Sexual / Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory by Toril Moi

Sexual / Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory Reviews

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  Conejo Literario

  Wow, que viaje. Lectura muy densa que demanda no solo otras lecturas paralelas, sino un profundo conocimiento de algunas escuelas de pensamiento.
  Muy interesante, pero consideren que es para dedicarle unos 3 meses.
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  Alain

  Se me ha escapado muchísimo de lo que explica por mi falta de conocimiento sobre el tema. Aun así, lo he disfrutado bastante. Habrá que revisitarlo en unos años.
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  Yskrings

  This is a great introductory text on the history of feminist literary theory. She summarizes important feminist works, provides helpful criticism, and writes in a manner that is enjoyable and not at all boring. I picked up this text mainly to read her section on Kristeva, because it is surprisingly difficult to find criticism of Kristeva (a lot of the literary analysis that I come across just use her psychoanalytic theories but don't seem to engage with it in any way). I ended up reading the whole book and found it particularly helpful that she shows you how to critically engage with these theories (sort of a walk-you-through-it, not a here's-the-criticism-with-no-further-explanation). The one chapter that I didn't like all that much was the chapter on Helene Cixous, mostly because I could not really understand it, but I think that's more a statement on the complicated and contradictory nature of Cixous' feminist theory rather than a statement on Moi's explanatory ability.
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  Kirsty

  Not read in full due to only being able to source this as a four-hour library loan. Still, an interesting tome. More thoughts to follow.
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  Shinynickel

  Off this review:
  It’s very interesting to me as a writer because it’s an extremely acute dissection of the way women's artistic output is either belittled and written out of history, or analysed in a specifically misogynist way. There are two examples: one of an 18th-century painting whose creatorship was left anonymous – the painting was lauded, shown in all the major galleries, analysed by experts, praised, shown to art students as a model for their own technique and auctioned at extremely high prices.
  
  When the painting was discovered to have been by a woman, an extraordinary thing happened: auction prices immediately dropped, and the critical appreciation of it turned 180 degrees. Suddenly the painting was flawed, minor, petty, the kind of thing only a woman – a flawed, minor, petty creature – could make. With amazing transparency the critics, who at the time were all men, could not see beyond their own misogynistic ideas about what a woman is.
  
  That is terribly depressing. I always find it odd that ‘chick lit’ automatically means lightweight and is openly denigrated when the male equivalent, the Nick Hornby-ish ‘bloke lit’ is taken very seriously as amusing social observation.
  
  Exactly. Moi’s second example is of a Scandinavian woman poet who happened to have an androgynous name (like Claude in French or some such). When her collection was published it was deemed to have been by a man, and praised to the skies for its rugged depiction of landscape, grand emotions, human destiny and so forth. When the error was corrected and Claude Whoever pointed out her femaleness, the reviews changed. They were just as positive, but the language about them was different. The same poems were now praised for their small epiphanies, their domestic interiors, their private emotions – the language literally became belittling, diminished... Claude was made into a minor poet, simply because of her sex. Moi quotes the critics Thorne and Henley: ‘In short, the significance of gestures changes when they are used by men or women; no matter what women do, their behaviour may be taken to symbolise inferiority.’
  
• 
  Laia

  Este es mi primer encuentro (de lectura íntegra) tanto con la teoría literaria como con los estudios feministas y debo decir que me está resultando muy interesante y pedagógico a pesar de que se mueva en un terreno que se acaba tornando un tanto inestable por la crítica profunda que lleva a cabo y de las contradicciones inherentes e inevitables del discurso feminista.
  
  Lo mejor es que no hace falta ser un entendido o un declarado amante de la literatura (en mi caso ninguna de ambas opciones) para entenderlo, disfrutarlo y aprender infinidad de nuevas cuestiones.
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  Alexandra

  This was a great companion for my Gender and Text graduate classes. I wish I hadn't rented it from Chegg so I could have highlighted and written notes in the margins! If you are looking for a good companion to feminist texts or an overview of the big ideas and names in regard to feminist literature, this is your one stop shop!
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  Maya

  If you are going to read this book, you must read all the extras (preface, afterword, notes, etc.) FIRST. The book was written in the early 1980s and not changed in subsequent editions, and you'll need to know why. Great overview of many feminist scholars that you'll want to read in depth if you haven't already.
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  Jorge Villarruel

  Interesante revisión del pensamiento feminista en las últimas décadas, aunque algunas partes son complejas y no queda claro lo que la autora plantea, en especial cuando habla de autores y autoras francesas.
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  Amauri

  Me pareció un libro bien estructurado de acuerdo las épocas y a las críticas. Son excelentes los comentarios que se hacen sobre la evolución del pensamiento de Beauvoir y del impacto del lacanismo en el movimiento feminista.
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  Georgie

  Only read parts for my gender essay but highly thought-provoking!
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  Tracy

  I enjoyed reading Moi's views on other feminist theorists. Very interesting discussion points and analysis.
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  Noelia

  Imprescindible.
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  Isabel Marqués

  Maybe it's a little old-school now, but definitely one of the best books to get deep into feminist criticism.
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  Madison

  Moi focuses on Anglo-American Feminism and that is too weak. Feminism is at its best when it is intersectional.
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  Alba Gallego

  Un recorrido interesantísimo y paciente por las líneas maestras y las Maestras de la crítica feminista de la literatura.
  {Bibliografía TFG}
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  Sarada Sengupta

  Moi's more concerned with Showalter's writings than her own.
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  Emm

  This text serves as a good introduction to anglo-american and french feminisms. Moi astutely and succinctly summarizes the arguments and styles of few feminists she chooses to discuss. I have used this book to play catch-up and educate myself about all the feminism I have never been taught in my studies and it has served me well in this regard. It has also been helpful (although not necessary) to read before I approach the texts written by the feminist themselves.
  
  That said, I would also recommend taking Moi's critiques of the feminists about whom she writes with a grain of salt. While I do think it is important to be critical and to discuss the flaws that in turn produce further advances within feminism, I also think that Moi's tone verges too often on the side of unproductive belittlement. Nor do I think that her criticisms are entirely accurate (particularly in the case of Irigaray). Moi seems eager to critique her fellow feminists, but does little to offer anything constructive in return. Though this may not have been her aim in writing Sexual/Textual Politics, her tone, far from being neutral, draws attention to the lack of balance between acknowledgment or praise and critique.
  
  Take a hint from Moi and approach this text with the same skeptical eye with which she treats the feminists she discusses.
  
  Addendum:
  The second edition includes an afterword, written in 2002 when this latest edition was first published. It addresses many of the concerns I had while reading this text and self-consciously situates Sexual/Textual Politics in the milieu of its production. The afterword is great. I'm curious to read Moi's 1999 "What is a Woman?".
  
  Pointed statement from the afterword:
  "Feminist theory needs to understand why we are all driven to melodrama from time to time, but it also needs to know how to find its way back tot he ordinary and the everyday, where our political battles are actually fought. The melodrama of poststructuralist theory is an inescapable part of our feminist heritage; it should not be our only heritage."
• 
  Alex

  Moi is a very fine writer who manages to achieve the near impossible by writing a primer on feminist theory that not only provides an invaluable overview of the main ideas and writers in the field in a well presented, clear manner, but also manages to provide an abundance of thoughtful criticism as she goes. It’s an easier task in the Anglo-American section which is less theoretical, psychonalaytic and linguistic and more focussed on new and inventive readings of texts. Moi’s elucidation and discussion is almost spot on here and I finished the first half of the book feeling that I’d learned something and new areas of study to pursue had opened up. French theory is endlessly complex and fascinating, and Moi struggles to fit everything in, her writing becoming more dense and the ideas less opaque, and it helps to read this as a starting point to introduce ideas that you’re never going to grasp adequately first time round. I got a sense that there’s more than enough depth to Kristeva’s work, in particular, that I’m keen to read on, but Cioux and Irigaray also seem to be provocative and fascinating writers.
  
  This isn’t really an entry level text and wouldn’t be suitable for someone unfamiliar with dense, philosophical writing. I liked that Moi didn’t dumb down her subject and by taking it seriously she makes feminist literary criticism seem as important and rewarding a topic as it is and reading 30 years on the ideas presented in the book are still alive and challenging. Don’t start here if you’re new to feminism and theory, but definitely jump on here if you’re keen to get digging in.
  
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  Tea

  This book offers an incredible insight into Anglo-American and French feminist theory. It's a great guide for people who are just beginning to learn about feminism, sexism and similar -isms. The language is not overly complicated, it is suitable for students and everything is nicely explained. Furthermore, the author offered a short introduction to Lacan and Derrida to make it easier for new readers to understand the postulates of French feminist criticism. This book thouroughly changed my view on what it means to be a woman, it made me want to do more research on the Anglo-American criticists and was, finally, of great help in writing my final thesis which relies heavily on Anglo-American feminist legacy.
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  lau

  "Feminism is not simply about rejecting power, but about transforming the existing power structures –and in the process, transforming the very concept of power itself"
  
  Fue muy interesante entender cómo ha evolucionado el feminismo en la literatura y las limitaciones que cada aproximación ha tenido.
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  Sam

  Moi's a fine one. Sexual/Textual Politics is an invaluable analysis of Anglo-American feminism, as well as an invaluable deconstruction of Showalter and Moer on their own terms and Lukacs on his, arguing against each what could only be called dialectical freeplay.
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  A.K.

  I love lit and crit theory, I do, but my attention span oh a thunderstorm this is fantastic. Moi doesn't dumb anything down, nossiree, but she condenses and explicates very well.
• 
  Purva

  very insightful...makes one want to know more about something considered as 'dry' as lit theory..some very analytical thinking by toril.
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  Karmen

  brilliant overview of feminist literary analysis and french feminist theory! easy and pleasurable to read and understand. it's a must.
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  Emily Cait

  Great starting place for further research.