Moving across a Century: Womens Short Fiction from Virginia Woolf to Ali Smith

The difference between modernism and postmodernism has been object to constant revision from a variety of critical perspectives.\n\nThe present collection of essays on women�s short fiction tackles anew this thorny distinction from the theoretical perspective sketched by psychoanalytical philosopher Slavoj �i�ek. According to �i�ek, modernism hints at the incompleteness of the Symbolic Order, but does so from a separate, marginal and alternative sphere of enjoyment. Postmodernism, on the contrary, exposes the fundamental inconsistency of the Symbolic Order by giving it a central place at the very core of the text. The key distinguishing feature is the mutation of the status of paternal authority throughout a century to which modernist and postmodernist texts are responsive. Starting from this theoretical premise, this volume analyses the work of five major women practitioners of the short story � Virginia Woolf, Katherine Mansfield, Elizabeth Bowen, Angela Carter, and Ali Smith � to offer fresh critical readings of canonical pieces that exhibit either a modernist or a postmodernist sensibility. The volume has, therefore, both critical and theoretical value: it redefines Woolf �s and Mansfield�s modernist status, the transitional character of Bowen�s short stories, and the different versions of postmodernism found in the work of Carter and Smith, while, at once, contributing to the reassessment of modernism and postmodernism from a new theoretical angle. The methodological consistency of the book � half-way between collection of essays and monograph � places it at a remove from the usual collection of critical pieces from disparate perspectives around a particular issue.Moving across a Century: Womens Short Fiction from Virginia Woolf to Ali Smith 1st Edition is written by Author and published by Peter Lang AG, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften. ISBNs for Moving across a Century are 9783035104912, 3035104913 and the print ISBNs are 9783034310642, 3034310641.