‘Alpha-mädchen sind wir alle’ [we’re all alpha girls]: subjectivity and agency in contemporary pop-feminist writing in the US, Britain and Germany
<p>This thesis investigates models of subjectivity and agency in early twenty-first-century pop-feminist fiction and non-fiction. Non-fiction accounts of subjectivity (Haaf, Klingner and Streidl, 2008; Valenti, 2007; Moran, 2011 et al.) draw on poststructuralist notions of incoherent, performa...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2014
|
| Subjects: |
| _version_ | 1826315900995764224 |
|---|---|
| author | Spiers, E |
| author2 | Paul, G |
| author_facet | Paul, G Spiers, E |
| author_sort | Spiers, E |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | <p>This thesis investigates models of subjectivity and agency in early twenty-first-century pop-feminist fiction and non-fiction. Non-fiction accounts of subjectivity (Haaf, Klingner and Streidl, 2008; Valenti, 2007; Moran, 2011 et al.) draw on poststructuralist notions of incoherent, performative identity, yet retain the assumption that there remains a sovereign subject capable of claiming full autonomy. The pop-feminist non-fictions reflect a neoliberal model of entrepreneurial individualism where self-optimisation replaces an ethics of intersubjective relations. In exploring the theoretical blind-spots of pop-feminist claims to female autonomy and agency, this thesis sets out to demonstrate that pop-feminist non-fiction lacks an actual feminist politics. My methodology is comparative and primarily involves the close reading of a corpus of pop-feminist texts from the Anglo-American and German contexts. I utilize my corpus of current essayistic pop-feminist texts as a fixed point of reference, deeming them to be representative of a pervasive kind of contemporary postfeminist thinking.</p> <p>Through the employment of the first-person narrative voice the literary authors explore how subjects are constituted by discourse but also how the subject may shape her choices/actions. Subjectivity becomes a generative capacity characterised by expansive and self-reflexive negotiations between self and other. The fictional portrayal of this process prompts an imaginative and extrapolative process of identification and dis-identification in the reader which opens up a site for the exercise of critique. Through my close readings of the novels (Riley, 2002; Walsh, 2004; Thomas, 2004; Grether, 2006; Roche, 2008; Bronsky, 2008; Baum, 2011; Hegemann, 2010) I develop a model of intersubjective dependency, drawing on Judith Butler’s later work (1994, 1999, and 2005), and identify versions of this model in the 1980s-1990s work of American postmodern feminist writers Kathy Acker and Mary Gaitskill. My thesis reveals hitherto un-discussed lines of literary and critical influence on the contemporary British and German novelists emanating from Acker and Gaitskill, suggesting that their texts may be viewed as representative of a critical pop-literary interest, spanning approximately three decades and shifting across cultural contexts, in the encounter between female subjectivity and agency in the face of late-capitalist manifestations of social constraint.</p> |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-06T19:45:00Z |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oxford-uuid:21fd8597-82a0-40e7-9a21-fdcd3da27641 |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-09T03:34:34Z |
| publishDate | 2014 |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:21fd8597-82a0-40e7-9a21-fdcd3da276412024-12-01T18:08:15Z‘Alpha-mädchen sind wir alle’ [we’re all alpha girls]: subjectivity and agency in contemporary pop-feminist writing in the US, Britain and GermanyThesishttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_db06uuid:21fd8597-82a0-40e7-9a21-fdcd3da27641American literature in EnglishEnglish and Old English literatureGermanModern Western philosophyWomenGenderLiteratures of Germanic languagesEnglishOxford University Research Archive - Valet2014Spiers, EPaul, GMarcus, L<p>This thesis investigates models of subjectivity and agency in early twenty-first-century pop-feminist fiction and non-fiction. Non-fiction accounts of subjectivity (Haaf, Klingner and Streidl, 2008; Valenti, 2007; Moran, 2011 et al.) draw on poststructuralist notions of incoherent, performative identity, yet retain the assumption that there remains a sovereign subject capable of claiming full autonomy. The pop-feminist non-fictions reflect a neoliberal model of entrepreneurial individualism where self-optimisation replaces an ethics of intersubjective relations. In exploring the theoretical blind-spots of pop-feminist claims to female autonomy and agency, this thesis sets out to demonstrate that pop-feminist non-fiction lacks an actual feminist politics. My methodology is comparative and primarily involves the close reading of a corpus of pop-feminist texts from the Anglo-American and German contexts. I utilize my corpus of current essayistic pop-feminist texts as a fixed point of reference, deeming them to be representative of a pervasive kind of contemporary postfeminist thinking.</p> <p>Through the employment of the first-person narrative voice the literary authors explore how subjects are constituted by discourse but also how the subject may shape her choices/actions. Subjectivity becomes a generative capacity characterised by expansive and self-reflexive negotiations between self and other. The fictional portrayal of this process prompts an imaginative and extrapolative process of identification and dis-identification in the reader which opens up a site for the exercise of critique. Through my close readings of the novels (Riley, 2002; Walsh, 2004; Thomas, 2004; Grether, 2006; Roche, 2008; Bronsky, 2008; Baum, 2011; Hegemann, 2010) I develop a model of intersubjective dependency, drawing on Judith Butler’s later work (1994, 1999, and 2005), and identify versions of this model in the 1980s-1990s work of American postmodern feminist writers Kathy Acker and Mary Gaitskill. My thesis reveals hitherto un-discussed lines of literary and critical influence on the contemporary British and German novelists emanating from Acker and Gaitskill, suggesting that their texts may be viewed as representative of a critical pop-literary interest, spanning approximately three decades and shifting across cultural contexts, in the encounter between female subjectivity and agency in the face of late-capitalist manifestations of social constraint.</p> |
| spellingShingle | American literature in English English and Old English literature German Modern Western philosophy Women Gender Literatures of Germanic languages Spiers, E ‘Alpha-mädchen sind wir alle’ [we’re all alpha girls]: subjectivity and agency in contemporary pop-feminist writing in the US, Britain and Germany |
| title | ‘Alpha-mädchen sind wir alle’ [we’re all alpha girls]: subjectivity and agency in contemporary pop-feminist writing in the US, Britain and Germany |
| title_full | ‘Alpha-mädchen sind wir alle’ [we’re all alpha girls]: subjectivity and agency in contemporary pop-feminist writing in the US, Britain and Germany |
| title_fullStr | ‘Alpha-mädchen sind wir alle’ [we’re all alpha girls]: subjectivity and agency in contemporary pop-feminist writing in the US, Britain and Germany |
| title_full_unstemmed | ‘Alpha-mädchen sind wir alle’ [we’re all alpha girls]: subjectivity and agency in contemporary pop-feminist writing in the US, Britain and Germany |
| title_short | ‘Alpha-mädchen sind wir alle’ [we’re all alpha girls]: subjectivity and agency in contemporary pop-feminist writing in the US, Britain and Germany |
| title_sort | alpha madchen sind wir alle we re all alpha girls subjectivity and agency in contemporary pop feminist writing in the us britain and germany |
| topic | American literature in English English and Old English literature German Modern Western philosophy Women Gender Literatures of Germanic languages |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT spierse alphamadchensindwirallewereallalphagirlssubjectivityandagencyincontemporarypopfeministwritingintheusbritainandgermany |