I am a woman writer attempting non-gendered acrobatics with concrete language that ignores genre boundaries. I did not know this early in my writing practice although Feminist Criticism texts lined library bookshelves. My first undergrad experience was at FIT. I was a fashion designer for nearly twenty years before coming to writing. My first mentors introduced me early on in my writing practice to experimental, metafiction texts and theory, which I embraced. I feasted and continue to feast on theory to inform my writing. Knowledge expands my perception and delimits my experience. My writing was corseted until I went back to school to complete my BFA in Goddard’s low residency program and began my MFA at City. Liberation from fiction’s conventional constraints particularly plot, and literary genre boundaries came from my feminist professors and feminist critical texts. My writing has been heavily influenced by the French focus on language, and the American focus on representation.
I write this after reading “Feminist Criticism and Hamlet” in our course reading guide. Ross C. Murfin brilliant concision of the various and sometimes competing forms of American, French, and British Feminist Critical theory puts all the dangling rhetoric into a comprehensive perspective. I suggest it is a must read.
I hope Mira doesn’t mind my adding her comment to Vincent’s post that explains the next stage, I think, crucial phase in Feminist Criticism in equally concise terms.
Mira said…
I think you raise an interesting an important question here, Vincent. Feminism, by nature of it’s nomenclature, seems to be an exclusively “feminine” endeavor run by females. But I think the word “feminist” might be a misnomer.
I took a class in undergrad once that was called “Philosophy of Feminism.” I think when we examine feminism through a philosophical, rather than socio-cultural lens, the entire concept of gender and sexuality is called into question. I read Judith Butler for the first time in that class, and even though she identifies herself as a “feminist,” she argues that gender and sex are not just constructions, but performances. Anyone who adheres to a specific sexual identity is essentially “in drag.” A provocative statement! Anyway, my point is that it is the responsibility of feminists to call into question not just causes that affect women; the subjugation of women is only the tip of the ice burg. Rather it is conceptions and constructions of sex and gender that are really the at the heart of the problem.
Posted by Deborah at 9:35 AM 0 comments
Interactive intertextual narrative 