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, USA
"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, USA
About the Author
Sharon L. Jansen is the author of Debating Women, Politics, and Power in Early Modern Europe, The Monstrous Regiment of Women, and Anne of France: Lessons for My Daughter. She lives and writes in Steilacoom, WA.
Table of Contents
1. Reading Nafisi at the YMCA 2. I Have a Dream: Christine de Pizan's The Book of the City of Ladies and Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own 3. Let's Talk: Conversation in Moderata Fonte's The Worth of Women and Marjane Satrapi's Embroideries 4. Design for Living: Women's Communities in Margaret Cavendish's The Convent of Pleasure and Mary Astell's A Serious Proposal to the Ladies 5. Trouble in Paradise: Men in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland and Doris Lessing's The Cleft 6. Buried Alive: Arcangela Tarabotti's Paternal Tyranny and Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" 7. Brave New Worlds: Margaret Atwood's A Handmaid's Tale and Slavenka Drakulic's S. A Novel about the Balkans 8. Still Crazy after All These Years: Doris Lessing's "To Room Nineteen" and Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran