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Difference : Reading with Barbara Johnson - Special Issue

Bowlby, Rachel(Contributions by)Carpenter, Mary Wilson(Contributions by)Caughie, Pamela L.(Contributions by)Edelman, Lee(Contributions by)Gallop, Jane(Contributions by)Weed, Elizabeth(Contributions by)Rooney, Ellen(Edited by)
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This special issue of differences celebrates the work of the contemporary feminist literary critic and theorist Barbara Johnson, whose work has been revolutionary in foregrounding concepts of "difference." Johnson's is a unique method of literary reading in which literature becomes, in her words, "a mode of cultural work, the work of giving-to-read those impossible contradictions that cannot yet be spoken." The contributors to this issue recognize that one of Johnson's primary gifts to literary studies is her ability to teach theoretical insights, not in a pedagogically prescriptive or didactic way, but through her exquisitely close readings of texts that illustrate the force of theory and language in practice.

The first half of the issue comprises essays in which scholars influenced by Johnson offer close readings of texts ranging from Sandra Cisneros's Carmelo to Edith Wharton's "Roman Fever" to George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion.

Each of the remaining essays is marked by the intimate voice of its author offering a reflective tribute to Johnson's thought and teaching. Contributors. Lauren Berlant, Rachel Bowlby, Bill Brown, Mary Wilson Carpenter, Pamela Caughie, Lee Edelman, Jane Gallop, Bill Johnson Gonzalez, Deborah Jenson, Lili Porten, Avital Ronell, Mary Helen Washington

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Product Details
Duke University Press
0822366576 / 9780822366577
Paperback / softback
01/01/2007
United States
216 pages
Professional & Vocational Learn More