Since Elaine Showalter's proposal of "gynocriticism", a considerable amount of work has been done in English-speaking countries to establish the existence o f a "female tradition" in literature. In France, where feminist critics have focussed on new ways "to write the feminine", there has been relatively little interest in reexamining the production of lesser-known women writers. The canon of French literature remains comparatively unchallenged, and few people are aware o f the many women who wrote at the beginning of the twentieth century. This dissertation is a contribution to the rereading of three of such authors, looking at the representation of femininity in relation to feminism. Three novels, one by Sidonie Gabrielle Colette, one by Marcelle Tinayre and one by Lucie Delarue-Mardrus. The careers of these "femmes de lettres", all established before World War I, were comparable, yet two o f them have been forgotten. These novelists remained ambivalent in relation to feminist efforts at that time to achieve the emancipation o f women. Despite their own relative freedom and lack of conformity in their lives, and the criticism o f established norms embedded in their narratives, all three kept their distance from feminism as a movement. The three texts compared here all have conservative endings, in spite of other elements that challenge the status quo. A t the core of their ambiguity is the tension between two concepts which remain in conflict today: on one hand the feminist agenda aimed at greater freedom and autonomy for women is based on the idea that gender roles are constructed, whereas on the other hand the concept of femininity is inseparable from the idea of an "essential" woman, represented, in the early 1900's in France by a particular nationalist concept of the French Woman. A close look at critical texts published in the first part o f the twentieth century shows the weight of that concept in the evaluation o f women's writing of that period. The growth in the number and reputation o f women writers ("femmes de lettres") was accompanied by a declaration o f the need to maintain French femininity ("l'etre femme"), and individual women authors like Colette, Delarue-Mardrus and Tinayre were caught in a dilemma. They all proclaimed their allegiance to the French ideal of femininity, while contributing to its denial and renewal by their own performance as successful women writers. Their representation of femininity as performed in their novels (as it was in their lives) shows the various ways in which it was possible to negociate a compromise between being feminine and challenging that concept through writing. These texts also demonstrate that women's literary production of that period in France is far more diversified than standard anthologies of French literature would lead us to believe. Colette appeals to reader's senses and aims to seduce, Tinayre appeals to reason and aims to convince, while Delarue-Mardrus appeals to the emotions and aims to move. All three, combine the "feminine" and the "feminist" in different ways, constructing literary models that represent a range of responses to a similar problem: how to remain a woman while contesting the notion of "woman". / Arts, Faculty of / French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies, Department of / Graduate

Many critics consider Mariama Bâ as a feminist writer, but the reader of her two novels might wonder what characterizes her work as such. Therefore, the aim of each chapter, in order of appearance, is to analyze first the genres, then the elements of African tradition and Western modernity, the characters of both works and the themes of the novels, with the intention of defining the author's feminism, which takes its source in dichotomies, paradoxes and contradictions. In order to expose the author's point of view on the condition of women, it appears important to situate the diegesis in its context. Also, the study is supported by references on the Senegalese culture, by genres, narrative and feminist theories and by critiques on the work itself.

Walt Whitman was a feminist, and this assertion can be supported by excerpts from his prose, poetry, and conversation. Furthermore, the poet's circle of associates, chronology, and place of residence also lend credence to the hypothesis stating Whitman's subscription to feminist credos. A pro-feminine attitude is evident in much of Whitman's work, and his ties to the women's rights movement of the nineteenth century do influence the poet's portrayal of women. But the section of poems titled "Children of Adam" proves to be an anomaly in Walt Whitman's feminist attitudes. Instead of portraying women as equals, able to walk a path of equanimity with males, the women of "Children of Adam" are often obscured in linguistic veils or subjugated to the poet's Adamic rhetoric.

MA (English) / Department of English

THESIS submitted by Wannisinghe Mudiyanselage Jayantha to Hong Kong Baptist University for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and entitled "Emerging Femininities in Selected Sri Lankan English Fiction" May 2019. The study documents the rise of emerging Sri Lankan feminine subjectivities as portrayed in post-independence novels in English by Punyakante Wijenaike, Nihal de Silva, and Chandani Lokuge. It attempts to interpret the rise of socially constructed traits of new womanhood and shifting gender norms responding to significant transformations in post-independence Sri Lanka economy and society during which the nation has rapidly shifted from a traditional rural economy to an industrialized since the 1978 free market reforms embraced with policies of globalization and neoliberalism. The selected novels are historicized by means of specific data indicating that any compensations traditionally afforded to Sri Lankan women through the collusion of colonialism with patriarchy are being challenged by the current globalization of opportunity and risk, even as Sri Lankan women continue to engage in the far older struggles for respect in traditional contexts and spaces (Wijenaike), take up arms in service in the name of nation-building projects (De Silva), or search for greater life opportunities by means of out- migration and eventual return (Lokuge). Challenges to conventional colonial-patriarchal ideology, with attention to specific objects symbolizing alternative (or even "deviant") femininity long preceding modernity, are the central focus of Punyakante Wijenaike's Giraya and Amulet. The use of a Marxist-feminist approach, localized in the setting of the walauwe, allows for the examination of potentials and limits for women's subjectivities as they emerged in the earliest 1970s-era post-independence novels. Nihal de Silva's The Road from Elephant Pass explores the fictionalized portrayal of women soldiers, conscripted to the LTTE in the early 1980s, and the effects of a revolutionary posture upon traditional gender roles. The tension in de Silva's novel between the political liberation project as national/romantic allegory uniting Sinhala and Tamil causes as ultimately endorsing patriarchal claims of Anderson's "imagined communities" thesis in the dramatic context of women's participation in the civil war. Using a "Fourth World" sovereignty frame, the final chapter of the project analyzes the potential rewards and risks of diasporic experience, for women protagonists in Chandani Lokuge's If the Moon Smiled and Turtle Nest. Collectively, the analyses indicate how Sri Lankan novels in English have documented the struggles, potentials, and continuing vulnerabilities around the emergence of new feminine subjectivities for post-independence Sri Lankan women.

This dissertation is a philological study of transnational revolutionary print culture in French and Arabic during Algeria’s War for Independence (1954-1962) and its first post-independence regime (1962-1965). Investigating the ways in which women have been written into historical narratives, it is also a feminist historiography. During this era of global decolonization, the Front de libération nationale (FLN)—Algeria’s vanguard revolutionary party—integrated itself into a global coalition of revolutionary movements that provided mutual material and ideological support and self-identified as part of the Third World. While female freedom fighters (mujāhidāt) attained widespread fame as global symbols of anticolonialism, their intellectual work as intermediaries in constructing national and transnational anticolonial culture remains understudied. This dissertation analyzes the mujāhidāt’s discursive interventions in the project of liberating women, the nation, and the wider colonized world. In doing so, it challenges the masculinist and institutionalist biases prevalent in international relations, a field that has predominantly considered men as global political leaders and privileged government documents and official diplomatic correspondence as source material. Among the varied writings that I examine, two mouthpieces of the FLN take center stage: El Moudjahid (est. 1956) and Révolution africaine (est. 1963). My study of the mujāhidāt’s participation in the construction of national and transnational anticolonial culture consists not only of close readings of their writings in nationalist publications, but also a more holistic analysis of the worlds that these periodicals sought to project an image of via references to and excerpts of literature, film, theoretical texts, interviews, and testimonies. While each mujāhida’s contribution to national and transnational community-building varied, the central argument of my dissertation is that despite working in a patriarchal political and publishing environment, the mujāhidāt were able to express themselves by maneuvering at the margins. That is, they deployed a diversity of rhetorical tactics that subtly contested the premises of the system in which they operated, thus exercising power from a seeming position of weakness. While articles authored by the mujāhidāt are a major part of my corpus, I also read more holistically for gendered discourses of liberation in the print and visual culture of the 1950s and 60s. To contextualize the gendered expectations under which they had to write, Chapter One opens with an analysis of “Algeria’s personality” as it was articulated in nationalist texts, with the concept of “family honor” being an essential part of this personality. Chapter Two examines in literature and films that were commonly referenced by nationalist periodicals another key component of this personality: “authenticity,” and more specifically its expression as feminine revolution authenticity. Investigating how mujāhidāt writers navigated such expectations of authenticity, Chapter Three demonstrates how they promoted their own repertoire of female revolutionary icons in nationalist periodicals, especially the figure of the uneducated but radicalized mother as a bastion of cultural authenticity. Finally, Chapter Four reflects on disjunctures in nation-building narratives during Algeria’s post-independence regime. Examining the FLN’s world-building project of cultural diplomacy and national edification primarily via its periodical Révolution africaine, it examines the mujāhidāt’s modalities of intervention in the cultural debates at the intersection between women’s emancipation and the global anticolonial struggle.

Thesis (M.A. (English Studies)) -- University of Limpopo, 2022 / This study will examine the position of traditional African women as explored in the fictions, The Joys of Motherhood (Buchi Emecheta) and So Long a Letter (Mariama Bâ). It will probe into the depiction of a traditional African woman in the selected texts under thematic issues which will assist us in understanding how Emacheta and Ba perceive issues that directly impact the lives of women, even today. The issues include patriarchy, marriage, motherhood and childbearing, sex and gender, objectification of women, and the role of the chief wife. Both Emecheta and Bâ use communal voices that blend cultural incidents with fiction to demonstrate the subordinate role played by women in traditional African societies that are characterised by patriarchal practices and suppression of women. Both Emecheta and Bȃ demonstrate cultural and religious stereotypes towards African women. This study will apply the African womanism lens as a theoretical framework to underpin it. The study will attempt to reveal that, from the selected texts, contemporary African women writers oppose the injustice inflicted upon them through marriage or gender (sex) stereotypes. The selected fictions help the audience understand the plight of some African women.

Disempowered Women? A Feminist Response to female Characters in Malory, Tennyson and Bradley takes an in-depth look at Elayne, Gwenyvere and Morgan of the Arthurian legend. The characters are examined within their contemporary context and from our modem perspective as portrayed in Malory, Tennyson, and Marion Zimmer Bradley. Patriarchy, closely connected with the Christian doctrines, is singled out as the main means of propagating women's disempowerment. The inquiry considers different ways in which fictional texts have contributed to creating false perceptions amongst our contemporary audience, about the reality of women's lives in the Middle Ages. It further examines the validity of the assumption that literary women are not real, but mere representations of male ideals about women's role and place in society. Issues of gender equality are raised and the author concludes that the literature studied assigns definite, gender-specific roles to men and women. The work also debates the perceived misogyny of the male authors: is it a conscious act or a reflection of their contemporary society's concerns? / English Studies / M. A. (English)

Disempowered Women? A Feminist Response to female Characters in Malory, Tennyson and Bradley takes an in-depth look at Elayne, Gwenyvere and Morgan of the Arthurian legend. The characters are examined within their contemporary context and from our modem perspective as portrayed in Malory, Tennyson, and Marion Zimmer Bradley. Patriarchy, closely connected with the Christian doctrines, is singled out as the main means of propagating women's disempowerment. The inquiry considers different ways in which fictional texts have contributed to creating false perceptions amongst our contemporary audience, about the reality of women's lives in the Middle Ages. It further examines the validity of the assumption that literary women are not real, but mere representations of male ideals about women's role and place in society. Issues of gender equality are raised and the author concludes that the literature studied assigns definite, gender-specific roles to men and women. The work also debates the perceived misogyny of the male authors: is it a conscious act or a reflection of their contemporary society's concerns? / English Studies / M. A. (English)

Caryl Churchill, the most widely performed female dramatist in contemporary British theatre, is a playwright preoccupied with the dissection of the traditional relations of power. She challenges social and dramatic conventions through her innovative exploration of the male gaze, the objectification of women, the performativity of gender, and women as objects of exchange within a masculine economy. In so doing, Churchill locates her concerns in the area of `materialism and gender'. Churchill explicates a socialist-feminist position by pointing directly at the failure of liberal feminism. The lack of a sense of community among women, highlighted by Churchill's portrayal of women such as Marlene in `Top Girls', forms a critical aspect of Churchill's work. Her drama re-iterates how meaningful change is impossible while women continue to oppress one another, and while economic structures perpetuate patriarchy. Altered consciousness, aligned to socio-political re-structuring, is necessary for both the oppressors and the oppressed, in a society where too much emphasis has been placed on individualism. The outspoken hope for a transgression of the conventional processes of identification and other omnipresent, oppressive socio-political phenomena, is a strong aspect of Churchill's work. Her plays reveal how signs create reality rather than reflect it, and she uses Brechtian-based distancing methods to induce a critical examination of gendered relations. Time-shifting, overlapping dialogue, doubling and cross-casting are used by Churchill to manipulate the sign-systems of the dominant order. Cross-gender casting, Churchill's most widely reviewed dramatic device, is employed to destabilise fixed sexual identities determined by dominant heterosexual ideology. She calls into question the traditional sign `Woman' - which is constructed by and for the male gaze - and addresses the marginality of the female experience in a non-linear framework. Although dealing with serious issues, Churchill's plays are often executed in a style that is at once amusing and thought-provoking to exclude the possibility of didacticism. With her skilful use of language and innovative techniques as her highly effective instruments, Churchill accomplishes her broader purpose with originality. In its originality and complexity, her drama is in itself a `new possibility' for different forms. / English Studies / M. A. (English)