Description
Book SynopsisThis volume presents a collection of critical essays that center women’s friendship in women’s literary and artistic production. Analyzing cultural portrayals of women’s friendships in fiction, letters, and film, these essays collectively suggest new models of literary interpretation that do not prioritize heterosexual romance. Instead, this book represents friendships as mature and meaningful relationships that contribute to identity formation and political coalition. Both the supportive and competitive aspects of friendships are shown to be crucial to women’s identities as individuals, political citizens, and artists. Addressing the complexities of how 20th- and 21st-century cultural texts construe women’s friendships as they navigate patriarchal institutions, this collection advances scholarship on friendship beyond men and masculine models.
Trade Review“This is an enormously rewarding anthology in which the reader can find witty, humorous, and tragic stories and gain insights into the plurality and diversity of women’s relationships.” (Xiuchun Zhang, Women's Studies, September 11, 2023)
Table of Contents1. Introduction - Kristi Branham and Kelly L. Reames
I. Adolescent Friendships and Identity Formation2. Fleur’s Kinship, Pauline’s Whiteness: How Colonization Shapes Friendship in Louise Erdrich’s Tracks - Rachel Griffis
3. ‘What obligation do I have toward her?’: College Girl Friendships and Self-Actualization in Hangsaman and The Bell Jar - Julie Ooms4. Entangled Roots: ‘Old Friends’ Reconnected in Ruth Ozeki’s All Over Creation - Marie Drews5. The Gothic’s Creation of Women’s Friendship in Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House - Megan Peabody and Mikkaila Poulin6. Lovers and Friends of the Spirit: Celie and Shug’s Quare Friendship in The Color Purple - Tangela Serls
II. Alliances and the Promise of Women’s Friendships7. ‘Dorothy and I had quite a little quarrel’: Clever Banter and the ‘Language’ of Female Friendship in Anita Loos’ Gentlemen Prefer Blondes - Krista Aldrich and Emily Wiktor8. ‘We Will Work Together’: Interclass Women’s Collabships in Progressive Era Novels - Alicia Beeson9. Political Progress and Social Stall: Failed Friendships, Feminist Fissures, and Mary McCarthy’s Modern Reform Novel - Cassandra Fetters10. ‘The Tenderness of One Woman for Another’: Female Friendship and Revolt in the 20th-century Works of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman - Susan Stone
III The Transformative Power of Authors’ Friendships11. ‘These Sweet Trees’: June Jordan, Alice Walker, and Womanist Friendship - Cheryl Hopson12. Chicana Visions: Ana Castillo and Cherríe Moraga’s Friendship, Falling Out, and Forgiveness - Leigh Johnson13. Beat-Associated Women and Female Relationships in Carolyn Cassady’s Off the Road - Josette Lorig14. Reframing Black Women’s Relationships: Exploring the Bond between Alice Dunbar-Nelson and Edwina Kruse through an Unpublished Manuscript - Monet Lewis-Timmons
