Diane P. Freedman, Assistant Professor of English at University of New Hampshire, is the author of An Alchemy of Genres: Cross-Genre Writing by American Women Poet Critics.Olivia Frey is Associate Professor of English and Director of Women's Studies at St. Olaf College.Frances Murphy Zauhar is Assistant Professor of English at St. Vincent College.

"The Intimate Critique marks the coming out of a new critical genre, sure to generate controversy, pleasure, rage, support, disbelief, acclaim (i.e., strong reactions!) among its readers."-Alice Kaplan, author of French Lessons: A Memoir "Grouped together, these very different essays raise and respond to a question that feminist theorists continue to ask-about the extent to which individual experience and self-expression may be read as representative."-Rachel M. Brownstein, author of Becoming a Heroine: Reading About Women in Novels "This book goes a long way toward breathing life into literary criticism, advancing the necessary effort to write about it in a personal, engaged, and interesting manner."-G. Douglas Atkins, University of Kansas

• Acknowledgments viiIntroduction / Diane P. Freedman, Olivia Frey, and Francis Murphy Zauhar 1Part 1. Muse-ings on Genre, Autobiography, Narrative: Formative Strategies Border Crossing as Method and Motif in Contemporary American Writing, or, How Freud Helped Me Case the Joint / Diane P. Freedman 13Me and My Shadow / Jane Tompkins 23Beyond Literary Darwinism: Women's Voices and Critical Discourse / Olivia Frey 41"Everyday Life": My Sojourn at Parchman Farm / Cheryl B. Torsney 67Excerpts from Letters to Friends / Susan Koppelman 75Social Circles: Being a Report on J. Hills Miller's Campus Visitation / Linda R. Robertson 81Touchstones and Bedrocks: Learning the Stories We Need / Victoria Ekanger 93Part II. Critical Confessions Creative Voices: Women Reading and Women's Writing / Frances Murphy Zauhar 103Breaking Silence: The Woman Warrior / Shirley Nelson Garner 117Different Silences / Traise Yamamoto 127"What's in a Name?": Some Meanings of Blackness / Henry Louis Gates, Jr. 135Poetry and the Age: "A Girl in a Library" to Randall Jarrell / Sandra M. Brown 151My Friend, Joyce Carol Oates / Brenda Daly 163Somebody Must Say These Things: An Essay for My Mother / Melody Graulich 175The Scarlet Brewer and the Voice of the Colonized / Shirley Geok-lin Lim 191Dividing Fences / Carol S. Taylor 197What Do Women Really Mean? Thoughts on Women's Diaries and Lives / Suzanne Bunkers 207Part III. Autobiographical Literary Criticism Between the Medusa and the Abyss: Reading Jane Eyre, Reading Myself / Ellen Brown 225Rereading Middlemarch, Rereading Myself / Peter Carlton 237The Crippling of the Third World: Shiva Naipaul's Heritage / Rosanne Kanhai-Brunton 225Penelope's Web / Gail Griffin 255"Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around!": Reading the Narrative of Frederick Douglass / Dolan Hubbard 265Catharine Trotter Cockburn and Me: A Duography / Kendall 273In Between Abject and Object: The Mourning Sickness of the Expectant Mother, or, Three Movements of the Blues in B Minor / Dana Beckelman 283La Ronde of Children and Mothers / Julia Balen 293Selected Bibliography 303Contributors 309

Diane P. Freedman, Assistant Professor of English at University of New Hampshire, is the author of An Alchemy of Genres: Cross-Genre Writing by American Women Poet Critics.Olivia Frey is Associate Professor of English and Director of Women's Studies at St. Olaf College.Frances Murphy Zauhar is Assistant Professor of English at St. Vincent College.

"The Intimate Critique marks the coming out of a new critical genre, sure to generate controversy, pleasure, rage, support, disbelief, acclaim (i.e., strong reactions!) among its readers."-Alice Kaplan, author of French Lessons: A Memoir "Grouped together, these very different essays raise and respond to a question that feminist theorists continue to ask-about the extent to which individual experience and self-expression may be read as representative."-Rachel M. Brownstein, author of Becoming a Heroine: Reading About Women in Novels "This book goes a long way toward breathing life into literary criticism, advancing the necessary effort to write about it in a personal, engaged, and interesting manner."-G. Douglas Atkins, University of Kansas

• Acknowledgments viiIntroduction / Diane P. Freedman, Olivia Frey, and Francis Murphy Zauhar 1Part 1. Muse-ings on Genre, Autobiography, Narrative: Formative Strategies Border Crossing as Method and Motif in Contemporary American Writing, or, How Freud Helped Me Case the Joint / Diane P. Freedman 13Me and My Shadow / Jane Tompkins 23Beyond Literary Darwinism: Women's Voices and Critical Discourse / Olivia Frey 41"Everyday Life": My Sojourn at Parchman Farm / Cheryl B. Torsney 67Excerpts from Letters to Friends / Susan Koppelman 75Social Circles: Being a Report on J. Hills Miller's Campus Visitation / Linda R. Robertson 81Touchstones and Bedrocks: Learning the Stories We Need / Victoria Ekanger 93Part II. Critical Confessions Creative Voices: Women Reading and Women's Writing / Frances Murphy Zauhar 103Breaking Silence: The Woman Warrior / Shirley Nelson Garner 117Different Silences / Traise Yamamoto 127"What's in a Name?": Some Meanings of Blackness / Henry Louis Gates, Jr. 135Poetry and the Age: "A Girl in a Library" to Randall Jarrell / Sandra M. Brown 151My Friend, Joyce Carol Oates / Brenda Daly 163Somebody Must Say These Things: An Essay for My Mother / Melody Graulich 175The Scarlet Brewer and the Voice of the Colonized / Shirley Geok-lin Lim 191Dividing Fences / Carol S. Taylor 197What Do Women Really Mean? Thoughts on Women's Diaries and Lives / Suzanne Bunkers 207Part III. Autobiographical Literary Criticism Between the Medusa and the Abyss: Reading Jane Eyre, Reading Myself / Ellen Brown 225Rereading Middlemarch, Rereading Myself / Peter Carlton 237The Crippling of the Third World: Shiva Naipaul's Heritage / Rosanne Kanhai-Brunton 225Penelope's Web / Gail Griffin 255"Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around!": Reading the Narrative of Frederick Douglass / Dolan Hubbard 265Catharine Trotter Cockburn and Me: A Duography / Kendall 273In Between Abject and Object: The Mourning Sickness of the Expectant Mother, or, Three Movements of the Blues in B Minor / Dana Beckelman 283La Ronde of Children and Mothers / Julia Balen 293Selected Bibliography 303Contributors 309