Beyond Feminist Aesthetics has a dual focus. First, Rita Felski gives a critical account of current American and European feminist literary theory, and second, she offers an analysis of contemporary fiction by women, drawing in particular on the genres of the autobiographical confession and the novel of self-discovery, in order to show that this literature raises questions for feminism that cannot be answered in terms of a purely gender based analysis.Felski argues that the idea of a feminist aesthetic is a nonissue that feminists have needlessly pursued; she suggests, in contrast, that it is impossible to speak of "masculine" and "feminine," "subversive" and "reactionary" literary forms in isolation from the social conditions of their production and reception. The political value of such works of literature from the standpoint of feminism can be determined only by an investigation of their social functions and effects in relation to the interests of women in a particular historical context. This leads her to argue for an interdisciplinary approach to the analysis of literature which can integrate literary and social theory, and to develop such an approach by drawing upon the model of a feminist counter-public sphere.Rita Felski has produced a closely reasoned, stimulating book that creates a new framework for discussing the relationship between literature and feminist politics. It will interest students and teachers of women's studies, comparative literature, cultural studies, and fiction.

Beyond Feminist Aesthetics: Feminist Literature and Social Change

Felski, Rita

Literature & Fiction

Hutchinson Educational

Literature after Feminism

Recent commentators have portrayed feminist critics as grim-faced ideologues who are destroying the study of literature. Feminists, they claim, reduce art to politics and are hostile to any form of aesthetic pleasure. Literature after Feminism is the first work to comprehensively rebut such caricatures, while also offering a clear-eyed assessment of the relative merits of various feminist approaches to literature. Spelling out her main arguments clearly and succinctly, Rita Felski explains how feminism has changed the ways people read and think about literature. She organizes her book around four key questions: Do women and men read differently? How have feminist critics imagined the female author? What does plot have to do with gender? And what do feminists have to say about the relationship between literary and political value? Interweaving incisive commentary with literary examples, Felski advocates a double critical vision that can do justice to the social and political meanings of literature without dismissing or scanting the aesthetic.

History & Criticism

University of Chicago Press

The Limits of Critique

Why must critics unmask and demystify literary works? Why do they believe that language is always withholding some truth, that the critic’s task is to reveal the unsaid or repressed? In this book, Rita Felski examines critique, the dominant form of interpretation in literary studies, and situates it as but one method among many, a method with strong allure—but also definite limits. Felski argues that critique is a sensibility best captured by Paul Ricoeur’s phrase “the hermeneutics of suspicion.” She shows how this suspicion toward texts forecloses many potential readings while providing no guarantee of rigorous or radical thought. Instead, she suggests, literary scholars should try what she calls “postcritical reading”: rather than looking behind a text for hidden causes and motives, literary scholars should place themselves in front of it and reflect on what it suggests and makes possible. By bringing critique down to earth and exploring new modes of interpretation, The Limits of Critique offers a fresh approach to the relationship between artistic works and the social world.

The Saint and the Atheist: Thomas Aquinas and Jean-Paul Sartre

Product Description Over the last few decades, character-based criticism has been seen as either naive or obsolete. But now questions of character are attracting renewed interest. Making the case for a broad-based revision of our understanding of character, Character rethinks these questions from the ground up. Is it really necessary to remind literary critics that characters are made up of words? Must we forbid identification with characters? Does character-discussion force critics to embrace humanism and outmoded theories of the subject? Across three chapters, leading scholars Amanda Anderson, Rita Felski, and Toril Moi reimagine and renew literary studies by engaging in a conversation about character. Moi returns to the fundamental theoretical assumptions that convinced literary scholars to stop doing character-criticism, and shows that they cannot hold. Felski turns to the question of identification and draws out its diverse strands, as well as its persistence in academic criticism. Anderson shows that character-criticism illuminates both the moral life of characters, and our understanding of literary form. In offering new perspectives on the question of fictional character, this thought-provoking book makes an important intervention in literary studies. Review "This TRIOS volume brings together Toril Moi, Rita Felski, and Amanda Anderson to discuss the concept of character in literary studies. Though quite different from one another, these critics each evince their own reality hunger. They’re tired of academic orthodoxies that emphasize that characters are not people but merely words on a page. A new paradigm is needed in which we take seriously the demands that characters make upon us." ― Los Angeles Review of Books"Three internationally famous literary scholars have turned revolutionary generals with a book that everyone working as, or learning to be, a literary critic should read. . . . Moi, Felski and Anderson are more like gardeners, cultivating the beds, rooting up the bindweed of false dogma and making our little lot – literary criticism – more appealing. The different critical virtues so strikingly exemplified in each essay (Moi’s attentive argument, Felski’s wide-ranging analysis, Anderson’s insightful readings), the absolutely lucid prose (rightly, a stylistic rebuke to professional argot and inaccessible theory-speak) and the clear-eyed overview of critical debates mean this book is perfect for present and future gardeners. It could and should be read by all critics and students." ― Times Higher Education“[The authors’] voices are some of the most refreshing and important in literary studies today. This small volume packs a big punch.” ― Religion and Its Publics“A timely and much-needed intervention, bridging the gap between nonacademic and critical engagement with fictional beings.” ― Textual Practice“A timely, lively, and eye-opening academic conversation on the aesthetic and ethical centrality of fictional character.” ― English Studies“Character seeks to revive the full complexity and richness of our experience of fictional characters. Anderson, Felski, and Moi break with critical orthodoxies, offering a lucid and sophisticated account of the force of readerly engagement with character life. These insights into the aesthetic and ethical centrality of character will provoke debate for years to come.” -- Yi-Ping Ong, Johns Hopkins University“This trio of essays—punchy, polemical, and shrewd—refreshes literary studies by revealing the value of once tabooed character talk and persuading us to own up at long last to our multiple investments in character. Anderson, Felski, and Moi help us better understand the characters of fiction, both as objects of identification and as models of moral vision.” -- Deidre Shauna Lynch, Harvard University“This lively, timely, and thought-provoking volume gives three major critics room to explore what draws us to fictional beings. Genealogizing the formalist

Character: Three Inquiries in Literary Studies (TRIOS)

Moi, Toril

Anderson, Amanda

Hooked: Art and Attachment

How does a novel entice or enlist us? How does a song surprise or seduce us? Why do we bristle when a friend belittles a book we love, or fall into a funk when a favored TV series comes to an end? What characterizes the aesthetic experiences of feeling captivated by works of art? In Hooked, Rita Felski challenges the ethos of critical aloofness that is a part of modern intellectuals’ self-image. The result is sure to be as widely read as Felski’s book, The Limits of Critique.\nWresting the language of affinity away from accusations of sticky sentiment and manipulative marketing, Felski argues that “being hooked” is as fundamental to the appreciation of high art as to the enjoyment of popular culture. Hooked zeroes in on three attachment devices that connect audiences to works of art: identification, attunement, and interpretation. Drawing on examples from literature, film, music, and painting—from Joni Mitchell to Matisse, from Thomas Bernhard to Thelma and Louise—Felski brings the language of attachment into the academy. Hooked returns us to the fundamentals of aesthetic experience, showing that the social meanings of artworks are generated not just by critics, but also by the responses of captivated audiences.

How does a novel entice or enlist us? How does a song surprise or seduce us? Why do we bristle when a friend belittles a book we love, or fall into a funk when a favored TV series comes to an end? What characterizes the aesthetic experiences of feeling captivated by works of art? In Hooked, Rita Felski challenges the ethos of critical aloofness that is a part of modern intellectuals' self-image. The result is sure to be as widely read as Felski's book, The Limits of Critique. Wresting the language of affinity away from accusations of sticky sentiment and manipulative marketing, Felski argues that "being hooked" is as fundamental to the appreciation of high art as to the enjoyment of popular culture. Hooked zeroes in on three attachment devices that connect audiences to works of art: identification, attunement, and interpretation. Drawing on examples from literature, film, music, and painting--from Joni Mitchell to Matisse, from Thomas Bernhard to Thelma and Louise--Felski brings the language of attachment into the academy. Hooked returns us to the fundamentals of aesthetic experience, showing that the social meanings of artworks are generated not just by critics, but also by the responses of captivated audiences.

Harvard University Press

Beyond Feminist Aesthetics has a dual focus. First, Rita Felski gives a critical account of current American and European feminist literary theory, and second, she offers an analysis of contemporary fiction by women, drawing in particular on the genres of the autobiographical confession and the novel of self-discovery, in order to show that this literature raises questions for feminism that cannot be answered in terms of a purely gender based analysis.
Felski argues that the idea of a feminist aesthetic is a nonissue that feminists have needlessly pursued; she suggests, in contrast, that it is impossible to speak of “masculine” and “feminine,” “subversive” and “reactionary” literary forms in isolation from the social conditions of their production and reception. The political value of such works of literature from the standpoint of feminism can be determined only by an investigation of their social functions and effects in relation to the interests of women in a particular historical context. This leads her to argue for an interdisciplinary approach to the analysis of literature which can integrate literary and social theory, and to develop such an approach by drawing upon the model of a feminist counter-public sphere.
Rita Felski has produced a closely reasoned, stimulating book that creates a new framework for discussing the relationship between literature and feminist politics. It will interest students and teachers of women’s studies, comparative literature, cultural studies, and fiction.

Beyond Feminist Aesthetics: Feminist Literature and Social Change (The John Harvard Library)

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Felski, Rita. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Felski, Rita

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Felski, Rita. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Beyond Feminist Aesthetics: Feminist Literature and Social Change

Literature after Feminism

Literature after Feminism

The Limits of Critique

The Limits of Critique

Character: Three Inquiries in Literary Studies (TRIOS)

Hooked: Art and Attachment

Hooked: Art and Attachment

Beyond Feminist Aesthetics: Feminist Literature and Social Change

Beyond Feminist Aesthetics: Feminist Literature and Social Change (The John Harvard Library)