Performing sinners: The Asobi and the Buddhist discourse of Tsumi

This essay addresses how Oprah's book choices are inevitably affective but not necessarily feminist. By reading Oprah's book choices as highly individualistic, I analyze how her choices might be more aggressive and more complex, thereby offering a sense of community rather than the power of individuality to her huge audiences. My argument is based on a belief in Oprah's communicative power, and especially if her book choices were invested with more complications than individual resolutions.     

Editing daphne du maurier

The author of this article edited all Daphne du Maurier's work for nearly forty years, from 1943 until she published her last book in 1981. The article discusses the qualities which made her a best seller, whose books are read and studied in universities all over the world, and provides insights into her skill as a writer, and into the links between her books and her own life. It describes how author and editor worked together, and seeks to throw light on du Maurier's complex and often contradictory personality. There are also quotations from her letters, published here for the first time. Because of the author's particular relationship with du Maurier, the article gives a new and personal insight into how so many world-famous books came into being.     

‘The <Emphasis Type="Italic">Purdahnashin</Emphasis> in Her Setting’: Colonial Modernity and the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Zenana</Emphasis> in Cornelia Sorabji's Memoirs

This article focuses on two memoirs written by Cornelia Sorabji in the 1930s – India Calling (1934), and a subsequent book, India Recalled (1936) – in order to explore how discourses of space and place shaped the representations of femininity which structure these texts. Specifically, I will examine Sorabji's apprehensions of femininity in relation to the Muslim and Hindu women she viewed as her legal ‘clients.’ I am equally interested in these texts as evidence of how memory works as a practice of history – how events as they were recalled and recorded in the volatile 1930s and, especially in the wake of the Katherine Mayo controversy, how they helped shape the versions of the respectable feminine produced in her public writing of the period.     

‘The Message Is in the Book’: What Virago's Sale in 1995 Means for Feminist Publishing

This article examines the UK publisher Virago, the world's largest women's imprint and the best known of the second-wave feminist publishing houses that sprang up during the 1970s and 1980s. Feminist publishing remains a peculiarly unacknowledged and underexamined aspect of feminist history, but one that had real influence and effect. This article gives a historical account of Virago, noting its intention to enact feminist politicking through the act of publishing books. The author looks at the effect Virago had on the industry more widely, on literary culture and on attitudes to women. The author also examines changing formulations of feminism and how these were reflected—or not—through Virago's published output. The author then moves on to her central proposition: that Virago's sale in 1995, rather than marking the death of feminist publishing (as was stated in media comment at the time), was in fact the point at which it was saved. Virago's move into Little, Brown, coinciding with the rise of an increasingly commodified consumer culture, the conglomeration of the book industry and more pluralized expressions of feminism, allowed it to continue to work as a publisher of women's writing while none of its contemporaries survived. The author looks in detail at the changes post-1995 within the book industry, within feminism and in wider culture, as well as at Virago. The author asks whether Virago still has value as a ‘feminist’ imprint and how it has sought to remain vital and relevant.     

The Implausibility of Freeman's Hoaxing Theory: An Update

This article updates a series of critical analyses of Derek Freeman's claim that Margaret Mead was hoaxed during the field research that constituted the basis of her book Coming of Age in Samoa. In particular, Freeman claims that this hoaxing caused Mead to falsely portray Samoa as a free-love society. Based on Mead's written correspondence, progress reports, and the contents of her book, it is concluded that no hoaxing of any significance could plausibly constitute the basis of her book. Moreover, while Mead may have made some misleading statements about the extent of sexual freedom among her informants, she did not portray a free-love society in her book. Instead, some of the misleading statements can be traced to the encouragement of her publisher to make a show for the public.     

Love Scenes and Garden Plots: Form and Femininity in Elizabeth von Arnim’s Elizabeth and Her German Garden

Abstract

This essay reads Elizabeth von Arnim’s Elizabeth and Her German Garden (1898) in relation to Alfred Austin’s garden book, The Garden That I Love (1894). The Garden That I Love presents the garden as a retreat modelled on the Horatian ideal, in which a man retires from public life to enjoy a peaceful rural existence. Von Arnim shows how the garden, or rather the good of retreat that the garden represents, is well-nigh inaccessible to a female subject. At the same time, she wants to claim the garden’s seclusion for the female subject. Ultimately, von Arnim takes the idea of feminine retreat to an unexpected extreme, generating, in certain passages of her text, a perverse garden fantasia that celebrates feminine autoeroticism and sexual self-sufficiency. Notably, it is specific aspects of the form of the garden book that allow von Arnim to develop her ambivalently feminist, unabashedly utopian vision of feminine withdrawal and retreat.     

Feminist catch-as-catch-can

Looking back at her own involvement as a ‘right on’ lesbian feminist activist in the German women's movement Monika Jaeckel now feels that too much valuable energy is spent in struggles between sisters. She proposes to focus on the dialogue among as many different women as possible, validate different personal and professional choices and perspectives and to do this by openly confronting our contradictions. Accepting, if necessary by struggle, differences among women will result in mutual protection—instead of ‘trashing’—and in more space for feminists. Such a strategy includes not blaming and guilt tripping each other for our (relative) priveleges but rather devising new ways how to share and distribute available resources, and thus turn our diversity into our strength.     

Alice Havergal Skillicorn,Principal of Homerton College,Cambridge, 1935-60: a study of gender and power

This article sharpens our understanding of the intersection of the discourses of gender and power in the woman principal's role by an in-depth study of Alice Havergal Skillicorn, Principal of Homerton College, Cambridge, 1935-60. Like previous principals, Skillicorn constructed a subjectivity which was dual gendered. In her public life as principal, she adopted a masculine discourse of power which subordinated feminine discourse into the private sphere. But this marginalisation of feminine discourse in her public role made her unable, except in her most intimate emotional relationship, to enact an appropriate femininity in her private life. After a theoretical and contextual introduction, it is shown how Skillicorn marginalised and negated her femininity through her body, by failing to adopt feminine standards of attractiveness in her appearance and clothes. She successfully wielded autocratic power in the public sphere with a masculine discourse of political skill, financial acumen and, most importantly, an instrumentality in her dealings with staff and students, which was entirely devoid of a feminine desire to be liked. The difficulties she faced in the private sphere - difficulties which were assuaged but not overcome by homoerotic friendship - are also discussed.     

Child Protection Intervention in Domestic Violence: An Illustrative Case Narrative

This is a case study, written from the point of view of child protection caseworkers, about their work with one family. They draw on practices originating in solution-focused and brief therapy, response-based theory, and relationship-based practice. The goal is to implement practices that (a) hold the perpetrator accountable rather than the victim, (b) attempt to avoid putting the mother in a position of having to choose between partner and children, (c) capitalize on child protection's unusual mandate in order to provide support for the mother, and (d) position the professional as a supportive ally of the mother and children instead of relying on the investigative stance. The case is an instance of how these goals and principles are operationalized. Examples of their choices include holding the perpetrator accountable instead of the mother, (a) focusing on what the mother is already doing to protect the children rather than what she is not doing, (b) placing the Ministry of Children and Family Development between the perpetrator and the victim, (c) avoiding forcing the mother to choose between her children and her partner, and (d) attending to the qualities of the relationship with the mother.     

Emmeline pankhurst: a biographical interpretation [1]

This article examines a dominant narrative about, Emmeline Pankhurst, leader of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), the most notorious of the groupings campaigning for the parliamentary vote for women in Edwardian Britain. It is claimed that this narrative is to be found in the influential book, The Suffragette Movement (1931), written by one of Emmeline's daughters, Sylvia. In this book, Sylvia portrays her mother as a traitor to the socialist cause, a leader who deliberately encouraged wealthy Conservative women to join the WSPU and who failed to mobilise the working classes, a misguided autocrat who supported a single-issue campaign, a weak woman easily swayed by her eldest daughter, Christabel, and a failed mother who neglected her less favoured children, Harry, Adela and Sylvia.     

Lady Elinor Davies: The prophet as publisher

Lady Elinor Davies, who published between 1625 and 1652 more works than any other Englishwoman before her, believed herself to be the prophet of the apocalypse, divinely chosen to reveal that the apocalypses of Daniel and St John find their fulfillment in the events of the seventeenth century and thereby to proclaim the coming of the judgement and the end of time. Empowered by confidence in her gift and compelled by the urgency of her mission, Lady Elinor defied patriarchal authority when in 1633 she published prophecies attacking church and king, an act that brought her to trial and to prison and her prophecies to the bonfire. Lady Elinor then mythologized this trial: She, the woman-prophet-publisher, becomes the apocalyptic Woman in Travail, who triumphs over the monstrous embodiments of patriarchal power that persecute her and seek to destroy her work.     

Dr Mary Louisa Gordon (1861–1941): A Feminist Approach in Prison

This article discusses the work of Dr Mary Louisa Gordon, who was appointed as the first English Lady Inspector of Prisons in 1908, and remained in post until 1921. Her attitude towards and treatment of women prisoners, as explained in her 1922 book Penal Discipline, stands in sharp contrast to that of her male contemporaries, and the categorisation of her approach as ‘feminist’ is reinforced by her documented connections with the suffragette movement. Yet her feminist and suffragist associations also resulted in the marginalisation and dismissal of her work, such that Mary Gordon and Penal Discipline are virtually unknown today. Nevertheless, her insights into the position and needs of women prisoners retain a striking contemporary relevance.     

Yugoslavia,an ‘Almost Forbidden Word’ Cultural policy in times of nationalism—interview with Dubravka Ugresic

In the 1990s wars in former Yugoslavia many intellectuals, including writers, artists, and scholars, supported nationalist right-wing regimes and promoted narratives of national exceptionalism to justify relevant political decisions and cultural policies. The intellectuals who opposed these regimes were frequently silenced (censored and/or assassinated) and many of them eventually left the country. The following interview features the renowned writer Dubravka Ugresic, who analyzes Croatia's cultural and political climate at the outset of the war and explains how her opposition to the wartime Croatian regime led to her public ostracism and subsequent decision to emigrate to the Netherlands. Emphasizing the role that nationalist intellectuals played in altering former Yugoslav cultural policies, Ugresic discusses the politics of language, literature, and literary canon in the new states that emerged from Yugoslavia's violent dismemberment. Ugresic also reflects on how the new politics of ethnic identity affects international book markets in terms of publishing decisions, distribution of literature, and classification of writers according to national affiliation. In this process, Ugresic notes, Yugoslavia itself has become an “almost forbidden word,” and its nurturing of multiethnic and supranational literature and culture has been supplanted by narrowly nationalist cultural policies.     

Yugoslavia, an 'Almost Forbidden Word' Cultural policy in times of nationalism—interview with Dubravka Ugresic

In the 1990s wars in former Yugoslavia many intellectuals, including writers, artists, and scholars, supported nationalist right-wing regimes and promoted narratives of national exceptionalism to justify relevant political decisions and cultural policies. The intellectuals who opposed these regimes were frequently silenced (censored and/or assassinated) and many of them eventually left the country. The following interview features the renowned writer Dubravka Ugresic, who analyzes Croatia's cultural and political climate at the outset of the war and explains how her opposition to the wartime Croatian regime led to her public ostracism and subsequent decision to emigrate to the Netherlands. Emphasizing the role that nationalist intellectuals played in altering former Yugoslav cultural policies, Ugresic discusses the politics of language, literature, and literary canon in the new states that emerged from Yugoslavia's violent dismemberment. Ugresic also reflects on how the new politics of ethnic identity affects international book markets in terms of publishing decisions, distribution of literature, and classification of writers according to national affiliation. In this process, Ugresic notes, Yugoslavia itself has become an “almost forbidden word,” and its nurturing of multiethnic and supranational literature and culture has been supplanted by narrowly nationalist cultural policies.     

The Sense of a Life: Re-assessing Simone de Beauvoir

Violently differing views on Simone de Beauvoir clash—how not? Our own obsessional reading of and about her is all the more enhanced by her look and manner(s) of dressing, and her affairs, but, above all, by her towering intelligence and pioneering spirit. This piece tries to deal with as many aspects of her being and seeming and appearance to others, as critics and as readers, as behoves such a vital spirit.     

Little Swans with Luxette and Loved Boy Pudding: Changing Fashions in Cookery Books

Cookery books are far from simple things: alongside the recipes we may find narrative, memoir, science, history, politics, travelogue and anthropology. The cookery book also reveals in a profoundly naked form the anxieties and paranoias of its precise historical moment. So the glamorous cookery books of the years between the wars try to persuade the newly servantless middle-class woman that the cooking she must now do herself is a creative and fashionable activity. And the postwar British, sick of the limited stodge of their still-rationed diet, clutched Elizabeth David to their collective bosom, unable to taste her pungent dishes, but in thrall to the sun-strewn fantasy of the good life her books offered. From Mrs Beeton, offering the mid-Victorian mistress of the house the instructions and routines she needed to hide the mechanisms of the domestic machine, to the potent contemporary fantasy of the Mediterranean peasant and his fabulously healthy lifestyle, Humble interrogates the cookery books of the last 150 years, asking what they can tell us about how changing attitudes to class, gender and domesticity intersect with the culture of food.     

Never late: Unwelcome desires and diasporas in Chavela Vargas’ last works

Theodor Adorno, and Edward Said after him, theorized late style as a discrepant musical orientation at odds with what is expected, desired, or current. Late work is musical work formulated by an older subject that refuses to retire quietly and with docility. While Adorno and Said discuss Classical-period music, the author is interested in engaging this concept in thinking about the recalcitrant rancheras and boleros of a lesbian, migrant, and aged musical performer of the early twenty-first century, Chavela Vargas (1919–2012). She examines a couple of Vargas’ last works, Cupaima (2006) and ¡Por mi |Culpa! (2010), paying particular attention to how her aesthetic choices continue to de-form the classic repertoire of rancheras and boleros. The entwining of beloved, familiar lyrics and melodies with details that recall invisible and hyper-visible subjects, namely migrants and indigenous communities, result in unexpected, repellent musicality. Inspired by feminist and queer theory, the author examines how her later body of work conveys an unbearable sonic assessment of contemporary struggles of those unwelcome, despised, and outside neo-liberal chronology.     

Alice Notley's disobedient cities

The American poet Alice Notley has described one of her goals as being to take up ‘as much literary space as any male poet’ (Notley, 2005: 6), a phrase that questions the nature of ‘literary space’, and its relationship to material and political spaces. In Disobedience (2001), as in her earlier book The Descent of Alette (1992), the city is imagined in relation to what lies beneath it. Both of these extended poem sequences set up urban underground geographies, Alette – a mythical underground of caves and ghostly trains, and Disobedience – a largely subterranean Paris that shifts between the ‘real’ metro and a series of filmic dreamscapes. In challenging the scope and scale of canonical epics with feminist reconfigurations of form, her work engages with the public space of the city. This article will explore the connection between the extended poetic forms she uses in these two books, and ways in which her work conceptualizes the gendering of city space through relationships between the body and language. Through reference to readings of Michel de Certeau by Meaghan Morris and Doreen Massey, I will show how Notley's approach to problems of language and form, and their potential solutions, are not only enmeshed in certain spatial concepts but also able to offer a critique of them.