Women Writing Intimacy and Resistance : Not So Private Conversations

This volume explores women writers’ representations of intimacy in the English-speaking world as a form of political engagement where personal experiences intersect with broader societal concerns. It considers their resistance to systemic cultural oppression and evolving aesthetics in women’s writings across a spectrum of literary genres spanning from the nineteenth century to the present: life writing, novels, poetry, theatre. Using the second-wave feminist slogan “the personal is political” as a common thread, the collection is located at the intersection of feminist, decolonial, ethnic, and queer studies. Contemplating the emergence of a new aesthetics in women’s writings, the book also aligns itself with a stream of political feminism which still relies on a certain form of “identity politics.” Importantly, the authors emphasise that gender-based domination operates concurrently with other forms of oppression, and that these forms of oppression intersect, forming a complex matrix of experiences and challenges that women must navigate, imagining unique forms of resistance.