Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T18:32:13.983Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Women, Utopia, and Narrative: Toward a Postmodern Feminist Citizenship

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2020

Abstract

Feminist utopian novels reconstruct citizenship by interrogating ideological assumptions at the root of civil rights theory, particularly its reliance on the sexual contract and the family romance narrative. While many feminist citizenships still depend on such assumptions, utopian fictions deconstruct the logic of natural rights and replace traditional governments and nation-states with social structures based on community and global-ecological awareness. They thereby underscore the importance of narrative for feminist philosophy and political theory.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 1997 by Hypatia, Inc.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Auerbach, Nina. 1978. Communities of women: An idea in fiction. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.10.4159/harvard.9780674280236CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barr, Marlene S., ed. 1981. Future females: A critical anthology. Bowling Green: Bowling Green University Press.Google Scholar
Barr, Marlene, and Smith, Nicholas D., eds. 1993. Women and Utopia: Critical interpreta' tions. New York: University Press of America.Google Scholar
Bartkowski, Frances. 1989. Feminist Utopias. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.Google Scholar
Cohen, Philip. 1996. Nationalism and suffrage: Gender struggle in nation‐building America. Signs 21(3): 707–27.10.1086/495103CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crowder, Diane Griffin. 1993. Separatism and feminist Utopian fiction. In Sexual practice, textual theory: Lesbian cultural criticism, ed.Wolfe, Susan J. and Penelope, Julia. Cambridge: Blackwell.Google Scholar
DuPlessis, Rachel Blau. 1985. Writingbeyond the ending: Narrative strategies of twentieth' century women writers. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Falk, Richard. 1994. Towards a global ecological citizen. In The condition of citizenship. See van Steenbergen 1994.Google Scholar
Farwell, Marilyn. 1996. Heterosexual plots and lesbian narratives. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Feldblum, Miriam. Nd. Reconfiguring citizenship in Europe: Changing trends and strategies. In Challenge to the nation‐state: Immigration in Western Europe and the United States., ed.Joppke, Christian. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Fraser, Nancy, and Gordon, Linda. 1994. Civil citizenship against social citizenship? In The condition of citizenship. See van Steenbergen 1994.Google Scholar
Friebert, Lucy M. 1993. World views in Utopian novels by women. In Women and Utopia: Critical interpretations. See Barr and Smith 1993.Google Scholar
Gearhart, Sally. 1994. Future visions: Today's politics: Feminist Utopias in review. In Women in search of Utopia: Mavericks and mythmakers. See Rorhlich and Baruch 1994.Google Scholar
Jameson, Fredric. 1981. The political unconscious: Narrative as a socially symboUc act. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Jones, Libby Falk, and Goodwin, Sarah Webster, eds. 1990. Feminism, Utopia, and narrative. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.Google Scholar
Jones, Kathleen B. 1990. Citizenship in a woman‐friendly polity. Signs 15(4): 781812.10.1086/494628CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kress, Susan. 1981. In and out of time: The form of Marge Piercy's novels. In Future females: A critical anthology. See Barr 1981.Google Scholar
Lanser, Susan. 1986. Towards a feminist narratology. Style 20(3): 341–63.Google Scholar
McClintock, Anne. 1996. “No longer in a future heaven”: Nationalism, gender, and race. In Becoming national: A reader, eds.Eley, Geoff and Suny, Ronald Grigor. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Mellor, Anne. 1982. On feminist Utopias. Women's Studies 9(3): 241–62.10.1080/00497878.1982.9978570CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mouffe, Chantal. 1992. Feminism, citizenship, and radical democratic politics. In Feminists theorize the political, ed.Butler, Judith and Scott, Joan W.New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Newton, Judith Lowder. 1981. Women, power, and subversion: Social strategies in British fiction, 1778?860. Athens: University of Georgia Press.Google Scholar
Pateman, Carole. 1988. The sexual contract. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Pearson, Carol. 1977. Women's fantasies and feminist Utopias. Frontiers 2(3): 5061.10.2307/3346349CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pearson, Carol 1981. Coming home: Four feminist Utopias and patriarchal experience. In Future females: A critical anthology. See Barr 1981.Google Scholar
Phillips, Anne. 1993. Oemoaacy and difference. Pittsburgh: Penn State University Press.Google Scholar
Piercy, Marge. 1976. Woman on the edge of time. New York: Knopf.Google Scholar
Roemer, Kenneth, ed. 1976. America as Utopia. New York: Burt Franklin.Google Scholar
Rohrlich, Ruby, and Baruch, Elaine Hoffman, eds. 1984. Women in search of Utopia: Mavericks and mythmakers. New York: Schocken Books.Google Scholar
Roof, Judith. 1996. Come as you are: Sexuality and narrative. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Russ, Joanna. 1972. What can a heroine do? Or why women can't write. In images of women in fiction, ed.Cornillon, Susan Koppelman. Bowling Green: Bowling Green University Press.Google Scholar
Russ, Joanna 1975. The female man. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Russ, Joanna 1981. Recent feminist Utopias. In Future females: A critica anthology. See Barr 1981.Google Scholar
Sargent, Lyman Tower. 1983. A new anarchism. In Women and Utopia: Critical interpretations. See Barr and Smith 1993.Google Scholar
Sarvasy, Wendy. 1992. Beyond the diffetence versus equality policy debate: Postsuffrage feminism, citizenship, and the quest for a feminist welfare state. Signs 17(2): 329–62.10.1086/494733CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scholes, Robert. 1980. Language, narrative, and anti‐narrative. In On Narrative, ed.Mitchell, W J. T.Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Shugar, Dana R. 1995. Sep‐a‐ra‐tism and women's community. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.Google Scholar
Steenbergen, Bart van, ed. 1994. The conation of citizenship. London: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Turner, Bryan S. 1994. Postmodern culture/Modern citizens. In The condition of citizenship. See van Steenbergen 1994.Google Scholar
Vogel, Ursula. 1988. Under permanent guatdianship: Women's condition under modern civil law. In The Political interests of gender: Developing theory and research with a feminist face, ed.Jones, Kathleen B. and Jonasdottir, Anna G.London: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Vogel, Ursula 1994. Marriage and the boundaries of citizenship. In The condition of citizenship. See van Steenbergen 1994.Google Scholar
Webb, Igor. 1981. From custom to capital: The Engiis novel and the industrial revolution. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Yeatman, Anna. 1994. Postmodern revisionings of the political. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Yuval‐Davis, Nira. 1991. The citizenship debate: Women, ethnic processes and the state. Feminist Review 39: 5868.10.1057/fr.1991.40CrossRefGoogle Scholar