Feminism, Bakhtin, and the Dialogic

Edited by Dale M. Bauer & Susan Jaret McKinstry

Subjects: Feminist
Series: SUNY series in Feminist Criticism and Theory
Paperback : 9780791407707, 259 pages, February 1992
Hardcover : 9780791407691, 259 pages, February 1992

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Table of contents

Introduction
Dale M. Bauer and Susan Jaret McKinstry

1. The Dilemmas of a Feminine Dialogic
Diane Price Herndl

2. Voices from the Margin: Big Ladies and Others
Suzanne Kehde

3. Prolegomenon for an Ecofeminist Dialogics
Patrick D. Murphy

4. Irigarayan Dialogism: Play and Powerplay
Gail M. Schwab

5. Critical Imperialism and Renaissance Drama: The Case of The Roaring Girl
Deborah Jacobs

6. Style and Power
Josephine Donovan

7. Radical Writing
Peter Hitchcock

8. A Quote of Many Colors: Women and Masquerade in Donald Barthelme's Postmodern Parody Novels
Jaye Berman

9. "Witness [to] the Suffering of Women": Poverty and Sexual Transgression in Meridel Le Sueur's Women on the Breadlines
Susan Sipple

10. The Central Nervous System of America: The Writer As/In the Crowd of Joyce Carol Oates Wonderland
Brenda O. Daly

11. Language and Gender in Transit: Feminist Extensions of Bakhtin
Sheryl Stevenson

12. Subject, Voice, and Women in Some Contemporary Black American Women's Writing
Mary O'Connor

13. Problems of Gordimer's Poetics: Dialogue in Burger's Daughter
Louise Yelin

Afterword
Patricia Yaeger

Contributors

Index

Description

Feminism, Bakhtin, and the Dialogic assembles thirteen essays on the intersection of Bakhtin's narrative theory, especially his concept of dialogism. The book explores the dimensions of using Bakhtin for a feminist analysis and discerns the connections between feminist dialogics and cultural materialism. The authors offer various views ranging from studies of ecofeminism, gender theories of novelistic discourse, Bakhtin and French feminism, to analyses of contemporary novelists such as Toni Morrison, Nadine Gordimer, and Pat Barker.

Drawing on Bakhtin's sociolinguistics, this book provides an introduction to feminist work on Bakhtin and the development of a cultural politics of reading. Challenging questions are raised: What is dialogic feminism? Can Bakhtin's theories advance a feminist politics? How does a feminist dialogics fit into a materialist feminist practice? Can the "dialogic imagination" also describe some of the most radical moments within feminist thinking? The interdisciplinary focus of these responses represents the ongoing dialogue among literary critics, cultural theorists, and feminists.

Dale M. Bauer is Associate Professor of English and Women's Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Susan Jaret McKinstry is Associate Professor of English at Carleton College.