Images of Women in Literature, Fifth Edition, is an anthology of literature--short fiction, poetry, and drama--by a broad range of female and male writers depicting the roles of women in literature.
A comprehensive introduction to ancient wisdom literature, with fascinating essays on a broad range of topics. The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Wisdom Literature is a wide-ranging introduction to the texts, themes, and receptions of the wisdom literature of the Bible and the ancient world. This comprehensive volume brings together original essays from established scholars and emerging voices to offer a variety of perspectives on the “wisdom” biblical books, early Christian and rabbinic literature, and beyond. Varied and engaging essays provide fresh insights on topics of timeless relevance, exploring the distinct features of instructional texts and discussing their interpretation in both antiquity and the modern world. Designed for non-specialists, this accessible volume provides readers with balanced coverage of traditional biblical wisdom texts, including Proverbs, Job, Psalms, and Ecclesiastes; lesser-known Egyptian and Mesopotamian wisdom; and African proverbs. The contributors explore topics ranging from scribes and pedagogy in ancient Israel, to representations of biblical wisdom literature in contemporary cinema. Offering readers a fresh and interesting way to engage with wisdom literature, this book: Discusses sapiential books and traditions in various historical and cultural contexts Offers up-to-date discussion on the study of the biblical wisdom books Features essays on the history of interpretation and theological reception Includes essays covering the antecedents and afterlife of the texts Part of the acclaimed Wiley Blackwell Companions to Religion series, the Companion to Wisdom Literature is a valuable resource for university, seminary and divinity school students and instructors, scholars and researchers, and general readers with interest in the subject.
The relationship between women and houses has always been complex. Many influential writers have used the space of the house to portray women's conflicts with the society of their time. On the one hand, houses can represent a place of physical, psychological and moral restrictions, and on the other, they often serve as a metaphor for economic freedom and social acceptance. This usage is particularly pronounced in works written in the nineteenth and twentieth century, when restrictions on women's roles were changing: "anxieties about space sometimes seem to dominate the literature of both nineteenth-century women and their twentieth-century descendants." The Metaphor of the House in Feminist Literature uses a feminist literary criticism approach in order to examine the use of the house as metaphor in nineteenth and twentieth century literature.
After uncovering the oppressive dichotomies of male/female and nature/culture that underlie contemporary environmental problems, Feminist Ecocriticism focuses specifically on emancipatory strategies employed by ecofeminist literary critics as antidotes, asking what our lives might be like as those strategies become increasingly successful in overcoming oppression. Thus, ecofeminism is not limited to the critique of literature, but also helps identify and articulate liberatory ideals that can be actualized in the real world, in the process transforming everyday life. Providing an alternative to rugged individualism, for example, ecofeminist literature promotes a more fulfilling sense of interrelationship with both community and the land. In the process of exploring literature from ecofeminist perspectives, the book reveals strategies of emancipation that have already begun to give rise to more hopeful ecological narratives.
The essays investigate the images of women and femininity found in the traditions of the Marathi language region of India, Maharashtra, and how these images contradict the actualities of women's lives.
The book that changed the consciousness of a country—and the world. Landmark, groundbreaking, classic—these adjectives barely describe the earthshaking and long-lasting effects of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique. This is the book that defined "the problem that has no name," that launched the Second Wave of the feminist movement, and has been awakening women and men with its insights into social relations, which still remain fresh, ever since. A national bestseller, with over 1 million copies sold.
Adolescence is a time of growth, change, and confusion for young women. During this transition from childhood to adulthood, sex and gender roles become more important. Meanwhile, depictions of females_from the hyper-sexualized girls of music videos to the chaste repression of Purity Balls_send mixed messages to young women about their bodies and their sexuality. Over the last several decades, authors of young adult novels have been challenged to reflect this concern in their work and have responded with varying degrees of success. In Learning Curves: Body Image and Female Sexuality in Young Adult Literature, Beth Younger examines how cultural assumptions and social constraints are reinforced and complicated through common representations of young women. Each chapter analyzes a recurrent theme in the history of young adult literature, including issues of body image, pregnancy, abortion, lesbianism, and romance. By examining selected novels for their sexual content, situating them within their social and historical context, and analyzing their discursive qualities, the author reveals the multitude of complex ways that society depicts teenagers and their sexualities and offers a critique of patriarchal culture that gives value to the female experience.
The notorious image of Pandora haunts mythology: a woman created as punishment for the crimes of man, she is the bearer of hope yet also responsible for the Earth’s desolation. She binds together perpetuating dichotomies that underlie the most fundamental aspects of the Western canon: beauty and evil, body and soul, depth and superficiality, truth and lie. Speaking in multiplicity, Pandora emerges as the first sign of female complexity. In this compelling study, Vered Lev Kenaan offers a radical revision of the Greek myth of the first woman. She argues that Pandora leaves a decisive mark on ancient poetics and shows that we can unravel the profound impact of Pandora’s image once we recognize that Pandora embodies the very idea of the ancient literary text. Locating the myth of the first woman right at the heart of feminist interrogation of gender and textuality, Pandora’s Senses moves beyond a feminist critique of masculine hegemony by challenging the reading of Pandora as a one-dimensional embodiment of the misogynist vision of the feminine. Uncovering Pandora as a textual principle operating outside of the feminine, Lev Kenaan shows the centrality of this iconic figure among the poetics of such central genres as the cosmological and didactic epic, the Platonic dialogue, the love elegy, and the ancient novel. Pandora’s Senses innovates our understanding of gender as a critical lens through which to view ancient literature.