Labor & desire

Description:

"This critical, historical, and theoretical study looks at a little-known group of novels written during the 1930s by women who were literary radicals. Arguing that class consciousness was figured through metaphors of gender, Paula Rabinowitz challenges the conventional wisdom that feminism as a discourse disappeared during the decade. She focuses on the ways in which sexuality and maternity reconstruct the "classic" proletarian novel to speak about both the working-class woman and the radical female intellectual." "Two well-known novels bracket this study: Agnes Smedley's Daughters of Earth (1929) and Mary McCarthy's The Company She Keeps (1942). In all, Rabinowitz surveys more than forty novels of the period, many largely forgotten. Discussing these novels in the contexts of literary radicalism and of women's literary tradition, she reads them as both cultural history and cultural theory. Through a consideration of the novels as a genre, Rabinowitz is able to theorize about the interrelationship of class and gender in American culture. Book jacket."--BOOK JACKET.

subjects: American Feminist fiction,  American Revolutionary literature,  American fiction,  Depressions in literature,  Desire in literature,  Femininity in literature,  Feminism and literature,  Feminist fiction, American,  History,  History and criticism,  Radicalism in literature,  Revolutionary literature, American,  Women and literature,  Women authors,  Women intellectuals in literature,  Working class in literature,  American fiction, history and criticism, 20th century,  American fiction, women authors,  Revolutionary literature, history and criticism,  Roman américain,  Histoire et critique,  Femmes et littérature,  Histoire,  Littérature révolutionnaire américaine,  Féminité dans la littérature,  Intellectuelles dans la littérature,  Travailleurs dans la littérature,  Crises économiques dans la littérature,  Radicalisme dans la littérature,  Désir dans la littérature,  LITERARY CRITICISM,  American,  General,  English,  Languages & Literatures,  American Literature,  Féminisme et littérature,  Révolutions,  Dans la littérature,  Littérature et révolution,  Femmes écrivains,  Classe ouvrière,  Crises économiques,  Crise économique (1929)

Places: United States

Times: 20th century