Subversive Bodies: Embodiment as Discursive Strategy in Womens Popular Literature of the Long Eighteenth Century examines literary representations of the body as strategies of resistance. This study demonstrates that Manley's Secret Memoirs from the New Atalantis, Haywood's Female Spectator, and Burney's Journal and Letters, as well as unpublished receipt books for medicinal and cosmetic preparations, challenge the prevailing masculinist notion of a passive, distinct topography of womanhood and lay the groundwork for a feminist tradition of recognizing the body as an explicit part of experience. Tracing the origins of today's critical perspectives, my study draws on the insights of recent feminist theories of the body but remains historically contextualized through its focus on medical science and law. It demonstrates that the bodies in Manley, Haywood, Burney, and unpublished receipt books challenge the bodily constructions and associated gender meanings that the disciplines of medical science and law have traditionally reinforced. My analysis deepens our contemporary understanding of the complex relations between gender, bodies, and discourse in general.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LSU/oai:etd.lsu.edu:etd-0129103-124729 |
| Date | 29 January 2003 |
| Creators | Thompson, Phyllis Ann |
| Contributors | Michelle A. Masse', Sharon A. Weltman, Irene DiMaio, Susannah Brietz Monta, Jim S. Borck |
| Publisher | LSU |
| Source Sets | Louisiana State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-0129103-124729/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby grant to LSU or its agents the right to archive and to make available my thesis or dissertation in whole or in part in the University Libraries in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all proprietary rights, such as patent rights. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis or dissertation. |
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