Devon Hodges – författare

Recent feminist and psychoanalytic accounts of mothering have been profoundly shaped by the work of Melanie Klein, D. W. Winnicott, Nancy Chodorow, and Julia Kristeva. Although their work spans many decades, these writers share the goal of understanding object relations, that is, the child's relation to internalized "objects" —most often the mother, as the child's first caretaker. Doane and Hodges chart the development of "mother-centered" psychoanalysis and its influence on feminist thought in a number of fields and show how the effort to elevate the importance of the mother has become implicated in the current effort to restrict possibilities for women to "opportunities" associated with hearth and home. The authors argue that discussions of the maternal role always exist within an ideological framework in which they are purveyed to particular groups at particular times. In our own historical moment, ideas of maternal propriety have been vigorously argued, as in custody battles, where experts debate whether or not individual women are "good enough" mothers. From Klein to Kristeva traces the ways in which object-relations accounts of mothering have worked to encourage the view that "good enough" mothers find "their whole self" at home. What does this view of mothering mean for working women? How does it help promote arguments that "fetal rights" are more important than a mother's own desires? By recovering the historial context of object-relations theory and closely attending to the language of important theorists, Doane and Hodges make visible the extraordinary influence of object relations on the discourses in many fields and demonstrate the power of psychological theory to shape both popular and academic discussions of maternal propriety.

Dissatisfaction with the present can cause people to gaze nostalgically back to an idealized past; that nostalgia pervades contemporary rhetoric. In lamenting the ‘degeneracy’ of present-day America, social and literary critics as well as contemporary novelists often choose as their scapegoat the women’s movement and its increasing influence. Doane and Hodges show us how these social observers seek to ‘reinstate’ America and American values in ways that, overtly or covertly, do battle with the feminist movement for control of rhetoric, the power of language.

Dissatisfaction with the present can cause people to gaze nostalgically back to an idealized past; that nostalgia pervades contemporary rhetoric. In lamenting the ‘degeneracy’ of present-day America, social and literary critics as well as contemporary novelists often choose as their scapegoat the women’s movement and its increasing influence. Doane and Hodges show us how these social observers seek to ‘reinstate’ America and American values in ways that, overtly or covertly, do battle with the feminist movement for control of rhetoric, the power of language.

In the last decade, women's accounts of father-daughter incest have prompted much public debate. Are these accounts true? Are they false? Telling Incest, however, asks a different question: what does a believable incest story sound like and why? Examining the work of writers from Gertrude Stein to Toni Morrison and Dorothy Allison, Telling Incest argues that an incest story's plausibility depends upon a shifting set of narrative conventions and cultural expectations. As contexts for telling incest stories have changed, so too have the tasks of those who tell and those who listen. The authors analyze both fictional and nonfiction narratives about father-daughter incest, beginning by scrutinizing the shadowy accounts found in nineteenth-century case records, letters, and narratives. Telling Incest next explores African American stories that shift the blame for incest from the black family to the predations of a paternalistic white culture. Janice Doane and Devon Hodges demonstrate that writers drew upon this reworked incest narrative in the 1970s and early 1980s in order to relate a feminist story about incest, a story that criticizes patriarchal power. This feminist form of the story, increasingly emphasizing trauma and recovery, can be found in such popular books as Alice Walker's The Color Purple and Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres. Doane and Hodges then examine recent memoirs and novels such as Dorothy Allison's Bastard Out of Carolina and Sapphire's Push, narratives that again rework the incest story in an effort to "tell" about women's complex experiences of subjugation and hope. Telling Incest will be of particular interest to readers who have enjoyed the popular and culturally significant work of writers such as Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Jane Smiley, and Dorothy Allison and to students of women's studies, feminist theory, and cultural studies. Janice Doane is Professor of English, St. Mary's College of California. Devon Hodges is Professor of English, George Mason University. They have also coauthored From Klein to Kristeva: Psychoanalytic Feminism and the Search for the "Good Enough" Mother and Nostalgia and Sexual Difference: The Resistance to Contemporary Feminism.