Rhys Matters

Andrea Zemgulys, University of Michigan, USA Ania Spyra, Butler University, USA Nicole Flynn, South Dakota State University, USA Steve Pinkerton, Cornell University, USA Jess Issacharoff, University of Iowa, USA Regina Martin, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA Melanie Otto, Trinity College Dublin, UK David Armstrong, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, USA Mary Lou Emery, University of Iowa, USA Jennifer Mitchell, Independent Scholar Paul Ardoin, Florida State University, USA

'This project makes a significant contribution to Rhys studies. Together the essays re-situate Rhys as a modernist and a Caribbean writer. It is an important step in bringing Rhys recognition as a modernist outside of the specific fields of postcolonial and feminist literary studies. It also broadens the scope of Caribbean approaches to Rhys.' Leah Rosenberg, Associate Professor of English, University of Florida, USA "This timely collection puts the full body of Jean Rhys's work into conversation with a new generation of scholarship regarding affect and politics. These insightful and incisive essays probe Rhys's disruptive critiques of economics, religion and sexual and racial politics and suggest why and how Jean Rhys matters to 21st century readers." - Judith Raiskin, Associate Professor, Women's and Gender Studies Department, University of Oregon, USA "This is a great demonstration of a new generation's commitment to Rhys studies. Rhys died in 1979, so it is still early days for the literary dust to settle, but this collection proves her work attracts successive generations of discriminating and trained readers. The essays shrewdly find interstices in Rhys criticism, some areas noted but not explored very much before, and some finding new approaches to Rhys texts. The collection is collectively informed and adept with regard to earlier readings of Rhys. The title itself sums up the importance of this collection, which deals with matters in Rhys criticism and proves that Rhys still matters." - Elaine Savory, The New School, USA and author of Jean Rhys and The Cambridge Introduction to Jean Rhys

• Foreword; Mary Lou Emery Introduction; Mary Wilson and Kerry L. Johnson PART I: ALTERNATIVES AND ALTERITIES: MARKET, TIME, LANGUAGE 1. Menu, Memento, Souvenir: Suffering and Social Imagination in Good Morning, Midnight ; Andrea Zemgulys 2. Clockwork Women: Temporality and Form in Jean Rhys's Interwar Novels; Nicole Flynn 3. Language and Belonging in Jean Rhys's Voyage in the Dark ; Ania Spyra PART II: BEING AND BELIEVING: JUDEO-CHRISTIAN INFLUENCES AND IDENTITIES 4. Religion and Rhys; Steve Pinkerton 5. "No Pride, No Name, No Face, No Country": Jewishness and National Identity in Good Morning, Midnight; Jess Issacharoff PART III: THE LOCATION OF IDENTITY: WRITING SPACE AND PLACE 6. The Country and the City in Jean Rhys's Voyage in the Dark ; Regina Martin 7. '…that misty zone which divides life from death': The Concept of the Zombi in Jean Rhys's Short Fiction; Melanie Otto 8. Reclaiming the Left Bank: Jean Rhys's 'Topography' in Left Bank and Quartet ; David Armstrong PART IV: PLEASURE, POWER, HAPPINESS 9.The Trouble with 'Victim': Triangulated Masochism in Jean Rhys's Quartet ; Jennifer Mitchell 10. The Good Life Will Start Again: Rest, Return, and Remainder in Good Morning, Midnigh t; Andrew Kalaidjian 11. The Un-happy Short Story Cycle: Jean Rhys's Sleep it off, Lady ; Paul Ardoin