Chapter 12 - Feminism’s Archives

Summary

Archival practice and recovery have been foundational to feminist criticism and theory, and continue to be advocated by those who perceive, with dissatisfaction, ongoing gender disparities within the broadly inclusive mandate of the new modernist studies. Starting with the supposition that taxonomy is somatic, this chapter explores the long, complex history of the categorised body in relation to the archives of Mina Loy and Anna Mendelssohn. Modernist and late modernist respectively, Loy and Mendelssohn were British, Jewish, and feminist; both worked productively from the margins of male avant-garde kinship groups. Excision from or discomfort with identificatory labels are abiding themes of their literature, truths highly evident in their conflicted, archived writings on artistry and parenting, which challenge and contort stereotypical classification. In tandem with Loy’s and Mendelssohn’s taxonomic ambivalence, this essay posits a generative interstitiality that reworks archival frameworks and categories alike.