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32 - Reading women in America

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2012

By
Susan Griffin
Edited by
Dale M. Bauer
Susan Griffin
Affiliation:
University of Louisville
Dale M. Bauer
Affiliation:
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
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Summary

The history of how American women readers have been studied is tied closely to the history of Women's Studies in America. This is true in several senses: one is that Women's Studies from the start concerned itself with identifying and describing the woman reader (and, later, women readers – an important distinction). The second is that the history of Women's Studies is, quite literally, largely a history of women – in this case, feminists – reading. After all, as Judith Fetterley declared in 1978, “At its best feminist criticism is a political act whose aim is not simply to interpret the world but to change it by changing the consciousness of those who read and their relation to what they read.” This essay has, then, a dual focus: describing some of the many ways in which women readers have been and are being studied and suggesting why certain kinds of studies appeared at different historical moments.

Twentieth-century feminists were not, of course, the first to address the topic of the woman reader, a controversial matter dating back to Classical Greece. Indeed, every advance in the technologies of literacy brought with it protests against, and sometimes arguments for, women reading. The history of the novel in particular is deeply imbricated with advice for, fears about, warnings to educators, parents, girls themselves.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of American Women's Literature , pp. 633 - 654
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2012

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  • Reading women in America
  • Edited by Dale M. Bauer, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
  • Book: The Cambridge History of American Women's Literature
  • Online publication: 28 September 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9781107001374.034
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  • Reading women in America
  • Edited by Dale M. Bauer, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
  • Book: The Cambridge History of American Women's Literature
  • Online publication: 28 September 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9781107001374.034
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Reading women in America
  • Edited by Dale M. Bauer, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
  • Book: The Cambridge History of American Women's Literature
  • Online publication: 28 September 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9781107001374.034
Available formats
×