An ethic of innocence : pragmatism, modernity, and women's choice not to know / Kristen L. Renzi.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Renzi, Kristen Lucia, author.

Series:

SUNY series, studies in the long nineteenth century

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American literature--19th century--History and criticism.

American literature.

American literature--20th century--History and criticism.

Women in literature.

English literature--19th century--History and criticism.

English literature.

English literature--20th century--History and criticism.

Knowledge, Theory of, in literature.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

1 volume ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Albany : State University of New York Press, [2019]

Summary:

"In An Ethic of Innocence, author Kristen Renzi provides a novel interpretative framework for reconsidering the epistemic claims of women in transatlantic literature from the late nineteenth century to the present. It is the first scholarly study of the ways in which gendered choices "not to know" have been represented, and critically received, within modern literature. The book grounds itself in the late nineteenth century's changing political and generic representations of women. Ultimately, it contends that these turn-of-the-century feminine figures who choose not to know, despite having been critically overlooked or dismissed as conservative or backward, can actually represent and model crucial pragmatic strategies by which modern and contemporary subjects navigate, survive, and even oppose gender oppression. Renzi offers a feminist theory of ignorance that sheds light on the misunderstood or overlooked epistemic practices of women in literature"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction: the problem of modern female innocence

Part One: Negotiated living. A pragmatist's dilemma: the collusion between myth and reality in the Hull-House Devil Baby tale

Coming of age via critical complaint: reading women's choices not to know in Realist Bildungsroman

A failure of sympathy or of narrative?: naturalism's jaded women and the narrative cycle of domestic violence

The legacy of naturalism, a cycle of leaving: reading agency in the passive, empty woman

Part Two: Pragmatic fantasies. Are women people?: discourses of (non) personhood in suffrage poetry and protest

Making women, making humans: fantasies and melancholic mourning in modern sex changes and sex losses

Allowing innocence?: belief, knowledge, and the modern community.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781438475974

1438475977

OCLC:

1076418787