Fictional Feminism: How American Bestsellers Affect the Movement for Women's Equality

ISBN-13: 9780415968065 / Angielski / Twarda / 2004 / 236 str.

Kim A. Loudermilk; Loudermilk Loudermilk

Opis

This book focuses on the way in which second-wave feminism has been represented in American popular culture, and on the effects that these representations have had on feminism as a political movement. Kim Loudermilk provides close readings of four bestselling novels and their film adaptations: Marilyn French's The Women's Room, John Irving's The World According to Garp, John Updike's The Witches of Eastwick, and Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale . According to Loudermilk, each of these novels contains explicitly feminist characters and themes, yet each presents a curiously ambivalent picture of feminism; these texts at once take feminism seriously and subtly undercut its most central tenets. This book argues that these texts create a kind of 'fictional feminism' that recuperates feminism's radical potential, thereby lessening the threat it presents to the status quo.

Spis treści

Introduction; Chapter 1 Out of the ‘70s: Feminist Politics and Popular Fiction; Chapter 2 From The Women's Room to the Bedroom: Marilyn French's Feminist Fiction; Chapter 3 Sexual Suspects: Feminism According to Garp; Chapter 4 “Weak Sisters”: Feminism and The Witches of Eastwick; Chapter 5 “Consider the Alternatives”: Feminism and Ambivalence in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale; conclusion Into the ‘90s: Fictional Feminism and Feminist Politics;

O autorze

Kim A. Loudermilk is Senior Associate Dean for Academic Planning at Emory University.