Practising Feminist Criticism: An Introduction

This text is designed as a companion volume to Maggie Humm’s popular textbook A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Feminist Literary Criticism. It offers the student reader examples of feminist approaches to literature in both theory and practice, demonstrating the range and complexity of feminist and critical questions, and showing them concretely at work. Following a lucid account of what is covered by the terms ‘feminism’ and ‘criticism’, the book then presents each theoretical approach in a thoroughly accessible and succinct manner.

An ideal textbook for courses on feminist criticism, feminist theory, women’s writing, women’s studies and general literary criticism and theory, Practising Feminist Criticism can be used in conjunction with Dr Humm’s previously published Reader’s Guide, but is also excellent as a stand-alone text on related modular courses.

Contents: 1. Introduction: Feminist Criticism. 2. Second wave feminism. 3. Myth criticism. 4. Marxist/socialist criticism. 5. French feminism. 6. Psychoanalytic criticism. 7. Poststructuralism. 8. Deconstruction. 9. Postmodernism. 10. Black feminisms. 11. Lesbian criticism. 12. Third World feminisms.