Gender Studies: New Directions for Feminist Criticism

In the article, Katarzyna Lisowska analyzes selected literary studies metaphors (Edward Bal-cerzan’s term) in order to discuss the way in which they represent the academic worldview of the author. The paper focuses on the phrases from the semantic field of corporeality and/or eroticism and their presence in four influential methodologies: structuralism, post-structuralism (as well as the perspectives related to it: deconstruction and deconstructionism), feminist criticism and gender studies discourse. The analyses reveal a significant role of metaphors in expressing and formulating the assumptions of a given methodology, as well as some paradoxes which result from the applica-tion of the presented phrases.

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Wypełnianie szczeliny? O perspektywie feministycznej w refleksji literaturoznawczej nad polskim oświeceniem

Roczniki Humanistyczne ◽

10.18290/rh.2019.67.1-2 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 67 (1) ◽

pp. 9

Author(s):

Danuta Kowalewska

Keyword(s):

Gender Studies ◽

Cultural Context ◽

Feminist Criticism ◽

Early Literature ◽

Foreign Literature ◽

Female Authors ◽

Starting Point ◽

French Enlightenment ◽

Potential Risks

The article raises the problem of the use of the feminist criticism apparatus in research on the Polish Enlightenment literature. The method has not been popular among Polish experts of the epoch. The article discusses the advantages of feminism in literature studies as well as the potential risks associated with the application of the category gender to research on early literature. The greatest threat seems to be the failure to take into account the historical and socio-cultural context. The paper refers to other epochs or foreign literature, which may constitute a starting point for research into the literature of Polish Enlightenment. One such work is a monograph by Marek Jastrzębiec-Mosakowski entitled Strategie wymazywania. Kobiece bohaterki w męskich tekstach francuskiego Oświecenia [Strategies of erasure. Female heroines in the male texts of French Enlightenment]. The article lists researchers of Polish Enlightenment who notice the potential of gender studies (Barbara Judkowiak, Weronika Pawlik-Kwaśniewska) and points to the areas of research and possibilities offered by the use of feminist criticism tools. The article aims at restoring the names of the previously anonymous female authors, discovering or re-reading their work, as well as opening new spaces for their description and interpretation.

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