Description
Book SynopsisSeven inter-war plays by Polish women writers created a flurry of excitement and condemnation when they appeared, yet today they are almost forgotten. This groundbreaking study interrogates the feminism of these plays and their authors, who dared to question national myths, subvert genre expectations, and reinterpret definitions of subjectivity, anticipating the work of numerous women playwrights in post-1989 Poland. Synthesizing a variety of theoretical perspectives, the author produces a nuanced reading of each work and of the group as a whole. Both texts and the innovative synthetic approach will interest scholars of Polish literature, of drama, and of gender studies.
Trade ReviewComplicating the Female Subject serves as an important introduction to dramatic works written by women during the twenty-year period in which Poland regained independence, bringing to light largely ignored material, and will certainly be of interest to specialists of Polish drama and inter-war culture. -- Diana Sacilowski * The Polish Review *
“In Complicating the Female Subject: Gender, National Myths, and Genre in Polish Women’s Inter-War Drama, Joanna Kot works to broaden the landscape of interwar Polish literature and to consider how women playwrights worked in and against the conventions of their time to complicate the female subject. … Kot’s work, rooted in literary theory and contextualized culturally and historically, offers a thought-provoking introduction to women playwrights engaged in the project of defining their role within a rapidly changing Poland. … As Poland continues to grapple with the role of women in society, Complicating the Female Subject introduces us to a group of women who 'shared faith in the possibility' of improvement.”
—Alena Gray Aniskiewicz, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Women East-West
Table of ContentsIntroduction
Chapter 1. Women and Drama in Other Western Modernisms
Chapter 2. Inter-War Poland
Chapter 3. Who Were They? A Short Biographical Introduction
Chapter 4. What Are They? Plot Summaries of the Plays
Chapter 5. Theorizing the Subject: Seeing Through an Essentialist Lens
Chapter 6. Theorizing the Subject: Possibilities of Change
Chapter 7. The Subject Vis-à- Vis Cultural Myths
Chapter 8. Dramatic Fissures
Chapter 9. Inter-War Critical Reception
Conclusion
