis submitted to the University of Manchester for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities 2016 SUZAN BOZKURT SCHOOL OF ARTS, LANGUAGES AND CULTURES Table of Contents ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................... 4 DECLARATION ............................................................................................... 5 COPYRIGHT STATEMENT ............................................................................. 5 Chapter 1: Introduction .................................................................................. 6 Cultural Value Constructions in a National Field and Globalized Memory Spaces .................................................................................................... 10 Transnational and Translational Spaces of Hybridity .............................. 21 Chapter 2: Literary Histories ....................................................................... 24 Portugal and its Mechanisms of Literary Consecration ........................... 25 The Politics of Literary Histories .............................................................. 31 The Cultural Field of Literary Production ................................................. 36 Constructions of Literary Prestige ........................................................... 39 The Perceived Autonomy of Cultural Memory and its Relation to Politics of Gender ................................................................................................ 47 The Importance of the Historical Novel as a Means of Symbolic Value Construction ............................................................................................ 53 Economic and Symbolic Capital: The Literary Value of Bestsellers ........ 59 The Two Hermeneutic Circles of ‘A Escrita Feminina’ ............................ 65 Breaking through the Circle: Female Transgressions of the Traditional Categorizations in Literary Canons ......................................................... 72 Ideological Transgressions ..................................................................... 74 Transgressions of Genre ......................................................................... 78 Will there be a Feminist Literary Memory in Future Canons? ................. 81 Chapter 3: Press Criticism .......................................................................... 84 Traditionalism and Innovative Modernization in the Portuguese Press .. 86 The Mediation of Literary Texts in the Portuguese Press to their Reading Public ...................................................................................................... 88 Feminist Press and Women’s Magazines ............................................... 94 Gender Performances in Mainstream Press Publications ..................... 101 New inscription of linguistic normativity through the performative act: Hélia Correia ......................................................................................... 104 Early Contextualizations in the 1980s ................................................... 105 Performative strategies that span the schism between femininity and creativity in the 1990s ........................................................................... 106 Displacement of gender norms; the possibility of a non-gendered discourse for female authors? ............................................................... 114 The woman writer as a feminine role model: Lídia Jorge and Inês Pedrosa ................................................................................................. 118 Female Circles of Consecration: canonical contextualizations of Lídia Jorge’s and Inês Pedrosa’s work .......................................................... 125 Why can’t a woman be more like a man?: Teolinda Gersão and the masculinization of female genius .......................................................... 133 Female and Feminist Memory Spaces in the Portuguese Press .......... 137 2 Chapter 4: Digital Media: The Creation of New Memory Communities . 139 Digital Media Taxonomy ........................................................................ 139 Redefinitons of Cultural Space .............................................................. 140 Digital Globalization .............................................................................. 141 Internet Knowledge Economy: Google, Wikipedia and Amazon ........... 145 Google and Amazon ............................................................................. 147 Wikipedia ............................................................................................... 151 Female Memory Spaces in Wikipedia ................................................... 153 Creation of a Digital Counter Memory ................................................... 160 From Gatekeeping to Gatewatching ..................................................... 162 Open Source Software: Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 ........................................ 163 Ephemeral Spaces: Shifting Concepts of Authority .............................. 166 Authorial Representations on the World Wide Web by Hélia Correia, Teolinda Gersão, Lídia Jorge and Inês Pedrosa ................................... 170 Author’s Websites ................................................................................. 173 Social Media .......................................................................................... 177 ‘Citizen Criticism’: Authorial Representations in the Blogosphere ........ 185 Book Lovers’ Blogs ............................................................................... 186 Blogs from the Literary Establishment .................................................. 192 Feminist Memory Spaces on Political Blogs ......................................... 195 Is there a new era dawning for the cultural inscription of female authorship in the 21st century? .............................................................. 199 Chapter 5: Conclusion ............................................................................... 201 A New Critical Language? ..................................................................... 201 BIBLIOGRAPHY .......................................................................................... 211 APPENDIX ................................................................................................... 232 word count: 78655 words 3 ABSTRACT This thesis looks at the representations of four contemporary Portuguese women writers, Hélia Correia, Lídia Jorge, Teolinda Gersão, and Inês Pedrosa in literary histories, press critical commentaries and digital media. This study analyses in how far a gendered critical view is present in each of the three different media and whether any alternative contextualization exists that allows for a non-gendered, universal critical representation of female authorship. The process of canonization within the Portuguese cultural field is studied here, following the fundamental changes in the critical landscape over the past thirty years, especially the new possibilities offered in electronic media. This thesis explores the juxtaposition between an elitist institutionalism, which can be found in academic, press and online criiticism, and the presence of alternative critical voices in cultural criticism, that would adequately represent female authorship and open up the critical debate, so that traditional constructions of cultural value, such as a division into popular and quality literature, can be re-evalued. 4 DECLARATION I declare that no portion of the work referred to in the thesis has been submitted in support of an application for another degree or qualification of this or any other university or other institute of learning COPYRIGHT STATEMENT The author of this thesis (including any appendices and/or schedules to this thesis) owns certain copyright or related rights in it (the “Copyright”) and s/he has given The University of Manchester certain rights to use such Copyright, including for administrative purposes. Copies of this thesis, either in full or in extracts and whether in hard or electronic copy, may be made only in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended) and regulations issued under it or, where appropriate, in accordance with licensing agreements which the University has from time to time. This page must form part of any such copies made. The ownership of certain Copyright, patents, designs, trade marks and other intellectual property (the “Intellectual Property”) and any reproductions of copyright works in the thesis, for example graphs and tables (“Reproductions”), which may be described in this thesis, may not be owned by the author and may be owned by third parties. Such Intellectual Property and Reproductions cannot and must not be made available for use without the prior written permission of the owner(s) of the relevant Intellectual Property and/or Reproductions. Further information on the conditions under which disclosure, publication and commercialisation of this thesis, the Copyright and any Intellectual Property and/or Reproductions described in it may take place is available in the University IP Policy (see http://documents.manchester.ac.uk/DocuInfo.aspx?DocID=487), in any relevant Thesis restriction declarations deposited in the University Library, The University Library’s