Research Catalog

Title

Beautiful war : uncommon violence, praxis, and aesthetics in the novels of Monique Wittig / James D. Davis, Jr.

Author

Davis, James D. (James Douglas), 1968-

Publication

New York : Peter Lang, c2010.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

x, 143 p.; 24 cm.

Summary

Beautiful War explores the interdependent political, linguistic, and erotic registers of lesbian feminism in Monique Wittig's novels, querying in particular how they function collectively to destabilize male hegemony and heterosexism. Beginning with the assertion that Wattig expressly dismantles the Classical veneration of la belle femme in order to create an agent more capable of social change (la femme belliqueuse), the author traces the permutations of violence through her four novels, L'Opoponax, Les Guerilleres, Le Corps Lesbien, and Virgile, Non and examines the relevance of brutality to Wittig's feminist agenda. Drawing on literary criticism, intellectual and political history, queer theory, and feminist theory in his readings of the primary texts, the author argues that Wittig's & oelig;uvre constitutes a progressive textual actualization of paradigm shifts toward gender parity and a permanent banishment of the primacy of male and heterosexist political and sexual discourse. --Book Jacket.

Series Statement

Currents in comparative Romance languages and literatures, 0893-5963 ; v. 178

Uniform Title

Currents in comparative Romance languages and literatures ; v. 178.

Subject

• Wittig, Monique > Criticism and interpretation
• Homophobia in literature
• Violence in literature
• Feminism and literature > France
• Lesbians in literature

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

ISBN

• 1433109670 (hardcover : alk. paper)
• 9781433109676

OCLC

• 580131974
• SCSB-11071647

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library