DOCSLIB.ORG

Nomadic Subjectivity in Contemporary Women's Poetry in the British Isles

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Nomadic Subjectivity in Contemporary Women's Poetry in the British Isles The Salvage from Postmodernism: Nomadic Subjectivity in Contemporary Women’s Poetry in the British Isles Carmen Zamorano Llena The nomad’s identity is a map of where s/he has already been; s/he can always reconstruct it a posteriori, as a set of steps in an itinerary. (Rosi Braidotti, Nomadic Subjectivity 14) “As a woman I have no country. As a woman I want no country. As a woman my country is the whole world.” This is the quote from Virginia Wolf’s Three Guineas (1938) that Adrienne Rich decided not to use in a talk given at a “Conference on Women, Feminist Identity and Society in the 1980s” held in Utrecht, Holland, but which she argues she would have certainly used some years earlier. This apparent self-denial raises the question of what had changed in Rich’s sense of feminist identity in the period between the late 1960s and the mid 1980s. An analysis of her talk, which is published as “Notes toward a Politics of Location” (1984), belies that the change that Rich describes epitomises the paradigm shift in feminism that started to take shape in the early 1980s and that emerged out of the controversy between postmodernism and feminism over the issue of subjectivity.1 In the context of the re-emerging feminism of the late 1960s, Rich would have argued against the common oppression of women around the world and would have spoken of a common bonding that would unite all women in their resistance against patriarchal power structures. Women would thus be united by the same suffering and common struggle under the banner of a unified gender identity, which would surpass national, racial, ethnic, cultural, class, sexual and age differences. In this context, Virginia Wolf’s words would gain full significance and validity and the whole globe would become for women a single nation united by a female gender identity. However, in the mid 1980s, feminism had already started to show signs of crucial changes. Like in the case of many other feminists, Rich realised thanks to the relationship of feminism with other anti-foundationalist movements that this all-inclusive feminism had reproduced the same mistakes that it criticised in modernist/foundationalist tradition. In its desire to move the female “I” from the margins to the centre, feminism had marginalised not only the male “I” but also all those women that would not accord with the category of Woman implicitly defined as white, middle-class and heterosexual. According to the postmodern feminist critics Nancy Fraser and Linda Nicholson, the dialogical relationship between postmodernism and feminism enabled that “unitary notions of woman and feminine gender identity [were replaced] with plural and complexly constructed conceptions of social identity, treating gender as one relevant strand among others.” (34-35) However, not all feminist critics have praised the apparent benefits of postmodernism for feminism. Various feminist critics regard the relationship with postmodernism as specially problematic because one of its main claims, that of the death of the subject, comes at an untimely moment for the development of feminism. As Patricia Waugh argues in “Postmodernism and Feminism: Where Have All the Women Gone?”:2 1 A similar change is admitted by Cora Kaplan in her essay “Speaking/Writing/Feminism,” where she argues that she now writes for women and not against men. At the same time she also refers to the controversy she has engaged in with other feminists, precisely due to her shift in feminism: “I write for women, rather than as in my early work, constructing a polemic directed against men. And I have noted a change in the content and direction of my work which is a bit worrying […] These days I have moved away from mildly eulogistic projects, and instead have engaged in a series of fairly heavy debates with other feminists and other feminisms, historical and contemporary.” (60-1) She does not overtly explain why this change is “worrying,” but the fact is that this change is symptomatic of the modification in understanding of feminism occurring at the time. See also her definition of “full subjectivity” which is so closely related to the postmodern feminist sense of identity or of “nomadic subjectivity” understood as being unstable and fluctuating, be it for men or for women. 2 Apart from Patricia Waugh (1989), other feminist critics that have explicitly pointed to the problematic postmodernist claim about the “death of the subject” are Rosi Braidotti (1987), Jane Flax (1987), Nancy Hartsock (1987, 1990), and Christine Di Stefano (1990). 93 Zamorano Llena, Carmen. “The Salvage from Postmodernism: Nomadic Subjectivity in Contemporary Women’s Poetry in the British Isles”. EREA 2.2 (automne 2004): 93-101.<www.e-rea.org> At the moment when postmodernism is forging its identity through articulating the exhaustion of the existential belief in self-presence and self-fulfilment and through the dispersal of the universal subject of liberalism, feminism (ostensibly, at any rate) is assembling its cultural identity in what appears to be the opposite direction. […] As male writers lament its demise, women writers have not yet experienced that subjectivity which will give them a sense of personal autonomy, continuous identity, a history and agency in the world. (6) Admittedly, there are differences between postmodern and feminist understandings of subjectivity which might apparently move these currents in “opposite direction[s].”3 However, Seyla Benhahib’s Situating the Self (1992) is one of the best examples of postmodern feminist attempts to show the possible beneficial relationship with postmodernism for the (re)construction of women’s subjectivity. Like Waugh, Benhahib is also fully aware of the annihilating contradictions to which feminism might be led by a tout court acceptance of posmodernist epistemology. However, she also provides the solution to this controversy: instead of accepting what she calls a strong version of postmodernist theories, she argues that only a weak version can be incorporated into feminist criticism. Applying this strong vs. weak version of postmodernist tenets to the “death of the subject” means that, instead of accepting that Man is only “another position in language” in which his subjectivity dissolves into the chain of significations (214), the subject is situated in and, thereby, constructed by the socio-historical, discursive and linguistic context in which it is located. Consequently, subjectivity is not unified and stable, but dialogical, free-floating, unfixed and always under construction. Location. The position of the subject. Situating the self. The radical situatedness of the subject. (Benhahib 214) A politics of location. All these are words and phrases that have recurrently appeared in this article so far and which point to a second major concern that has been dominant since the mid 1980s, not only in postmodern feminist theory, but also in the fields of literary criticism and among women poets in the British Isles. After accepting the validity of the claim for the existence of a female subjectivity, the main concern becomes the need to redefine the location of this female subjectivity. For the purpose of this article, I have decided to focus on the poetry of Fleur Adcock, Eavan Boland and Carol Rumens because I would argue that their poetry is doubly enticing: firstly, because their work is representative of the paradigm shift within feminism that was occurring in the mid 1980s specifically in the British Isles, secondly, for the redoubled efforts as women and poets that they had to make to locate themselves in literary tradition. These three poets started to write in the late 1960s and early 1970s, at a moment in time in which the literary and publishing world were still virtually male-controlled.4 They were among those women poets who had to open new ground with their work and to struggle in order to find a place for their agentive writerly selves in a British literary tradition that had relegated women to the passive role of muses, objects of desire or hatred, or nationalist emblems.5 As representatives of women’s 3 Despite these apparently “opposite direction[s],” as Susan Hekman (1990) notes, the similarities between postmodernism and feminism − especially in placing the modern episteme at the centre of their critique − allow for an interpretation of their differences as entering into a constructive dialogic relationship that leads towards a coherent articulation of postmodern feminism. 4 A thorough analysis of the difficulties of women poets to work in the British literary and publishing context of the late 1960s- early 1970s is found in Claire Buck’s article “Poetry and the Women’s Movement in Postwar Britain” (1996). Some of the most telling events are, for example, the fact that no woman poet was included in A. Alvarez’s The New Poetry (1962), an anthology in which he aimed to give his idea “of what, that really matters, has happened in the last decade,” (17) an all-male view that was still maintained in the 1966 revised edition. It was not until the late 1970s that anthologies of women poets started to be published in Britain, even though they mainly focused on American women poets. Only in the early 1980s did British women poets start to gain ground in the literary world: the first anthologies focusing on British women poets saw the light and publication of individual volumes was possible, especially thanks to the work of women presses, such as Virago, Playbooks 2 or Onlywomen Press; women literary journals like Spare Rib; or the help of collectives in publishing, such as the Women’s Literature Collective (Buck 85). 5 Other coetanous women poets who expressed their sense of isolation in a male-controlled literary world are Libby Houston, Michèle Roberts and Michelene Wandor, whose views of the position of women poets in the late 1960s-early 1970s are reflected in the volume On Gender and Writing (1983) edited by Wandor.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • POETRY, FEMINISM, and PROTEST Introduction
    POETRY, FEMINISM, AND PROTEST Introduction In this set of lessons, students will explore the often-overlooked relationship between poetry and politics. Poets like Anne Sexton, Adrienne Rich, and Audre Lorde create vital dialogue about the relationship between the daily lives of women and structures of power. The poems and essays below will be examined through a feminist-activist lens. Ø Anne Sexton, “Little Girl, My String Bean, My Lovely Woman” Ø Adrienne Rich, “Anne Sexton: 1928- 1974” Ø Audre Lorde, “Power” and “Poetry is Not a Luxury” Essential Question: Ø How can poetry serve as a form of feminist social protest? FOR THE TEACHER: ADRIENNE RICH AND ANNE SEXTON 1. Explain to students that after Anne Sexton took her own life in 1974, Adrienne Rich delivered a eulogy for Sexton, celebrating her poem “Little Girl, My String Bean, My Lovely Woman.” 2. Explain to the students how Sexton’s poem is central to Rich’s eulogy of Sexton and helps to better illustrate what Rich and others mean when they try and expand the definition of feminist poetry. 3. Ask your students to read the poem by Sexton and essay by Rich and to complete the attached questions. Then use those answers to inform a class discussion. 4. Feminist theorist bell hooks defines feminism as “a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression.” After students have answered the worksheet questions, share hooks’s definition of feminism and ask students to consider how Rich’s essay and Sexton’s poem address feminist ideas or goals. 5. For further reading: In a 2013 issue on women in fiction, Vice magaZine included a fashion spread of seven models depicting famous female writers who died by suicide, but without any mention of the writers’ works.
    [Show full text]
  • "I Am Not Certain I Will / Keep This Word" Victoria Parker Rhode Island College, Vparker [email protected]
    Rhode Island College Digital Commons @ RIC Honors Projects Overview Honors Projects 2016 "I Am Not Certain I Will / Keep This Word" Victoria Parker Rhode Island College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.ric.edu/honors_projects Part of the Other Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, Poetry Commons, and the Women's Studies Commons Recommended Citation Parker, Victoria, ""I Am Not Certain I Will / Keep This Word"" (2016). Honors Projects Overview. 121. https://digitalcommons.ric.edu/honors_projects/121 This Honors is brought to you for free and open access by the Honors Projects at Digital Commons @ RIC. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Projects Overview by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ RIC. For more information, please contact [email protected]. “I AM NOT CERTAIN I WILL / KEEP THIS WORD”: LOUISE GLÜCK’S REVISIONIST MYTHMAKING By Victoria Parker An Honors Project Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Honors In The Department of English Faculty of Arts and Sciences Rhode Island College 2016 Parker 2 “I AM NOT CERTAIN I WILL / KEEP THIS WORD”: LOUISE GLÜCK’S REVISIONIST MYTHMAKING An Undergraduate Honors Project Presented By Victoria Parker To Department of English Approved: ___________________________________ _______________ Project Advisor Date ___________________________________ _______________ Honors Committee Chair Date ___________________________________ _______________ Department Chair Date Parker 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS
    [Show full text]
  • The Voice of African-American Women: Feminist Voice in Maya Angelou's Selected Poems
    International Journal of Innovation, Creativity and Change. www.ijicc.net Volume 11, Issue 11, 2020 The Voice of African-American Women: Feminist Voice in Maya Angelou's Selected Poems Ali Kareem Sameera*, Hasan Hadi Alib, a,bMinistry of Education in Iraq, Email: a*[email protected] Being an African-American female poet, dramatist, novelist and critic, Maya Angelou made use of her poetry and literary writing as a means to direct her own feeling toward the racial secularism and injustice of the American society. In addition, she displayed the strength aspects of black women in resisting these stereotypes institutions and supporting their self-confidence and dignity. Thus, many critics and writers indicated that Angelou's poems concentrate on her own self-image and regarded her works as a reflection of the African-American womanhood. Therefore, this paper aims to examine Angelou's poems that apparently mirror the female voice and identity in Woman Work, Phenomenal Woman, Still I Rise and Equality. In each of these poems, the poet used a persona to speak out about the personal experience of the poet with racism and oppression against black women. The feminist theory was adopted to analyse the feminist voice in Angelou’s selected poems. The findings indicated that specific facts and literary devices of Angelou's utilisation of feminist inefficacy and silence were effective to stand against the racial discrimination and state of marginalisation. Thus, this paper implies that the reader can recognise Angelou's effort in emerging her own voice to speak about certain strategies used by the black women to sustain their self-respect, self- consciousness and identity.
    [Show full text]
  • Language, Intertextuality, and Subjectivity in the Poetry of Diane
    Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2005 Sites of resistance: language, intertextuality, and subjectivity in the poetry of Diane Wakoski Cordelia Maxwell Hanemann Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Hanemann, Cordelia Maxwell, "Sites of resistance: language, intertextuality, and subjectivity in the poetry of Diane Wakoski" (2005). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 1092. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/1092 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. SITES OF RESISTANCE: LANGUAGE, INTERTEXTUALITY, AND SUBJECTIVITY IN THE POETRY OF DIANE WAKOSKI A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of English by Cordelia Maxwell Hanemann B.A., University of Southwestern Louisiana, 1970 M.A., University of Southwestern Louisiana, 1975 May 2005 © Copyright 2005 Cordelia Maxwell Hanemann All rights reserved ii Acknowledgements The completion of this dissertation owes much to the impetus and efforts of many people. Without the support of my family, my colleagues, and my friends, I would not have persevered: I especially thank my partner, William Birmingham; my children, Louis, Benjamin, and Craig; and my good friend, Lisa Gibbs.
    [Show full text]
  • Writing the Self: Feminist Experiment and Cultural Identity Jill Darling Wayne State University
    Wayne State University Wayne State University Dissertations 1-1-2012 Writing the self: feminist experiment and cultural identity Jill Darling Wayne State University, Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/oa_dissertations Part of the American Literature Commons Recommended Citation Darling, Jill, "Writing the self: feminist experiment and cultural identity" (2012). Wayne State University Dissertations. Paper 431. This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@WayneState. It has been accepted for inclusion in Wayne State University Dissertations by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@WayneState. WRITING THE SELF: FEMINIST EXPERIMENT AND CULTURAL IDENTITY by JILL DARLING DISSERTATION Submitted to the Graduate School of Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 2012 MAJOR: ENGLISH Approved by: ________________________________ Advisor Date ________________________________ ________________________________ ________________________________ ________________________________ DEDICATION This dissertation is for Fran and Dave, my support and counsel. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The completion of this dissertation would not have been possible without the encouragement, support, and assistance of a number of people. First and foremost I would like to thank my advisor, Barrett Watten, for his unending patience and support of my project in particular, and for his excitement regarding student projects
    [Show full text]
  • As Sweet As Honey and Beautiful As a Flower
    Sweet as honey and beautiful as a flower? An Ecofeminist Approach to Nature Symbolism in Rupi Kaur’s Poetry milk and honey and the sun and her flowers Diplomarbeit zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades einer Magistra der Philosophie an der Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz vorgelegt von Eden GOLOB am Institut für Amerikanistik Begutachter: Univ.-Prof. Dr. M.A. Stefan Brandt Graz, 2020 2 Acknowledgements First of all, I would like to thank my thesis supervisor Professor Dr. Stefan Brandt for supporting me with his vast knowledge and expertise. Thank you for steering my research in the right direction and inspiring me to choose such a pioneering topic. I would like to thank my beloved sister Eva, for her emotional support and always believing in me. Thank you for always being there for me. Thank you to all my wonderful friends for their unfailing encouragement and uplifting words. Especially, I want to thank my fellow student and dear friend Anja for making my time at Uni special. Thank you for your advice and support. Finally, I want to thank my parents for their love, their patience and their support during my entire life. This accomplishment would not have been possible without you. I am so grateful to have you as my parents. 3 Table of Contents Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 5 1 Literature and Feminist Theory ............................................................................................... 9 1.1 Defining Important
    [Show full text]
  • THE EROTICIZED FEMINISM of GIOCONDA BELLI Elizabeth
    SPEAKING THROUGH THE BODY: THE EROTICIZED FEMINISM OF GIOCONDA BELLI Elizabeth Casimir Bruno A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Romance Languages (Spanish American) Chapel Hill 2006 Approved by Advisor: María A. Salgado Reader: Rosa Perelmuter Reader: Glynis Cowell Reader: Teresa Chapa Reader: John Chasteen © 2006 Elizabeth Casimir Bruno ii ABSTRACT ELIZABETH CASIMIR BRUNO: Speaking Through the Body: The Eroticized Feminism of Gioconda Belli (Under the direction of María A. Salgado) While female authors have been writing about “women’s issues” for centuries, their foregrounding of women’s bodies is a relatively new phenomenon. This “literature of the body” is perceived as a way for women to claim back what is and has always been theirs. Gioconda Belli’s literature of the body presents a mosaic of images of woman, through which she empowers women to claim back their body and to celebrate it as the site of the multiple facets of woman. After a brief introductory chapter presenting my topic, I move to Chapter 2, which explores how Belli embodies “woman” in her poetry. In order to contextualize her representation, I first look at several poems by Rubén Darío as examples of idealized canonical portrayals. I also analyze poems written by a number of women authors who preceded Belli, thereby demonstrating a distinct progression in the treatment of women-centered literature. Belli’s representation of the erotic woman is the focus of Chapter 3, though I also examine some poems by another Central American woman poet that illustrate the boldness of her work, particularly because this author was the first Central American woman writer to celebrate women’s eroticism.
    [Show full text]
  • Which Feminisms?
    New Masses, New Movements—17 susan watkins WHICH FEMINISMS? f all the opposition movements to have erupted since 2008, the rebirth of a militant feminism is perhaps the most surprising—not least because feminism as such had never gone away; women’s empowerment has long been a Omantra of the global establishment. Yet there were already signs that something new was stirring in the us and uk student protests of 2010, the 2011 Occupy encampments at Puerta del Sol and Zuccotti Park. In India, mass rallies condemned the gang rape of Jyoti Pandey in 2012 and feminist flash-mobs have disrupted the moral-policing operations of Hindutva fundamentalists. The protests against sexual assault on us campuses blazed across the New York media in 2014. In Brazil, 30,000 black women descended on the capital in 2015 to demonstrate against sexual violence and racism, calling for the ouster of the corrupt head of the National Congress, Eduardo Cunha; earlier that year, the March of Margaridas brought over 50,000 rural women to Brasília. In Argentina, feminist campaigners against domestic violence were at the forefront of protests against Macri’s shock therapy. In China, the arrest in 2015 of five young women preparing to sticker Beijing’s public transport against sexual violence—members of Young Feminist Activism, an online coa- lition that’s played cat-and-mouse with the authorities—was met with web petitions signed by over 2 million people. In January 2017, a ‘feminism of the 99 per cent’ declared itself with the million-strong march against the Trump Administration in the us.
    [Show full text]
  • Protest, Justice, and Transnational Organizing SAN FRANCISCO, CA 2020 NWSA Chair and Director Meeting
    NWSA’S 40TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE Protest, Justice, and Transnational Organizing 2019 NWSA ANNUAL CONFERENCE: Protest, Justice, and Transnational Organizing NOV 14–17, 2019 SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA NOVEMBER 2018 14-17, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 2020 NWSA Chair and Director Meeting About Friday March 6th The 2020 Chair and Director meeting will be focused on the different responses Chicago, IL to external pressures experienced by departments, programs, and centers. This event is intended to promote field- building by bringing together program and department chairs and women’s center directors for a day-long meeting as an added benefit of institutional membership. Participants will exchange ideas and strategies focused on program and center administration, curriculum development, and pedagogy, among other topics. Participation requirements: • 2020 institutional membership • Chair and Director Meeting registration fee $125 • Registration form DEADLINE The fee includes participation in the event and TO REGISTER: breakfast and lunch the day of the meeting. It does not include travel. NWSA will cover one night’s FEBRUARY 15, 2020 accommodations for those who require it. 2019 NWSA ANNUAL CONFERENCE: Protest, Justice, and Transnational Organizing NOV 14–17, 2019 SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA Table of Contents President’s Welcome ........................................... 4 A Brief (and Incomplete) History of the NWSA Women of Color Caucus ................................... 43 Conference Maps ............................................... 5 NWSA Receptions
    [Show full text]
  • Memoir, Mysticism, and Modern Feminist Poetry
    Cantatas of the Wild: Memoir, Mysticism, and Modern Feminist Poetry By Melissa Dawn Keith A dissertation submitted in satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy In English in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Associate Professor Geoffrey G. O’Brien, Chair Associate Professor Julia Bader Associate Professor Natalia Brizuela Fall 2012 Cantatas of the Wild: Memoir, Mysticism, and Modern Feminist Poetry Copyright © 2012 By Melissa Dawn Keith 1 Abstract Cantatas of the Wild: Memoir, Mysticism, and Modern Feminist Poetry By Melissa Dawn Keith Doctor of Philosophy in English Professor Geoffrey G. O’Brien, Chair In this dissertation, the introduction defines the erotic-mystical mode, using the poetry and prose of the five feminist writers that I argue constitute a core poetic movement. Based on their shared understandings of the centrality of this disruptive new paradigm—with important influences from English Romanticism—these poets create both lyric and prose works that position them as major leaders in feminist thought in the seventies. Collapsing conventional binaries, their works offer examples of how to live, on the deepest level, as life-affirming beings, regardless of gender, race, class, or sexuality, on a damaged, yet still vibrant, planet. They never deny difference, embracing all that is living, yet still grounded in faith in possibilities of collective communication. No one style best expresses the erotic mystical mode; yet it occupies a place, in the seventies, I argue, linked with memoir-poems, paving the way for the contemporary surge of women’s memoirs. The first chapter concerns itself with selectively surveying the erotic mystical mode transnationally and across periods, while dipping into recent American examples, creating a kind of ground for the sustained individual author readings of H.D.’s Sea Garden, chapter three, and the poetry of Adrienne Rich, 1951-1984, chapters five and seven.
    [Show full text]
  • Women, Islam, and Poetry in Pakistan Anita Anantharam
    Journal of International Women's Studies Volume 11 Article 14 Issue 1 Gender and Islam in Asia Nov-2009 Engendering the Nation: Women, Islam, and Poetry in Pakistan Anita Anantharam Follow this and additional works at: http://vc.bridgew.edu/jiws Part of the Women's Studies Commons Recommended Citation Anantharam, Anita (2009). Engendering the Nation: Women, Islam, and Poetry in Pakistan. Journal of International Women's Studies, 11(1), 208-224. Available at: http://vc.bridgew.edu/jiws/vol11/iss1/14 This item is available as part of Virtual Commons, the open-access institutional repository of Bridgewater State University, Bridgewater, Massachusetts. This journal and its contents may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. ©2009 Journal of International Women’s Studies. Engendering the Nation: Women, Islam, and Poetry in Pakistan Anita Anantharam1 Abstract In this essay I offer some examples of reading feminist agency in Pakistan through an analysis of the poems of two of Pakistan’s preeminent feminist poets, Fahmida Riaz (b.1946) and Kishwar Naheed (b.1940). Rather than gesture to their poetry in a strategy of recuperation I contend that their powerful narratives compel us to reevaluate the parameters of contemporary feminist historiography and discourses of nationalism in South Asia. The poems of Fahmida Riaz and Kishwar Naheed are informed by a different set of paradigms about self and community (Islam) and at the same time reflect an archive (poetry) as crucial to feminist critiques of nationalism.
    [Show full text]
  • “That Women Could Matter”: Building Lesbian Feminism in California, 1955-1982
    “That Women Could Matter”: Building Lesbian Feminism in California, 1955-1982 By Chelsea Nicole Del Rio A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (History) in the University of Michigan 2016 Doctoral Committee: Emeritus Professor Regina Morantz-Sanchez, Chair Associate Professor Rebecca M. Kluchin, California State University, Sacramento Associate Professor Matthew D. Lassiter Associate Professor Rachel Neis Associate Professor Gayle S. Rubin Dedicated to Millie and Ernie Taylor, and to Gaby, who continue to be my home though they are now gone, and to the many women, past and present, who inspired this work. ii Acknowledgements “‘That Women Could Matter’” feels to me deeply personal and at the same time so much bigger than me. In spite of work done mostly in solitude, save for my cats demanding their supper, this project would not have been possible without the help, support, and encouragement offered by so many during my Ph.D. path. First, my thanks to my dissertation committee. I have been fortunate to learn from and be guided by smart, supportive faculty: Regina Morantz-Sanchez, Matthew Lassiter, Rachel Neis, Gayle Rubin, and Rebecca Kluchin. Gina quickly jumped into the role of advisor when I unexpectedly found myself in need of one right in the middle of prelims and has continued to ensure I have a champion in my corner. From our first encounters Gina has pushed me to consider the broader implications of lesbian feminism and how it has changed modern society. Thank you for endlessly repeating the promise you see in the work I do.
    [Show full text]