Women in Context: Women's Writing – serie

Volume One in a new series, this book covers Norwegian women''s writing over the last 150 years, setting literary developments against the background of the emergence and growth of the women''s movement in Norway. The work is divided chronologically into three sections: the period up to 1913, when the universal suffrage was granted; the period from 1913 to 1960, a time of stagnation in the women''s movement, with little involvement in contemporary political, social and economic debates; and the period from 1960 to the present day, which has seen an increasing participation of women in public life. Chapters on individual authors concentrate on the images of the women portrayed and investigate the conflicts behind the text - the tensions between the authors and their work, and the ambivalent feelings of women authors towards the act of writing. The book should be of interest to all those concerned with women''s writing and with Scandanavian literature and culture. The series provides a survey, country by country of women''s writing from the beginnings of the major struggle for emancipation up to the present day. While the main emphasis is on literature, the social, political and cultural development of each country provides a context for understanding the position and preoccupations of women writers. Modern critical currents are also taken into account in relating feminist criticism to recent critical theory. Forthcoming volumes in this series include "Women''s Writing in Italy 1870-1990" and "Swedish Women''s Writing 1850-1990".

Traces the tradition of Spanish women''s writing from the end of the Romantic period until the present day. Professor Davies places the major authors within the changing political, cultural and economic context of women''s lives over the past century-and-a-half -- with particular attention to women''s accounts of female subjectivity in relation to the Spanish nation-state, government politics, and the women''s liberation movement.

A wide range of French women writers are surveyed, including Sand, Colette, Beauvoir and Duras among the "canonized", and many marginalized or forgotten and contemporary names not yet widely known outside France. These writers are seen within the political, economic and cultural context of women''s lives and how these have changed across a century-and-a-half. Underpinning the whole account is the relationship between gender and language, between politics sexual and textual.

Provides a survey of women''s writing in Sweden, from the beginnings of the struggle for emancipation in the 1850s to the present day. These writers are seen within the political, cultural and economic context of women''s lives. Modern critical currents are also assessed and Swedish feminist criticism is considered alongside the French and American traditions.