No Room of Their Own
Gender and Nation in Israeli Women's Fiction
Published on 10. December 1999
Book
Hardback
248 pages
978-0-231-11146-1 (ISBN)
Description
Unlike the literary traditions of the United States, England, and France, the first century of Hebrew literature was lacking in women novelists; women tended to write poetry, while prose fiction was mainly the domain of male writers. Since the 1980s, however, there has been a virtual explosion of commercially successful Hebrew fiction by women that includes many traditionally male genres, such as the historical novel, fictional autobiography, and the mystery novel. No Room of Their Own is a comparative analysis of recent Israeli fiction by women and some of its Western models, from Virginia Woolf and Simone de Beauvoir to Marilyn French and Marie Cardinal.
Feldman shows the richness and subtleties of Israeli women's fiction as she explores the themes of gender and nation, as well as the (non)representation of the "New Hebrew Woman" in five authors -- the "foremothers" of the contemporary boom in Israeli Women's fiction: Amalia Kahana-Carmon ( Up on Montifer, With Her on Her Way Home), Shulamith Hareven ( City of Many Days, Thirst, The Vocabulary of Peace), Netiva BenYehuda ( The Palmach Trilogy), Ruth Almog ( Women, The Story of a [Writer's] Block, Roots of Air), and Shulamit Lapid ( Gei Oni).
Feldman shows the richness and subtleties of Israeli women's fiction as she explores the themes of gender and nation, as well as the (non)representation of the "New Hebrew Woman" in five authors -- the "foremothers" of the contemporary boom in Israeli Women's fiction: Amalia Kahana-Carmon ( Up on Montifer, With Her on Her Way Home), Shulamith Hareven ( City of Many Days, Thirst, The Vocabulary of Peace), Netiva BenYehuda ( The Palmach Trilogy), Ruth Almog ( Women, The Story of a [Writer's] Block, Roots of Air), and Shulamit Lapid ( Gei Oni).
Reviews / Votes
"Feldman has produced a provocative look at the tension between Israeli nationalism and an emerging feminist consciousness in Israeli women's fiction." -- Tikkun "Feldman's own style is an achievement in its own right... [her] bifocal outlook on both continents makes the book an exciting experience for two kinds of audiences, Eastern and Western, female and male scholars and writers... will generate fruitful scholarly discussions and will be considered milestones in feminist studies in Israel as well as the United States." -- Yona Shapira, Hebrew Studies "a fascinating study, full of surprises and insights for scholars of Israeli culture and literature and for feminists everywhere" -- Amia Lieblich, NashimMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
Ill.
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Weight
480 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-231-11146-1 (9780231111461)
Copyright in bibliographic data is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or its licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
12/1999
Columbia University Press
€34.72
Shipment within 10-20 days
Person
Yael S. Feldman is Abraham I. Katsch Professor of Hebrew Culture and Education at New York University.
Content
Introduction I. "Running with She-Wolves"? II. The "New Hebrew Woman" III. The Subject of Postmodernism IV. Isreal and the European "Woman Question" One: Emerging Subjects I. The Masked Autobiography: Genre and Gender II. What Does a Woman Want? Shulamit Lapid and the Feminist Romance Two: Alterity Revisited: Gender Theory and Israeli Literary Feminism I. Beauvior's Drama of Subjectivity II. Beauvoir's "Daughters": Otherness as Difference III. Postmodernism's "Other": Mother's Body, Mother's Tongue IV. Empowering the M/Other? Three: Empowering the Other: Amalia Kahana-Carmon I. Feminine, Feminist, or Modernist? II. A Brotherhood of Outsiders: Women/Jews/Blacks in Up in Montifer III. The Brotherhood That Cannot Hold Four: Who's Afraid of Androgyny? Virginia Woolf's "Gender" avant la lettre I. Untangling the Homoerotic Web: Between Orlando and A Room of One's Own II. Who's Afraid of Father and Mother(hood)? Back To The Lighthouse III. Jewish Mothers and Israeli Androgyny Five: Israeli Androgyny Under Siege: Shulamith Hareven I. Gendered Selves in City of Many Days: Same, Different, or Repressed? II. Androgynous "Jewish Parents"? Not in a War Zone! III. Trauma and Homoeroticism: Loneliness, an Israeli Story Six: The Leaning Ivory Tower: Feminist Politics I. Oedipal Tyrannies: Woolf's Psychopolitics in Three Guineas II. The Leaning Israeli Tower: Feminism Reinvented III. Monotheistic Tyrannies: Israeli Psychopolitics Seven: 1948 -- Hebrew "Gender" and Zionist Ideology: Netiva Ben Yehuda Eight: Beyond The Feminist Romance: Ruth Almog I. From The Madwoman in the Attic to The Women's Room II. The Sins of Their Father(s); or, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl III. Love and Work? Embracing the M/Other in Roots of Air IV. From Hysteria to HerStory: Artistic Mending Afterword: The Nineties -- Prelude to a Postmodernist Millennium?