Transatlantic Women's Literature
Published on 3. November 2008
Book
Hardback
192 pages
978-0-7486-2445-4 (ISBN)
Description
Transatlantic Women's Literature is a valuable contribution to the evolving debate surrounding Transatlantic Studies and transatlantic literature. Its originality and importance lie in its focus on 20th century women's narratives of travel and adventure, and its deliberate expansion of the Transatlantic concept beyond the familiar US-UK axis to include Canada, South America, the Caribbean, and Eastern Europe. The crisscrossing of the Atlantic is contested and problematised throughout. The book explores culturally resonant literature that imagines "views from both sides" and examines the imaginary, "in-between" space of the Atlantic. It offers a considered exploration of the way in which the space of the Atlantic-and women's space-work together in the construction of meaning in transatlantic texts.Focusing on contemporary literature, this book engages with a range of genres, from novellas and novels to essays, memoirs, and travel literature. Nella Larsen's Quicksand is read alongside Bharati Mukherjee's Jasmine in relation to constructions of the exotic; Eva Hoffman's Lost in Translation is explored in relation to memoirs of travel such as Jenny Diski's Skating to Antarctica and Stranger on a Train; and Anne Tyler's transatlantic novel The Accidental Tourist is read alongside her latest transpacific novel, Digging to America as well as Isabel Allende's Daughter of Fortune. Readers will gain an appreciation of the complexity of the transatlantic narrative and the ways in which these narratives are defined by and infused with gender considerations.
Reviews / Votes
Since theories of transnationalism and globalization have often been accused of privileging the male gaze, Macpherson's book, by reconsidering a wide range of women's writing from a transatlantic perspective, also makes an important contribution to wider issues in cultural politics. Her argument encompasses authors not normally considered within this kind of critical framework and it produces a book of some critical sophistication. -- Paul Giles, Professor of American Literature, University of Oxford Macpherson opens her s tudy with an extremely useful survey of recent theories about travel and travel writing, and about womens' travel narratives in particular... Her individual readings usefully open up, through localized textual discussion, what it may mean to feel "foreign", and how women, in particular, may engage with this affect--which is, as she makes clear, not necessarily a disorienting experience in a negative sense. -- Kate Flint, Rutgers University Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature Since theories of transnationalism and globalization have often been accused of privileging the male gaze, Macpherson's book, by reconsidering a wide range of women's writing from a transatlantic perspective, also makes an important contribution to wider issues in cultural politics. Her argument encompasses authors not normally considered within this kind of critical framework and it produces a book of some critical sophistication. Macpherson opens her s tudy with an extremely useful survey of recent theories about travel and travel writing, and about womens' travel narratives in particular... Her individual readings usefully open up, through localized textual discussion, what it may mean to feel "foreign", and how women, in particular, may engage with this affect--which is, as she makes clear, not necessarily a disorienting experience in a negative sense.More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Edinburgh
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 236 mm
Width: 163 mm
Thickness: 18 mm
Weight
458 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-7486-2445-4 (9780748624454)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Heidi Slettedahl Macpherson
Transatlantic Women's Literature
E-Book
11/2008
1st Edition
Edinburgh University Press
€0.00
Available for download
Person
Heidi Slettedahl Macpherson is the President of The College at Brockport, State University of New York. She is the author of Courting Failure: Women and the Law in 20th-Century Literature (University of Akron Press, 2007), Women's Movement: Escape as Transgression in North American Feminist Fiction (Rodopi, 2000) and co-editor of Transatlantic Studies (UPA, 2000), New Perspectives in Transatlantic Studies (UPA, 2002) and Britain and the Americas: Culture, Politics and History (a 3-volume encyclopedia) (ABC-Clio, 2005).
Content
Introduction; Part One: The Exoticised Other; 1. Constructing Race across the Atlantic: Nella Larsen's Quicksand; 2. Assimilation in the Heartland: Bharati Mukherjee's Jasmine; Part Two: Memoirs and Transatlantic Travel; 3. The Anti-Tourist: Jenny Diski's Skating to Antarctica and Stranger on a Train: Daydreaming and Smoking Around America With Interruptions; 4. 'There is No World Outside the Text': Transatlantic Slippage in Eve Hoffman's Lost in Translation; Part Three: Negotiating the Foreign/ Re-Inventing Home; 5. Revisiting the Family: Anne Tyler's The Accidental Tourist; 6. Cross-Dressing and Transnational Space: Isabel Allende's Daughter of Fortune; Conclusion.