What is Gender for in the History of Literature? Cover Image

Načo je dejinám literatúry kategória rodu?
What is Gender for in the History of Literature?

Author(s): Jana Cviková
Subject(s): Literary Texts
Published by: Ústav svetovej literatúry, Slovenská akadémia vied
Keywords: Gender. Gender studies. Women’s studies. Literary historiography. Feminist literary criticism. History of women’s literature. Women’s writers. Herstory. Queer.

Summary/Abstract: The text deals with the meaning of gender for literary historiography. It briefly presents the contexts and impulses of women’s and gender studies from the second wave of feminist movement which concentrated on life and work of women, and, later, on gender relations in the society. The article is particularly based on works published in the mid 1980s (Hiltrud Gnüg – Renate Möhrmann, 1985; Sigrid Weigel, 1987; Joan W. Scott 1986). In Western Europe and the USA, this period was characterised by a dynamic development of women’s and gender studies, as well as by a strong subversive potential of gender. The definition of gender as an analytic category which has enough power to change historical and literary-historical paradigms comes from the crucial study of Joan W. Scott Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis. In this study, the author puts the question how gender gives meaning to the organization and perception of historical knowledge.

  • Issue Year: II/2010
  • Issue No: 4
  • Page Range: 56-66
  • Page Count: 11
  • Language: Slovak