Making Girls into Women: American Women's Writing and the Rise of Lesbian Identity

Kathryn R. Kent

Published by Duke University Press 2003

Making Girls into Women

American Women's Writing and the Rise of Lesbian Identity

Kathryn R. Kent
Edited by: Michèle Aina Barale , Jonathan Goldberg , Michael Moon and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick

In the series Series Q

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822384571

Overview
Contents

About this book

Explores the links between the emergence of lesbian and proto-lesbian identities at the turn of the century and the discourses of sentimentality, mass culture, and modernism.

Author / Editor information

Kathryn R. Kent is Assistant Professor of English at Williams College.

Reviews

”In the pages of American women's literature, lesbians are made, not born. Kathryn R. Kent expertly surveys the many creative acts of instruction, imitation, and invention among women that ultimately make modern lesbian identity more than just a product of medical discourse. At the heart of all these narratives of self-fashioning lies a central paradox: girls can only freely invent themselves by imitating someone else. Kent brilliantly profiles both sides of these mimetic couples (mothers and daughters, teachers and students, lovers and friends), demonstrating in the end that imitation is inevitably a two-way street.”—Diana Fuss, author of Identification Papers

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
INTRODUCTION Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. “SINGLE WHITE FEMALE”: THE SEXUAL POLITICS OF SPINSTERHOOD IN HARRIET BEECHER STOWE’S OLDTOWN FOLKS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	19
2. “TRYING ALL KINDS”: LOUISA MAY ALCOTT’S PEDAGOGIC EROTICS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	43
3. “SCOUTING FOR GIRLS”: READING AND RECRUITMENT Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	105
4. “EXCREATE A NO SENSE”: THE EROTIC CURRENCY OF GERTRUDE STEIN’S TENDER BUTTONS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	139
5. THE M MULTIPLYING: MARIANNE MOORE, ELIZABETH BISHOP, AND THE PLEASURES OF INFLUENCE, PART 1 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	167
6. INFLUENCE AND INVITATION: MARIANNE MOORE, ELIZABETH BISHOP, AND THE PLEASURES OF INFLUENCE, PART 2 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	209
CONCLUSION Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	235
NOTES Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	241
BIBLIOGRAPHY Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	313
INDEX Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	345

Language: English
Publisher: Duke University Press
Pages
- Main content: 368
Illustrations
- Other: 3 illus.

eBook

Published: January 17, 2003
ISBN: 9780822384571