The Challenging Writings of Elfriede Jelinek
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The Women’s Review of Books Vol. XXII, No. 3 December 2004 74035 $4.00 6 Our Final Issue... I ...at least for now. As we explore the possibilities for additional sup- port for the Women’s Review, we con- tinue to hope that this will not be the last you hear from us. p. 3 I The awarding of the 2004 Nobel Prize for Literature to the Austrian writer Elfriede Jelinek set off a storm of controversy in her home country and a rush among feminists around the world to find out more about this little known author. Cover D I Two books that explore the motivations and ideas of right-wing women, Evangelical Christian Women and Home-GGrown Hate have become more relevant than ever, now that George W. Bush has been elected for a second term. p. 6 I Ignored, for the most part, in the West, the people of the island of Bougainville, in Papua New Guinea, Elfriede Jelinek forced a multinational mining compa- ny off their land in a ten-year strug- gle for autonomy. The women who played a crucial role tell their stories The challenging writings of in …as Mothers of the Land. p. 8 Elfriede Jelinek I In the Skeptical Feminism of by Bettina Brandt Carolyn Dever, reviewer Ann Snitow An Austrian feminist wins the Nobel prize in literature. finds an irresolvable, symbiotic I tension between theory and activism. his year’s Nobel laureate in literature, Writing in a powerful, imagistic, shocking p. 21 Elfriede Jelinek, is a highly controver- voice, Elfriede Jelinek is a polemicist in the Tsial author in her home country, style of compatriots like Karl Krauss and where she is condemned for her relentlessly Thomas Bernhard, and like the latter has critical stance toward Austria’s postwar poli- been called an anti-patriotic, pornographic I and more... tics and the mentality of its people. Praising writer. A member of the Austrian 12> the “extraordinary linguistic zeal,” of her Communist party from 1974 to 1991, prose that “reveals the absurdity of society’s Jelinek has tirelessly demonstrated how the clichés and their subjugating power,” the realms of economy, sexuality, and racism- Swedish Academy lauded the radical feminist form a brutal patriarchal whole. She voices who, in response, declared that the unexpect- her brand of politics not only in her novels, 74470 74035 03 ed literary honor should not be understood plays, and essays but also from her website, PRINTED IN THE USA as a “flower in Austria’s buttonhole.” continued on page 4 The Women’s Review Contents of Books Center for Research on Women 1 Bettina Brandt I THE CHALLENGING WRITINGS OF ELFRIEDE JELINEK: An Austrian feminist wins the Wellesley College Nobel prize in literature 106 Central Street Wellesley, MA 02481 3 Letters (781) 283-2087/ (888) 283-8044 4 Joycelyn K. Moody I Harriet Jacobs: A Life by Jean Fagan Yellin www.wellesley.edu/WomensReview 6 Esther Kaplan I Evangelical Christian Women: War Stories in the Gender Battles by Julie Ingersoll; Volume XXII, No. 3 Home-Grown Hate: Gender and Organized Racism edited by Abby L. Ferber December 2004 7 Ruth Milkman I Competing Devotions: Career and Family among Women Executives by Mary Blair-Loy; EDITOR IN CHIEF: Amy Hoffman The Time Divide: Work, Family and Gender Inequality by Jerry A. Jacobs and Kathleen Gerson [email protected] 8 Kerryn Higgs I …as Mothers of the Land: the Birth of the Bougainville Women for Peace and Freedom edited by Josephine Tankunani Sirivi and Marilyn Taleo Havini PRODUCTION EDITOR: Amanda Nash [email protected] 10 Rebecca Johnson I Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde by Alexis De Veaux; Conversations with Audre Lorde edited by Joan Wylie Hall POETRY AND CONTRIBUTING EDITOR: 11 Peg Aloi I The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer’s Block, and the Creative Brain Robin Becker by Alice Weaver Flaherty; An Alchemy of Mind: The Marvel and Mystery of the Brain by Diane Ackerman ADVERTISING MANAGER: 12 Paula Bonnell, Jane Shore, Kathleen Aguero, Karen Head, Jessica R. Greenbaum, Susan Wicks, Carole Simmons Oles, Anita D. 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We 24 Karen Kahn I Moving Mountains: The Race to Treat Global AIDS by Anne-christine d’Adesky seek to represent the widest possible range of feminist perspectives both in 25 Julia Query I Mother’s Milk: Breastfeeding Controversies in American Culture by Bernice L. Hausman the books we choose to review and in 26 Alison Townsend I Because of the Light by Roseann Lloyd; Buddha’s Dogs by Susan Browne the content of the reviews themselves. 28 Silja J. A. Talvi I Global Prescriptions: Gendering Health and Human Rights by Rosalind Pollack Petchesky 29 Irene Wanner I Now Go Home: Wilderness, Belonging, and the Crosscut Saw by Ana Maria Spagna 30 Marie Shear I Mass Media and the Shaping of American Feminism, 1963-1975 by Patricia Bradley The Women’s Review of Books (ISSN #0738-1433) is published monthly 31 Brooks Robards I Being Rita Hayworth: Labor, Identity, and Hollywood Stardom by Adrienne L. McLean except August by The Women’s Review, Inc. Back issues are available for $4.00 per copy. Please allow 6-8 Contributors weeks for all transactions. KATHLEEN AGUERO is the author of three volumes of poetry, has been contributing to the Women’s Review since its second issue. Periodicals class postage paid at Daughter Of, The Real Weather, and Thirsty Day. She is a professor of English JOYCELYN MOODY is the editor of African American Review and associ- at Pine Manor College in Chestnut Hill, MA. ate professor of English at Saint Louis University. Boston, MA and additional mailing PEG ALOI is a freelance writer and teacher of creative writing, as well as JUDITH NIEMI is editor of Rivers Running Free: A Century of Adventurous offices. an award-winning poet. Women. She is a freelance wilderness guide, writer, and teacher in St. Paul, MERYL ALTMAN teaches at DePauw University in Indiana. She is MN. Contact her at www.judithniemi.com. spending this year in New York and Oxford, working on the American CAROLE SIMMONS OLES has published six books of poems, most POSTMASTER: send address cor- 1950s and Simone de Beauvoir. recently Sympathetic Systems. She teaches at California State University, Chico. rections to The Women’s Review of ROBIN BECKER’s books include The Horse Fair (2000); All-American Girl JULIA QUERY produced and co-directed the labor film Live Nude (1996); and Giacometti’s Dog (1990). Her honors include a Lambda Literary Girls UNITE! Books, Center for Research on Award and fellowships from the Bunting Institute and the National BROOKS ROBARDS is professor emerita of communication at Westfield Women, Wellesley College, 106 Endowment for the Arts. She teaches English and women’s studies at State College. Pennsylvania State University. MANDIRA SEN lives in Calcutta and is the publisher of two imprints: Central Street, Wellesley, MA 02481. PAULA BONNELL’s poetry has appeared in Southern Poetry Review, the Stree, which publishes women’s studies; and Samya, which publishes on Boston Herald, and other publications. Her first collection, Message, was pub- social change, dissent, and the construction of culture. The Women’s Review of Books is a proj- lished in 1999. MARIE SHEAR is a writer and editor in Brooklyn, NY. This is her 19th ect of the Wellesley Centers for BETTINA BRANDT is an assistant professor of German at Montclair contribution to the Women’s Review. State University in New Jersey. KATHLEEN SHEEDER is a former co-editor of the American Poetry Women. JESSICA GREENBAUM’s book of poems, Inventing Difficulty, won the Review. A teacher of English and creative writing, her work has most recent- Gerald Cable Award for a first manuscript. Her poems and essays have ly appeared in Margie: An American Journal of Poetry. The Women’s Review is distributed by appeared in numerous publications, including the Women’s Review, The New JANE SHORE is the author of four books of poems, including Music Ingram, Nashville, TN. All other dis- Yorker, and The Nation Minus One, a finalist for the 1996 National Book Critics Circle Award. KAREN HEAD is a Marion L. Brittain Fellow at the Georgia Institute of Recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and others, she tribution is handled directly by The Technology, where she teaches writing. is a professor at George Washington University. Women’s Review. KERRYN HIGGS is the author of All That False Instruction, Australia’s first ANN SNITOW, co-editor of Powers of Desire and The Feminist Memoir lesbian novel. It was reissued by Spinifex Press in 2001. She is also a free- Project, teaches at New School University. She is a founder of the Network The contents of The Women’s Review of lance environmental writer. of East-West Women, an NGO dedicated to dialogue and mutual support REBECCA JOHNSON writes, organizes, and lives in Dorchester MA.