Beyond Feminist Aesthetics: Feminist Literature and Social Change

by Rita Felski

Beyond Feminist Aesthetics has a dual focus. First, Rita Felski gives a critical account of current American and European feminist literary theory, and second, she offers an analysis of contemporary fiction by women, drawing in particular on the genres of the autobiographical confession and the novel of self-discovery, in order to show that this literature raises questions for feminism that cannot be answered in terms of a purely gender based analysis.

Felski argues that the idea of a feminist aesthetic is a nonissue that feminists have needlessly pursued; she suggests, in contrast, that it is impossible to speak of “masculine” and “feminine,” “subversive” and “reactionary” literary forms in isolation from the social conditions of their production and reception. The political value of such works of literature from the standpoint of feminism can be determined only by an investigation of their social functions and effects in relation to the interests of women in a particular historical context. This leads her to argue for an interdisciplinary approach to the analysis of literature which can integrate literary and social theory, and to develop such an approach by drawing upon the model of a feminist counter-public sphere.

Rita Felski has produced a closely reasoned, stimulating book that creates a new framework for discussing the relationship between literature and feminist politics. It will interest students and teachers of women’s studies, comparative literature, cultural studies, and fiction.

Genres: Feminism, Academic, Nonfiction

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Rita Felski is William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of English at the University of Virginia, and editor of New Literary History. Felski is a prominent scholar in the fields of aesthetics and literary theory, feminist theory, modernity and postmodernity, and cultural studies.

Felski received an honors degree in French and German literature from Cambridge University and her PhD from the Department of German at Monash University in Australia. Before coming to the University of Virginia in 1994, she taught in the Program for English and Comparative Literature at Murdoch University in Perth. She served as Chair of the Comparative Literature Program at Virginia from 2004 to 2008.

From 2003-2007 Felski served as U.S. editor of Feminist Theory. She has also served on the editorial boards of Modernism/Modernity, Modern Fiction Studies, The International Journal of Cultural Studies, Criticism, and Echo: A Music-Centered Journal. Her work has been translated into Korean, Russian, Polish, Swedish, Hungarian, Italian, Croatian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Turkish.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Tia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very compelling overview of the developments and debates in feminist literature and literary criticism of the 70s and 80s. I appreciate Felski’s refusal to accept mystical claims of linguistic and aesthetic subversion as de facto radicalism and her attentive readings of genre and reception. I would definitely include chapters of this in a course on feminist writing, though I disagree with her dismissal of form which was at times too wholesale (and doesn’t take into consideration the aesthetic as a politically charged zone of sensibility and interpretation unto itself).

[Cobi · Rating 5 out of 5]

i always find it weird to write reviews about theory on here. i’m kinda just like a dumb guy who posts things on the computer and has accidentally read a lot. i shouldn’t know how to read. what am i gonna say. “it was really smart.” but it was really good. definitely going to open it up at random and find quotes to pull from it for any essays i write in the future. already quoted from it extensively in one of my final papers actually.

[Anca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great analysis on why French feminist theories are not actually functional and are quite problematic. I also loved the chapter on confessional style and the self-discovery novel.

[Natalie · Rating 4 out of 5]

It served its purpose as research on Felski and the theory she discusses in the book for a lit theory research paper.