Synopses & Reviews
In this book, Sharon L. Jansen explores a recurring theme in writing by women: the dream of finding or creating a private and secluded retreat from the world of men. These imagined women's worlds' may be very small, a single room even, or may be more ambitious, such as the dream of an entire country created for and inhabited exclusively by women. This insightful and accessible book places six centuries of texts in conversation with one another, pairing them in ways that explore the status of women, the desire for education, the perils of marriage, and the demands of motherhood. Here, the all-female space emerges as representative of both women's resistance to men and their complex relationship to choice.
Review
"Jansen reveals hidden works (and 'worlds') of de Pizan, Moderata Fonte, Mary Astell, Arcangela Tarabotti, Margaret Cavendish, and Valerie Solanas. The revelations are excellent, but the real pleasure is the unexpected colloquy of women discussing the condition of women, and delighted (or alarmed) to find themselves in the same metaphorical room." - Choice
"Jansen does what she does best, that is pull us into the story and help us understand her interpretation.Reading this new work, I felt as though I was becoming re-acquainted with an old friend sharing her new knowledge. Jansen has brought her informative conversational style that was so well done in her earlier works to this new discussion of women and their texts." - Shawndra Holderby, Mansfield University of Pennsylvania
"Jansen has identified a crucial theme which has not been explored in the scholarly literature, skillfully balancing her discovery of a unifying element with an extremely diverse group of women - worlds apart. Jansen's achievement is that she offers a cogent argument that respects and celebrates the different historical moments and cultural spaces that her authors occupy . . .This is refreshing to read, and her audience will be well-served . . . Her writing is engaging, instructive, and inspiring." - Victoria L. Mondelli, Director, Teaching Learning Center, Borough of Manhattan Community College, CUNY
Synopsis
In this work, Jansen explores a recurring theme in writing by women: the dream of finding or creating a private and secluded retreat from the world of men. These imagined “womens worlds” may be very small, a single room, for example, but many women writers are much more ambitious, fantasizing about cities, even entire countries, created for and inhabited exclusively by women.
Synopsis
Reading Women's Worlds from Christine de Pizan to Doris Lessing explores a recurring theme in writing by women: the dream of finding or creating a private and secluded retreat from the world of men. These imagined "women's worlds" may be very small, a single room even, or may be more ambitious, such as the dream of an entire country created for and inhabited exclusively by women. Sharon L. Jansen places these texts in conversation with one another, pairing them in ways that reveal the writers' distinctive voices even while they speak of the dream they share.
Synopsis
About the Author
Sharon Jansen is the author of Anne of France: Lessons for My Daughter, The Monstrous Regiment of Women: Female Rulers in Early Modern Europe, and Dangerous Talk and Strange Behavior: Women and Popular Resistance to the Reforms to Henry VIII. Please visit her website at: sharonljansen.com
Table of Contents
Reading Nafisi at the YMCA * I Have a Dream: Christine de Pizans The Book of the City of Ladies and Virginia Woolfs A Room of Ones Own * Lets Talk: Conversation in Moderata Fontes The Worth of Women and Marjane Satrapis Embroideries * Design for Living: Womens Communities in Margaret Cavendishs The Convent of Pleasure and Mary Astells A Serious Proposal to the Ladies * Trouble in Paradise: Men in Charlotte Perkins Gilmans Herland and Doris Lessings The Cleft * Buried Alive: Arcangela Tarabottis Paternal Tyranny and Charlotte Perkins Gilmans “The Yellow Wallpaper” * Brave New Worlds: Margaret Atwoods A Handmaids Tale and Slavenka Drakulics S. A Novel about the Balkans * Still Crazy after All These Years: Doris Lessings “To Room Nineteen” and Azar Nafisis Reading Lolita in Tehran