Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1998. [Vol. 5.] Eger Journal of American Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 25)

Studies - András Tarnóc: Voices From the Wild Zone: Three Versions of the Feminist Aesthetic in American Culture

focusing on such diverse issues as the possibilities of the subversion and transformation of the patriarchal system, feminist historiography, the reconstruction of the canon, and stereotypy of women in literature and in visual arts. The phenomenon can also be categorized according to national and geographical origin as the French critical trend characterized by the de Beauvoir-Derrida-Lacan-Kristeva-IrigarayCixous-Wittig continuum is complemented by the British and American school, including the emergence of feminist criticism in Quebec (Országh-Virágos 254-55). Furthermore, this essay serves another purpose. One of the main complaints of non-white feminist activists is mainstream America's neglect or ignorance of their contributions to women's cause. This effort at comparative analysis shedding light at different shades of a movement popularly conceived as a white monolith, attempts to set the record straight. The aesthetics discussed here are only a small component of the conceptual labyrinth of feminism. Feminism can be viewed as a tree whose trunk is composed of one and a half centuries of women's liberation struggle. Feminism as a political theory would be represented by the tree's main branches, the smaller branches stand for the various feminisms from which feminist (literary) criticism is spawned giving rise to the female aesthetic. (Throughout the essay the terms "feminist and female aesthetic" are used with identical meaning) The White Female Aesthetic Although this essay concentrates upon the American side of feminisms, the great figures of French feminism, Kristeva, Irigaray, Cixous, and Wittig deserve a passing look. French feminists, inspired by Lacanian psychoanalysis, locate the motivating force behind female creativity in the repressed sphere of the mind. Julia Kristeva argues that female writing stems from the imaginary, a pre-Oedipal stage of development during which the child mistakenly identifies himself as the Other. The derivation of female literary production from the pre-Oedipal stage is justified as in this pre-gender phase women are not constrained by patriarchal restrictions. This theory is also reminiscent of Jung's view of the source of creativity, with the pre-Oedipal phase functioning as women's "collective unconscious." 98