Doris Lessing
Border Crossings
1st Edition
Published on 20. October 2011
192 pages
978-1-4411-9264-6 (ISBN)
Description
Despite winning the Nobel Prize for Literature, Doris Lessing has received relatively little critical attention. One of the reasons for this is that Lessing has spent much of her lifetime and her long published writing career crossing both national and ideological borders.
This essay collection reflects and explores the incredible variety of Lessing's border crossings and positions her writing in its various social and cultural contexts. Lessing crosses literal national borders in her life and work, but more controversial have been her crossings of genre borders into sci-fi and "space fiction", and her crossing of ideological borders such as moving into and out of the Communist Party and from a colonial into a post-colonial world. This timely collection also considers a number of the most interesting recent critical and theoretical approaches to Lessing's writing, including work on maternity and abjection in relation to The Fifth Child and The Grass is Singing, eco-criticism in Lessing's 'Ifrakan' novels, and postcolonial re-writings of landscape in her African Stories.
This essay collection reflects and explores the incredible variety of Lessing's border crossings and positions her writing in its various social and cultural contexts. Lessing crosses literal national borders in her life and work, but more controversial have been her crossings of genre borders into sci-fi and "space fiction", and her crossing of ideological borders such as moving into and out of the Communist Party and from a colonial into a post-colonial world. This timely collection also considers a number of the most interesting recent critical and theoretical approaches to Lessing's writing, including work on maternity and abjection in relation to The Fifth Child and The Grass is Singing, eco-criticism in Lessing's 'Ifrakan' novels, and postcolonial re-writings of landscape in her African Stories.
More details
Series
Edition
1. Auflage
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Target group
Professional and scholarly
ISBN-13
978-1-4411-9264-6 (9781441192646)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
12/2011
Continuum Publishing Corporation
€55.70
Shipment within 15-20 days
Persons
Alice Ridout is Assistant Professor at Grenfell Campus, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada. She is Vice-President of the Doris Lessing Society and book reviews editor for Contemporary Women's Writing.
Susan Watkins is Reader in Twentieth-Century Women's Fiction at Leeds Metropolitan University, UK. She is author of Twentieth Century Women Novelists: Feminist Theory into Practice (Palgrave, 2001), co-editor of Scandalous Fictions: The Twentieth Century Novel in the Public Sphere (Palgrave, 2006) and an associate editor of the journal Contemporary Women's Writing (Oxford). She was also editor of a special issue of The Journal of Commonwealth Literature on Doris Lessing (March 2008).
Susan Watkins is Reader in Twentieth-Century Women's Fiction at Leeds Metropolitan University, UK. She is author of Twentieth Century Women Novelists: Feminist Theory into Practice (Palgrave, 2001), co-editor of Scandalous Fictions: The Twentieth Century Novel in the Public Sphere (Palgrave, 2006) and an associate editor of the journal Contemporary Women's Writing (Oxford). She was also editor of a special issue of The Journal of Commonwealth Literature on Doris Lessing (March 2008).
Content
Note on Contributors
Introduction: Doris Lessing's Border Crossings, Alice Ridout and Susan Watkins (Leeds Metropolitan University, UK)
1. Horrors of the Breast: Cultural Boundaries and the Abject in The Grass is Singing, Edith Frampton (San Diego State University, USA)
2. Inside and Outside Colonial Spaces: Border Crossings in Doris Lessing's African Stories', Pat Louw (University of Zululand, SA)
3. Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook: An Experiment in Critical Fiction, Nick Bentley (University of Keele, UK)
4. Doris Lessing's Fantastic Children, Roberta Rubenstein (American University, US)
5. The 'Jane Somers' Hoax: Aging, Gender and the Literary Marketplace, Susan Watkins (Leeds Metropolitan University, UK)
6. (Not Such) Great Expectations: Unmaking Maternal Ideals in The Fifth Child and We Need to Talk About Kevin, Ruth Robbins (Leeds Metropolitan University, UK)
7. Doris Lessing's Under My Skin: The Autobiography of a Cosmopolitan 'Third Culture Kid', Alice Ridout (University of Leeds, UK)
8. Environmental Fables? The eco-politics of Doris Lessing's 'Ifrik' novels, Fiona Becket, (University of Leeds, UK)
9. The Porous Border Between Fact and Fiction, Empathy and Identification in Doris Lessing's The Cleft, Phyllis Sternberg Perrakis (University of Ottawa, CA)
Afterword, Judith Kegan Gardiner
Index
Introduction: Doris Lessing's Border Crossings, Alice Ridout and Susan Watkins (Leeds Metropolitan University, UK)
1. Horrors of the Breast: Cultural Boundaries and the Abject in The Grass is Singing, Edith Frampton (San Diego State University, USA)
2. Inside and Outside Colonial Spaces: Border Crossings in Doris Lessing's African Stories', Pat Louw (University of Zululand, SA)
3. Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook: An Experiment in Critical Fiction, Nick Bentley (University of Keele, UK)
4. Doris Lessing's Fantastic Children, Roberta Rubenstein (American University, US)
5. The 'Jane Somers' Hoax: Aging, Gender and the Literary Marketplace, Susan Watkins (Leeds Metropolitan University, UK)
6. (Not Such) Great Expectations: Unmaking Maternal Ideals in The Fifth Child and We Need to Talk About Kevin, Ruth Robbins (Leeds Metropolitan University, UK)
7. Doris Lessing's Under My Skin: The Autobiography of a Cosmopolitan 'Third Culture Kid', Alice Ridout (University of Leeds, UK)
8. Environmental Fables? The eco-politics of Doris Lessing's 'Ifrik' novels, Fiona Becket, (University of Leeds, UK)
9. The Porous Border Between Fact and Fiction, Empathy and Identification in Doris Lessing's The Cleft, Phyllis Sternberg Perrakis (University of Ottawa, CA)
Afterword, Judith Kegan Gardiner
Index
