Edited by Christine Wertheim
Poetry | Prose | Essays | $20
ISBN 13: 978-1-934254-17-2
Size: 6“x9”
Pages: 132
Binding: Softcover, Perfect

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Contributors: Dodie Bellamy, Caroline Bergvall, Meiling Cheng, Wanda Coleman, Bhanu Kapil, Chris Kraus, Susan McCabe, Tracie Morris, Eileen Myles, Maggie Nelson, Vanessa Place, Juliana Spahr, Christine Wertheim, Stephanie Young, Lidia Yuknavitch

Identity is dead. The 21st-century subject is an unstable fiction with no identifiable features or group affiliations. He’s a man without inherent qualities, a post-human ideal. But those who have long been hailed as Other exist in a different relation to this ideal. Unlike those traditionally self-possessed |s, these Others may find themselves split between a yearning to be contemporary and unqualified, and longing for a continued allegiance to their qualitative, albeit constructed, group identity.

It is with an awareness of this more ambiguous and refined notion of self that Feminaissance approaches questions of femininity and its relation to writing. Topics include: collectivity; feminine écriture; the politics of writing; text and voice; the body as a site of contestation, insurgence and pleasure; race and writing; gender as performance; writing about other women writers; economic inequities; Hélène Cixous; monstrosity; madness; and aesthetics.

Praise for Feminaissance

“If the fact that ‘women do not say “We”‘ was one of the constitutive problems for 20th century feminism, the fact that women do and still clearly feel the need to say “We” is just as rich and interesting a topic for feminism today. The writings gathered here prove feminism to be alive and more relevant to all genders than ever: not just because feminist discourse remains a political necessity, but because of its artistic and intellectual pleasures.”

–Sianne Ngai

“This is a beautiful, thought provoking anthology featuring some very cool women.”

-Lemon Hound

An interview with editor Christine Wertheim by Elizabeth Hound at Lemon Hound

Wanda Coleman On the Healing Power of Women’s Writing at Ms. Magazine Blog