Corporeal Feminism in Literary Research on the Body. An Attempt at Transgressing the Metaphor of Corporeality Cover Image

Feminizm korporalny w badaniach literackich. Próba wyjścia poza metaforykę cielesności
Corporeal Feminism in Literary Research on the Body. An Attempt at Transgressing the Metaphor of Corporeality

Author(s): Monika Świerkosz
Subject(s): Literary Texts
Published by: Instytut Badań Literackich Polskiej Akademii Nauk
Keywords: Corporeality; Feminism; Literary Studies; Subjectivity; Elizabeth Grosz; Jeanette Winterson.

Summary/Abstract: The author poses questions concerning the ways of using the body in feminist literary studies, or, strictly speaking, on the option to make the body a structural category of text. Another issue being considered is metaphorisation of the discourse of corporeality (using the example of the second-wave feminist criticism), which, assuming an absolute identity of the body and text, has factually reduced the meaning of both categories. The author redefines the notion of body, matter and subjectivity in the spirit of Elizabeth Grosz’s corporeal feminism, which enables her to introduce these categories to the model of corporeal theory of narrative and work out interpretative tools for text, the latter being made subject (and being liable to) a corporeal reading. The interpretative material is novels by Jeanette Winterson, whose corporeality is analysed in relation to the subject, narrative, time and space of the text.

  • Issue Year: 2008
  • Issue No: 1-2
  • Page Range: 75-95
  • Page Count: 21
  • Language: Polish