Alien, Ruined Bodies: Female Melancholy and Contemporary Women’s Prose Cover Image

Obce, zrujnowane ciała: melancholia a współczesna proza kobieca
Alien, Ruined Bodies: Female Melancholy and Contemporary Women’s Prose

Author(s): Barbara Braid
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Polish Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Szczecińskiego
Keywords: melancholy; body; post-1989 women’s prose; gender melancholy

Summary/Abstract: The paper constitutes a brief overview of the history of melancholy, with a particular focus given to the presence and the role of women in melancholy discourses. It also includes a discussion of the book Melancholic Migrating Bodies in Contemporary Polish Women’s Writing (2015), in which the author Urszula Chowaniec examines the contemporary Polish women’s fiction, in particular the motifs of nomadic, melancholic and „ruined” bodies. Moreover, Judith Butler’s concept of gender melancholy is also invoked as an alternative discourse of melancholy and femininity.

  • Issue Year: 9/2017
  • Issue No: 2
  • Page Range: 125-137
  • Page Count: 13
  • Language: Polish