Demanding Spaces: 1970S U.S. Women's Novels As Sites of Struggle

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Doctoral Dissertations Dissertations and Theses

November 2017

Demanding Spaces: 1970s U.S. Women's Novels as Sites of Struggle

Kate Marantz University of Massachusetts Amherst

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Recommended Citation Marantz, Kate, "Demanding Spaces: 1970s U.S. Women's Novels as Sites of Struggle" (2017). Doctoral Dissertations. 1107. https://doi.org/10.7275/10552139.0 https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/1107

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DEMANDING SPACES: 1970s U.S. WOMEN’S NOVELS AS SITES OF STRUGGLE

A Dissertation Presented

KATE MARANTZ

Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

September 2017

English

DEMANDING SPACES: 1970s U.S. WOMEN’S NOVELS AS SITES OF STRUGGLE

A Dissertation Presented

KATE MARANTZ

Approved as to style and content by:

Asha Nadkarni, Chair

Emily Lordi, Member

Mecca Jamilah Sullivan, Member

Randall Knoper, Department Head Department of English

DEDICATION

For Gwen, Nell, and Esme.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

While writing this dissertation, I have relied upon so many for guidance and encouragement; it is their support, as much as my efforts, that made this project possible.

I first want to thank my advisors Professor Asha Nadkarni and Professor Emily Lordi, whose brilliant and generous insights have guided my work for much of my time at

UMass and throughout this project. As chair of my dissertation, Asha has been a consistent, thoughtful, and critical reader, always conveying her belief in the importance of my ideas while also pushing me further in my thinking. More than that, she has been such a positive presence for me as I’ve navigated my years in graduate school, willing to listen, commiserate, and be a cheerleader for me when I needed it. I greatly admire

Asha’s sharp intelligence and breadth of knowledge, as well as her kindness and dedication to mentorship. I feel extremely fortunate to know her and to have had her direct this dissertation. And I am very thankful to Emily, in whose graduate courses, along with Asha’s, I began to explore the intersections of space, movement, gender, and race in literature. Emily’s excitement about my work, her careful critiques of my writing, and her insightful suggestions for further reading have been invaluable to me throughout my dissertation. I always look to her writings—socially engaged, aesthetically grounded, and eloquently, forcefully expressed—as models for my own. I am so happy that I have had the opportunity to work with her.

In addition, I wish to thank my committee member Professor Mecca Jamilah Sullivan, whose thoughtful and generative feedback on early sections of my dissertation has

resonated throughout my writing process. I am grateful, as well, for the many other professors, staff, and colleagues I came to know in the English Department and the

Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies Department at UMass, with special thanks to those who read and heard versions of chapters in dissertation workshops and at the WGSS graduate conference. And I want to thank Professor Deborah Carlin, who was a challenging and fiercely loyal mentor to me in my first few years of graduate school. As was the case with so many other students, I held tightly to Deborah’s faith in me as I moved through the program. She was the most intimidatingly intelligent and personally invested teacher I’ve ever had, and she is greatly missed.

I am lucky to have friends who also consistently push and broaden my thinking while providing unwavering support. Thank you to Jess, who was my plus-one and partner-in- crime for most of graduate school. It was by watching her capably navigate the world of academia that I grew more comfortable in my own roles as researcher, speaker, and instructor; it was in talking with her over glasses of wine and on road-trips to conferences that I worked out many of my ideas for the dissertation. Jess is an incredibly generous friend and colleague, and I’ve had a blast with her. Thank you to Katie, my “twin,” my oldest and most ever-present, loyal friend since age three. I am in awe of Katie’s embodiment of a seemingly impossible combination of intelligence and approachability, pragmatism and positivity, selflessness and self-possession. Whether we’re in Minnesota or Montevideo, she has always been there to ask questions, give advice, and cheer me on, and I am so grateful for her. And thank you to my Skidmore girls, Ta, Jamie, Justine, Liz,

Dido, and Joce, such beautiful, bright, accomplished women. Our lasting friendships have sustained me and made me who I am.

I am so grateful to my close-knit, fun-loving, politically engaged family. In particular, I want to thank my cousins Eve and Mae. They were by my side in Greece and Ghana as I put last-minute touches on my graduate school applications; they humored my insanity and showed me strength and love; they keep me laughing and always will. Thank you to my sister Nell. Since I can remember, I have aspired to be as cool, smart, stylish, and independent as Nell, and I’m still trying. In times of dance-filled celebration and profound hardship, she has been a constant, reassuring presence, and I feel very fortunate to so deeply know and be known by her. Thank you also to her daughter Esme, who is probably the most powerful girl I know. And thank you to my mother and father, Gwen and Tom. I could not ask for more giving, loving, and feminist parents, and none of this would have been possible if not for their support, sympathy, and encouragement.

Lastly, I want to express my gratitude to two other members of my family. To Penny the dog, for having the softest ears and never asking for anything but walks and treats and love. And to Phil, for keeping me going. It was soon after Phil and I met that I began this dissertation, and every step of the way he has been there with the pep-talks, distractions, and tough love I needed to continue writing even when it felt impossible. He has shown me what it means to be a caring, humble, and generous partner, and has been willing to share and bring me into his own amazing family, for which I am so grateful. Phil is my best friend, and I’m excited for our next adventure and all the ones to come.

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ABSTRACT

DEMANDING SPACES: 1970s U.S. WOMEN’S NOVELS AS SITES OF STRUGGLE

SEPTEMBER 2017

KATE MARANTZ, B.A., SKIDMORE COLLEGE

M.A., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST

Ph.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST

Directed by: Professor Asha Nadkarni

This dissertation offers a new view of 1970s gender and race politics in the United

States by analyzing struggles in and over space in four women’s novels: Joan Didion’s

Play It As It Lays (1970), Toni Morrison’s Sula (1973), Alice Walker’s Meridian (1976), and Marilyn French’s The Women’s Room (1977). My project reads space as a dynamic, politically charged realm of interactions between lived bodies, physical landscapes, and imaginative territories—including the formal characteristics of fiction. Using this critical lens, I highlight how these authors interrogate conditions of sexism and racism by representing their characters making and responding to “demands” for space. These demands occu