Inventing Herself: Claiming a Feminist Intellectual Heritage [Paperback]

Elaine Showalter (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 10, 2002

Sure to take its place alongside the literary landmarks of modern feminism, Elaine Showalter's brilliant, provocative work chronicles the roles of feminist intellectuals from the eighteenth century to the present.

With sources as diverse as "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman" and "Scream 2, Inventing Herself" is an expansive and timely exploration of women who possess a boundless determination to alter the world by boldly experiencing love, achievement, and fame on a grand scale. These women tried to work, travel, think, love, and even die in ways that were ahead of their time. In doing so, they forged an epic history that each generation of adventurous women has rediscovered.

Focusing on paradigmatic figures ranging from Mary Wollstonecraft and Margaret Fuller to Germaine Greer and Susan Sontag, preeminent scholar Elaine Showalter uncovers common themes and patterns of these women's lives across the centuries and discovers the feminist intellectual tradition they embodied. The author brilliantly illuminates the contributions of Eleanor Marx, Zora Neale Hurston, Simone de Beauvoir, Margaret Mead, and many more.

Showalter, a highly regarded critic known for her provocative and strongly held opinions, has here established a compelling new Who's Who of women's thought. Certain to spark controversy, the omission of such feminist perennials as Susan B. Anthony, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Virginia Woolf will surprise and shock the conventional wisdom.

This is not a history of perfect women, but rather of real women, whose mistakes and even tragedies are instructive and inspiring for women today who are still trying to invent themselves.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

"From Mary Wollstonecraft on, the great feminist icons were anything but saints," writes this literary critic, chair of the Princeton English Department, and '60s feminist activist. Choosing from her personal list of heroines, Elaine Showalter illuminates the lives of American and English female intellectual notables from the 18th century to the present, and demonstrates the timeless division in the feminist psyche between the need for independence and the need for love. She begins with Wollstonecraft, author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, who was the first to call for political, emotional, and sexual liberation. Wollstonecraft's own life anticipated all the contradictions between theory and practice that would challenge women, as she extolled reason and independence over passion, then became suicidal over the abandonment of her lover. Olive Schreiner was the chief spokeswoman for the New Women of the late 19th century, a group that felt compelled to sacrifice love or motherhood in the interest of women's future freedom. Another feminist mainstay, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, was the first to find both work and love on her own terms, but only after a severe depression brought on by internal conflicts over mothering in the Victorian era.

Showalter doesn't limit herself to traditional feminist icons, however. Her book also explores the lives of Mary McCarthy and Hannah Arendt, who scorned feminism, and more recent feminist critics such as Katie Roiphe and Camille Paglia (with an emphasis on the latter's egomania). She reveals the enmity between Simon de Beauvoir and Mary McCarthy, as well as their similarities, and the unbalanced bonds between de Beauvoir and Arendt and their philosopher lovers (Sartre and Heidegger, respectively). As she moves into the 21st century, the effort to combine independence, adventure, and love is embodied in Hillary Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, and Princess Diana, who was killed exactly 200 years after Wollstonecraft died in childbirth. It's an idiosyncratic but entertaining list, with its revealing and refreshing focus on these women's risk-taking and rule-breaking lives. --Lesley Reed --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Showalter begins and ends her account of the lives of famous women with Mary Wollstonecraft and Princess Di, both of them "rule-breakers who followed their own path, who were determined to experience love, achievement, and fame, and who wanted their life to matter." In short, they were "feminist icons," and along with a long list of American and British women (plus Simone de Beauvoir), their life stories make up Showalter's idea of a feminist inheritance. Hers is an idiosyncratic list, as notable for who is out as who is in: Rebecca West, but not Virginia Woolf; Hillary Clinton, not Eleanor Roosevelt; Camille Paglia, not Mary Daly; Princess Di, not Jackie O. The women she highlights were hardly monuments of either invulnerability or consistency, and the book invites us to identify with their wounds and scars as well as with their heroic search for autonomy. Although those familiar with the field of women's studies will discover relatively little that is new here, the general reader will find Showalter's vigorous retelling of the lives of these feminist foremothers engaging and blessedly free of both academic jargon and the weight of theory. Though readers may find her choices occasionally bewildering, they will also discover in them rich material for lively argument. Agent, Geri Thoma. (Mar. 20) Forecast: While this book will be required reading for countless introductory women's studies courses, it should also become a popular present from feminists from the 1960s and '70s to their daughters and sons.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Pan Macmillan (May 10, 2002)
• ISBN-10: 0330488007
• ISBN-13: 978-0330488006
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Personal and Political Feminism, June 19, 2001

By 

"neeterskeeter27" (http://www.neeterskeeter.com/new) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Inventing Herself: Claiming a Feminist Intellectual Heritage (Hardcover)

....P>She is also the author and editor of a number of books. In March of 2001 her newest book, Inventing Herself : Claiming a Feminist Intellectual Heritage was published, and it is also an examination of the personal and political realms of Feminism. In it, she illustrates the lives of some of her personal heroines, women who have lived from the 18th Century on and whom have contributed to women's rights. She starts out with Mary Wollstonecraft, whose revolutionary book Vindication on the Rights of Women was one of the first pieces of feminist writing, and ends with modern heroines like Hillary Clinton, Princess Diana, and Oprah Winfrey. With each woman's story, she not only shows what they did to change politics and society, but also how their personal lives had an effect on those of other women living during that time.

Elaine Showalter, whether writing about Janis Joplin or Germaine Greer, always draws similarities between the public importance and personal apprecation of feminism. It is obvious to the reader of her words that she has treasured feminism in her own life and wants to share it with others. Her book will inspire and motivate you....

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Compact , Creative Insight into Lives of Important Women, February 22, 2002

By 

Amy Foster (Berkeley, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Inventing Herself: Claiming a Feminist Intellectual Heritage (Hardcover)

In case you don't have the time to accomplish the very important task of reading every single book written by influential women, this book is a wonderful way to become at least familiar with their philosophy, and where they stood in the context of their times. The accounts are lively and readable, and can serve as a reference for later on you when you might have time to explore more deeply the writings of the individual women who interest you.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars There's No "There" There, October 10, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Inventing Herself: Claiming a Feminist Intellectual Heritage (Hardcover)

If these are indeed biographies of feminist intellectual icons, you certainly wouldn't know it from this collection of shallow, rambling essays. After reading this book, I have no sense of these women as feminists or intellectuals, nor of their ambitions and accomplishments. However, I'm overly informed on other aspects: About 10% of each mini-biography is devoted to an overview of the subject's life. The other 90% deals with their looks, fashion choices and the cads and Ken-dolls they slept with. How disappointing that "Inventing Herself" seems to mean "Defining Herself Through Men."