Radical Feminism, Writing, and Critical Agency

Jacqueline Rhodes

Description

This book traces the intersection of radical feminism, composition, and print culture in order to address a curious gap in feminist composition studies: the manifesto-writing, collaborative-action-taking radical feminists of the 1960s and 1970s. Long before contemporary debates over essentialism, radical feminist groups questioned both what it was to be a woman and to perform womanhood, and a key part of that questioning took the form of very public, very contentious texts by such writers and groups as Shulamith Firestone, the Redstockings, and WITCH (the Women's International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell). Rhodes explores how these radical women's texts have been silenced in contemporary rhetoric and composition, and compares their work to that of contemporary online activists, finding that both point to a "network literacy" that blends ever-shifting identities with ever-changing technologies in order to take action. Ultimately, Rhodes argues, the articulation of radical feminist textuality can benefit both scholarship and classroom as it situates writers as rhetorical agents who can write, resist, and finally act within a network of discourses and identifications.

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. Feminism, Composition, and Re-History

Foucault, Feminism, and Genealogy
The Metaphysics of "Women's Ways" of Writing
Present Tense: What's Still Missing

2. Rewriting Radical Women

Definition, Dissensus, and Disunity
Consciousness-Raising and the Problem of (Anti)Structure
Radical Feminist Manifestos and Media
Textual Action and Radical Feminist Legacies

3. From Manifesto to Modem

Separatist Cyberspace
Radical Textuality Online

4. Textuality, Performativity, and Network Literacies

Critical Textual Agency and the Engaged Classroom
Cultural Studies, Passing, and Interruption as Agency
The Problem of Community
Network and Collective Literacies: Three Views

Notes

Works Cited

Index

Sujets

• Discourse analysis
• Stylistics
• Semantics

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 février 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780791484104
• Langue: English

Extrait

AND RHODES RADICAL FEMINISM, J ACQUEL I N E WRITING, CRITICAL AGENCY MANIFESTO MODEM

JACQUELFIRNOEMRHODES TO

RADICAL FEMINISM, WRITING, AND CRITICAL AGENCY

SUNY series in Feminist Criticism and Theory

Michelle A. Massé, editor

RADICAL FEMINISM, WRITING, AND CRITICAL AGENCY

From Manifesto to Modem



Jacqueline Rhodes

State University of New York Press

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany

© 2005 State University of New York

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

For information, address State University of New York Press, 90 State Street, Suite 700, Albany, NY 12207

Production by Judith Block Marketing by Susan Petrie

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

Rhodes Jacqueline, 1965– Radical feminism, writing, and critical agency : from manifesto to modem / Jacqueline Rhodes. p. cm. — (SUNY series in feminist criticism and theory) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7914-6291-9 (alk. paper) — ISBN 0-7914-6292-7 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Feminist theory. 2. Feminism. 3. Radicalism. I. Title. II. Series.

HQ1190.R53 2004 305.42—dc22

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

2004041678

For Dorothy and Merval Rhodes

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Acknowledgments

Introduction

CONTENTS

1. Feminism, Composition, and Re-History Foucault, Feminism, and Genealogy The Metaphysics of “Women’s Ways” of Writing Present Tense: What’s Still Missing

2. Rewriting Radical Women Definition, Dissensus, and Disunity Consciousness-Raising and the Problem of (Anti)Structure Radical Feminist Manifestos and Media Textual Action and Radical Feminist Legacies

3. From Manifesto to Modem Separatist Cyberspace Radical Textuality Online

4. Textuality, Performativity, and Network Literacies Critical Textual Agency and the Engaged Classroom Cultural Studies, Passing, and Interruption as Agency The Problem of Community Network and Collective Literacies: Three Views

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ix

1

5 7 10 22

25 29

35 39 49

53 57 65

77 78 83 87 90

viii

Notes

Works Cited

Index

Contents

95

115

127

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to acknowledge the support and friendship of Evelyn Ashton-Jones, whose enthusiasm for the study of rhetoric, composi- tion, and feminism inspired my own. I would also like to thank Aurora Wolfgang and Mary Boland, who wielded their considerable reading and responding skills most graciously; James Peltz and the editorial board of SUNY Press; and the anonymous manuscript reviewers, who offered constructive suggestions for revision. Parts of chapter 3 and chapter 4 appeared previously as “‘Substan- tive and Feminist Girlie Action’: Women Online,”College Composition and Communication54 (2002): 116–42 (© 2002 by the National Coun- cil of Teachers of English. Reprinted with permission.).

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