"It is by now clear that a feminist renaissance is under way,’ remarked Adrienne Rich, the great American poet and feminist. Contemporary feminist literature is characterized by issues of women's self-identity, of women coming out from the male-defined domains to achieve independence and the odyssey towards emancipation and self-assertion. Representing the concerns of women in a wide range of contexts across the globe, the anthology Feminist Slants in Contemporary Writings, explores the dynamics of gender oppression and discrimination. The anthology examines the universal themes connecting women all over the world and carries the emblem of women’s identity, liberty, and self- assertion. The book, Feminist Slants in Contemporary Writings, contains fifteen scholarly essays illuminating the feminist mystique and ethos. What unites these essays is the common exploration of the choices that women have to make as a result of their sexed and gendered embodiments. Hence, the fifteen essays in the anthology will prove very relevant to the students and researchers of English Literature.
A gold medallist from Patna University, Bihar, Professor Dr. Sunita Sinha, has been teaching in Women’s College, Samastipur, L.N. Mithila University, Bihar. She has to her credit twenty-four books which have been highly acclaimed in academic circles. Her authorial ventures are: Graham Greene: A Study of His Major Novels, Post-Colonial Women Writers: New Perspectives, Twentieth Century Literature: Emerging Trends, Rethinking Gender: Masculinity, Femininity and Queerity in Postcolonial Indian Fiction which have been published by the Atlantic Publishers & Distributors [P] Ltd., New Delhi.
She has participated in many national and international seminars and conferences and has written many scholarly papers which have been published in various national and international books and journals. Her areas of interest are Postcolonial Literature, Gender Studies, Indian, Australian, and Canadian Literature. Currently, she is the Chief Editor of three international journals, The Atlantic Review of Feminist Studies, The Atlantic Literary Review and The Atlantic Critical Review, and is also the Honorary Editor/Director for Bihar, Atlantic Publishers & Distributors [P] Ltd.
Today, women enjoy a lot more power, prerogatives, freedom, and professional accomplishment as compared to how it was in the past. Nonetheless, even though a plethora of refashioning has occurred over the past years concerning the women’s movement, there are still women who are swamped in the traditional milieu. Katlyn Jackson remarked, "It’s almost 2018 and our voices are still not being heard. In a man-made world, we are still silent." Earning a place for itself in the literary mainstream, a new kind of woman’s novel, written not only by and about, but primarily for women, professedly "feminist" in orientation, has been gaining ground in recent years. Contemporary feminist literature is a pronouncement of women’s lives, inner thoughts, emotions, imaginations, as well as an anguish against the outmoded patriarchal supremacy. The feminist literature of this century moves towards female identity, freedom, awakening, self-assertion, and liberation. Despite all the ranting and tirade, refuting the need for feminism, the feminist crusade is far from its demise. Some believe that women have attained equality. However, when compared to their male counterparts, women around the world still appear to be subjected to economic exploitation, high rates of intimate partner violence, sexual violence, and a number of other injustices.
Bringing together fifteen scholarly essays showcasing feminist protest, the book Feminist Slants in Contemporary Writings hopes to empower the women to address the world from a shared stage of common experiences.
Anita Myles’ scholarly paper, Douloti: Mahasweta Devi’s Doubly Oppressed Subaltern offers a brilliant analysis of the gendered division of labor manifested by the exploitation of tribal men and women, and examines how the tribals are ensnared in and oppressed as bonded laborers and prostitutes by the ingrained socio-economic evil of debt-bondage. The paper affirms that Douloti is not just an individual but becomes a prototype and a representative of the subaltern tribal women who get doubly oppressed—first, because they belong to the unprivileged tribal community and secondly, because they are women.
The Indian theatre remained exclusively dominated by men for centuries, however, with the rising wave of "feminism" in the 1970s, new avenues opened up for Indian women for expressing their own voice. Therefore, a study of Indian women playwrights and directors becomes significant from socio-political and aesthetic perspectives. Re-Drawing Boundaries of the Canon: Indian English Women Dramatists by Anita Singh critically examines ‘the complex interplay of writing as women and the impetuses behind choosing to write in a language not one’s own.’
Gloria Naylor’s The Women of Brewster Place: Locating Black Feminist Standpoint in the Spatial Reality by Anurag Kumar attempts to contextualize Black Feminist Standpoint Theory in Gloria Naylor’s The Women of Brewster Place and showcases how the marginal spatial reality in addition to the collective experiences of seven black women constructs their standpoint. Further, the paper uses Bell Hooks’ "Choosing the Margin as a Space of Radical Openness" to contend that the marginal space helps the subject to "develop a critical insight" and produces what Collins call "oppositional consciousness". Thus, black women in Naylor’s The Women of Brewster Place, because of their social locatedness, "transform a source of Oppression into a source of knowledge and liberation". And hence, the paper establishes that spatial location in Naylor’s The Women of Brewster Place conspicuously explicates the possibility of dialectic that is inbuilt in marginal spatial reality; "site of repression" and "site of resistance", however, it is later which is a "location of radical openness and possibility" which further helps them nurture a "culture of opposition" which is their "critical response to dominance".
Devika’s paper, Why Women are not Allowed to be Daring Enough to have Self-belief and Exercise its Assertion? probes into the man-woman relationship. As she remarks, "Despite working against all the odds and settling all the scores, the kaleidoscopic vibgyor of this relationship remains the axis of human life in the society where writers have found that bond still debatably intact despite acutely fluctuating differences." The paper talks about woman’s self and remarks, "Not necessary the winner, but women have made their choice to decide things for themselves instead of being directed."
Shakespeare created some of the strongest female characters in literature. Common topics of feminist studies of Shakespeare include examinations of patriarchy, gender, and sex roles; and the relationship between gender and power in Shakespeare’s plays. Feminism in Shakespeare’s Plays by Bhaskar Roy Barman offers a scholarly analysis of the same.
Reena Mitra in her paper, Expressions of Marginality and Censure in Manju Kapur’s Difficult Daughters, throws light on the predicament of traditional Indian women who derive their identity from their homes for they have a strong sense of belonging to the family. The contemporary woman guards against any sense of disorientation and alienation, and relocates herself through her own personal narrative with reminiscences as strategy to expunge the traumatic past. "Manju Kapur’s Difficult Daughters is one such narrative of a woman’s life in the toils of an unrelenting fate that heads towards a decimation of the identity of the individual," remarks Dr Mitra. The woman, however, in her grandeur of assertion, emerges triumphant.
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