New French Feminisms - an anthology

Simone de Beauvoir, Hélène Cixous, Annie Leclerc, Benoîte Groult, Claudine Hermann, Marguerite Duras, Françoise Parturier, Julia Kristeva, Xavière Gauthier, Luce Irigaray, Maria-Antonietta Macciocchi, Monique Wittig

Schocken Books

1981

279 páginas

9h 18m

ISBN-10: 0805206817

Since 1968, feminist theory has been the subject of much serious intellectual inquiry in France. While the French are familiar with American feminist texts, the opposite is not true - American knowledge of French feminist writing is often limited to Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex, published in 1949. This anthology of New French Feminisms is an attempt to bridge that gap.

The editors have included over fifty selections of recent French feminist writing, most of which have never before been translated into English, and some of which have never been published in either French or English. The selections reflect the wide spectrum of theories comprising the French feminist movement. These theories complement the more pragmatic and empirical approach of American feminists, for they emphasize dialetical thought, psychoanalytic and linguistic theory, and the politics of language and culture.

The editors provide introductory essays that discuss the history of French discourses on feminism and analyse post-1968 developments. They also supply a chronological table outlining both the major events of French history and those of the French feminist movent, as well as a bio/bibliography and a bibliography.

Elaine Marks is director of the Women's Studies Research Center at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Isabelle de Courtivron is associate professor of foreign languages and literatures at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.