Lost Horizons: Rereading and Reclaiming Victorian Women Writers

"The girls of today cannot see themselves in Miss Yonge and that is their chief demand from literature" -Edith Sichel, Monthly Review, May 1901 The depths to which the reputation of popular conservative Victorian novelist, Charlotte Yonge, had sunk by the end of the nineteenth century are reflected in Oscar Wilde's reaction to being told a condemned man was reading one of Yonge's novels: "My heart was turned by the eyes of the doomed man, but if he reads The Heir of Redclyffe it's perhaps as well to let the law take its course" (Ellman 202).     

Literary Journey from North to South: The Reception of Nordic Women Writers,Their Books and Ideas in the Slovenian Literary System

This article discusses the previously unresearched reception of Nordic women writers in the Slovenian cultural space. The first part presents the early reception of Nordic women writers in the nineteenth century up until the First World War. It analyses both the passive reception (the presence of books by Nordic women writers in library catalogues, references in the press and in egodocuments) as well as the active reception (literary influence). The second part of the article details the case study of Sigrid Undset’s reception, which is very intense and is still ongoing today (the most recent translation is from 2015). Through the methods and approaches of translation, intercultural, polysystem, and gender studies, this article explores the impact of Nordic women writers in the Slovenian literary polysystem and the influence of gender in the reception process. The article concludes that the writings of Nordic women writers brought representations of women’s lives to the Slovenian cultural space. Moreover, this has been of great interest for the Slovenian reading audience since female characters rarely serve as protagonists in Slovenian literature (except in some works written by Slovenian women writers). Slovenian feminists regarded Nordic women writers as role models and legitimized their own feminist demands by quoting the works of Nordic women writers and by referring to their successful writing careers. Therefore, the writings of Nordic women writers fill in a gap in Slovenian literature and supplement and enrich it.     

Women on the Edge of Modernity

Feminism has long been committed to a critique of stereotypic examples of women in patriarchal discourse and has been keen to see what it could offer by way of alternatives. Yet to suggest that alternatives are possible raises the question of whether feminism itself can altogether avoid the trap of turning women into stereotypes, turning the specific example of woman into a universal model, in its own efforts to represent women. Communication demands the particular; it is not possible to refer to everything at once. At the same time, judgements that arise from the use of those particulars are always to some extent faulty - inaccurate or incomplete, too particular or too general. This applies as much to aesthetics (models of beauty) as it does to politics (another matter of representation). What is at issue here is the entire problematic of inclusion and exclusion, whether in politics or aesthetics. Focusing on the significance of Kant's reliance on woman as an example in the Critique of Judgement , Elam argues that it would be a mistake to dismiss all aesthetic discourses of beauty as ploys on the part of patriarchy to keep women for men's eyes only. The Critique of Judgement stands to be useful to feminism because it demonstrates that the problem of the example cannot be solved by striving for the perfect representation of woman - either an inclusive aesthetics or a fully representational politics - or even by overcoming the use of examples altogether. Rather, taking 'woman' as an example stages both aesthetic and political questions about representation that call attention to the challenges feminism faces in its attempt to form political communities.     

Women,the other academics

In Britain, women academics occupy an elite position and therefore have not excited much feminist sympathy. Yet when compared to their male counterparts such women are clearly disadvantaged. This paper analyses three persistent problems British women academics typically encounter. The first involves the coordination, over time, of demands of two ‘greedy institutions’: home and work. The second is the management of colleague relations while occupying token status in a department. The third is the task of understanding and confronting biases reflecting male dominance in what is considered acceptable professional knowledge and practice. What links all three is the marginality, the ‘otherness’ of women academics. Their vulnerability is high and their political potential low; yet by advancing feminist scholarship they can turn their talents to good use.     

Writers with a cause: Sui Sin Far and Han Suyin

‘We're cause people, whether we like it or not,’ said Mai-Mai Sze to a black student who had just been shunned by two white students at a lunch counter in Wellesley, Massachusetts. Eurasian writers Sui Sin Far (Edith Eaton, 1867–1914) and Han Suyin (Rosalie Chou, 1917– ) would strongly concur. Though separated by space and time, both have taken as their cause the wrongs done to peoples of color, primarily the Chinese, and to women. In her short stories Sui Sin Far fought the prevailing notions of the Chinese in America as ‘heathen’ and ‘unassimilable.’ Attentive to the world situation, Han Suyin has been fighting for the oppressed in sixteen books from 1942 to her most recent novel in 1985. In several novels, she draws an important connection between colonialism and sexism. This paper compares the socio-political atmosphere of their times and their literary contributions to their cause.