the sort of thing one thinks of while writing term papers

[lotesse]

I've been turning thoughts over in my head about the integration of chromatic feminist theory/writing into other work, and I wanted to hear all your thoughts, o people of the interwebs, for verily y'all are smart.

In writing about an Old Book by a white woman, I wouldn't hesitate methodologically to bring up some contemporary feminist theory. I mean, if it were very contemporary, primarily concerned with our current world, I'd maybe have to tapdance a little - but I would still do it. Right? We've all been swanning around applying Judith Butler to George Eliot for a while now. But what if the theory that I want to nudge up against Old Books by white women is Black feminist work? Is it sound to apply Cherrie Moraga to the critique of education in Jane Eyre? Or does it disrespect chromatic feminism to appropriate it for the tales of the travails of white girls?

On the one hand, I love seeing Audre Lorde get play, because I seriously worship her brain, and part of me doesn't want her stuck in a feminist ghetto. Part of me feels like the flexibility and play involved in porting theory about is a good thing. But I also have no desire to steal away from chromatic feminism what isn't mine to take - or my cultural heritage's. Both Eliot and Brontë have some racism going on; would using minority feminism to talk about the other aspects of their novels be deeply inappropriate, or kind of a cool re-valuation?

Right now I'm working up a prospectus for looking at double-voiced irony in women's rhetoric. When I actually write the paper, it'll probably focus on white women in the nineteenth century, because I did sign on for this Victorian thing and I've been trying to make myself stick to it, no matter how much I want to write about Cherrie Moraga and Sor Juana. But in limiting my scope, I'm wondering, do I have to give up all the unspeakably brilliant things feminists of color have said about silence and double meaning? Or can I port them in the same way I'm intending to do with LeGuin and Adrienne Rich and Virginia Woolf?

Thoughts?

Comments

[quinara]

Hmm. I kind of think theory is theory is theory, and what's important to give black feminist writers recognition by working with that theory, rather than saying that feminists of colour can only talk about things that apply to women of colour.

At the same time, if the theory you're talking about is explicitly framed as a phenomenon of sexism intersecting with racism, then I'd query how applicable it could be to your white woman's Old Book.

So I think it depends. :D

[oursin]

Yeah: I think if you can deploy insights gained from feminism to interrogate masculinity, this too should be appropriate.

[lotesse]

Yes! Nice example.

[schemingreader]

It's important to be alert to the colonialism that runs in the background of a lot of the great 19th century British domestic novels. The example in the post, Jane Eyre, has a lot of messages about the role of race in British society. Rochester went to make his fortune in the West Indies, where he met Bertha. St. John Rivers wants Jane to marry him in order to become a missionary in India.

It's possible to read the domestic novels by the great 19th century novelists as microcosmic critiques of sexism and classism, without placing them in their colonialist context. But you lose something that way.

[lotesse]

Preach it sister - but suppose you were choosing to take the smaller topic. Does one have to engage explicitly with the whole of postcolonialist critique in order to take on the subject, or can we apply it in more - hrm - modest ways?

[schemingreader]

The main thing is, and I commented on this, below, you shouldn't diss the work of major literary critics who are women of color in your pursuit of a reading that honors intersectionality. (Or even, if you are being super-thorough, minor literary critics who are women of color, but that's a matter of having enough time to read everything in the world.)

This reflects my own bias from my own graduate school experience in another field, but term papers need to be larded with secondary readings. You have to find out what other people have done with this material. The problem with applying feminists of color who were writing about something completely different is that it ignores the feminists of color who wrote about your own text!

I know, you have to pick one thing to write about in each paper, but my bias is toward reading the stuff in your own field.

[schemingreader]

Here, this wikipedia article has some amazing stuff in it. Read the quote from bell hooks, writing on self-definition.

[quinara]

It's possible to read the domestic novels by the great 19th century novelists as microcosmic critiques of sexism and classism, without placing them in their colonialist context. But you lose something that way.

That's a really good point. I suppose I was thinking of situations where colonialism isn't the immediately apparent issue, or when you aren't talking about colonialism in the first instance. (I'm not very good on the specifics of 19th century novels - I'm a classicist, not an English student - so this may be impossible, in which case I'll shut up.)

[lotesse]

Yes to theory is theory is theory - but in your example, it seems like you're saying that work on the intersection between sexism and racism can only be used to discuss that same intersection, and that's ultimately where my query lies. Can theory leave its immediate frame? One of the complexities of intersectionality is the way in which texts addressing it become - at very least - two things. Which most Dude Theory does as well, but.

It terms of applicability, Audre Lorde said a lot of things about the intersection of sexism and racism, and those two things are rarely if ever separable in her work. But she also, more broadly, said some dang smart things about the kind of anger you get when people are oppressed - and those things, maybe, you could carry off to any instance of oppressed anger. Maybe to anger caused by sexism without racism, or classism without either. Or so the theory goes.

[starlady]

Can theory leave its immediate frame?

If it can't, I'm screwed.

Less facetiously, I think that in general terms theory both can and should leave its frame--keeping theory framed up just contributes to the periodization and balkanization of scholarship, which ultimately reifies the status quo and all its problem(atic aspect)s. Specifically, I think it's critical to keep these questions and doubts in your mind as you go, but that you absolutely should go. (While, as other people have said, reading where other people have already gone, of course.)

[lotesse]

I know right?

This is my feeling as well - but sometimes I get the sick feeling of remembering all the ways in which academia maintains the status quo, and I get worried about taking the insights of peoples traditionally marginalized by academia and using them in my own academic career, yanno?

[starlady]

Oh, I know. I have been consumed lately with the knowledge that in only one respect (woman) am I the sort of person whom I think there needs to be more of in academia. In light of which I feel it's incumbent on me in my scholarship not to reinscribe all the old (current) problems and not to instrumentalize other people, particularly historically marginalized populations.

[quinara]

it seems like you're saying that work on the intersection between sexism and racism can only be used to discuss that same intersection

Oops, sorry - what I meant to say is that I think it's important to question to what extent you can re-apply that/any theory to something other than its original situation without changing to many of the factors that make it work. In Classics you might apply modern theory after modern theory to the ancient world, but you've always got to remember to put it through a filter, because otherwise you come to conclusions that are nonsense. Queer theory, for example, is a great way of looking at society, but the fact is neither the Greeks or the Romans had opposing constructs of homo- and heterosexuality, so you have to re-work a lot of the models. I'd agree with ithiliana about letting yourself frame your position as a reader.

[lotesse]

Right - so Black Feminist theory is as portable/not portable as any other theory, in that they all come from specific times and spaces? But not one moreso than the other?

[quinara]

Black Feminist theory is as portable/not portable as any other theory, in that they all come from specific times and spaces

Yes, I'd say so. Make your readers read their books!

[ithiliana]

An excellent question! I agree with Q. above that theory is theory (nobody says Freud or Foulcault's work should be 'limited' only to authors who share their space/time/cultural continuum, but the assumption is often made that works by theorists of color can only be used in a very limited way, i.e. only applied to authors who are like them).

That assumption needs to be questioned and unpacked, definitely.

Something that might help is to think about is how you've left yourself as the reader out of the equation of literary theory: i.e. you have "will use Theory X to analyze Text L," but what if you framed the question as something along these lines: "how do theorists M and J with their ideas about silence and double meaning allow me as Reader L to develop a reading of Text E and B." It's not as if you can read as one of the contemporary readers of the authors could have done (and there would of course have been a range of readings): you are living in your time and period and you are reading as a reader of this time and period. I'm not saying erase the bodies/beings of theorists of color, but acknowledge that their ideas are applicable to texts by authors who are not just like them, if that makes sense.

I.E. one way to think about theoretical insights/methodologies is as a lens which allows certain questions to be asked: if the questions that these theorists allow you to ask are useful, then ask them!

[ithiliana]

one other thought--thinking about the work by women of color might also help you think about gaps, absences, silences in the text itself, not only what is there.....

[lotesse]

I really, really like this formulation - because you're absolutely right in that thing thing left out is the fact that once you've read/internalized an idea, no matter where it comes from, it's part of your internal thought framework.

And, yeah, Foucault was very much part of what I was trying to think through above, because we so rarely seem to question the idea that he can go wherever we want him to - unless we're questioning theory as a whole, that is. And that don't seem right :)

[schemingreader]

It isn't cultural appropriation to read someone's critical work. That's published work. It does seem a little weird to me that you aren't mentioning feminist literary critics in this post. It took about a minute of googling to find out that Gayatri Spivak has already written on colonialism and race in her feminist critiques of Jane Eyre. It's true that she's one of the most famous women of color writing about literature from a feminist and decolonialist perspective, nearly as famous as Audre Lourde--and she's actually written on the body of work you're writing about. A lot.

I guess what I'm saying is, no you shouldn't be applying critiques of intersectionality from political feminism to literary works, you should be reading critics who have already applied those critiques and engaging their arguments. Because otherwise the problem isn't that you're appropriating, it's that you're reinventing the wheel.

[schemingreader]

decolonialist perspective? I think I meant postcolonial!

[lotesse]

Oh, okay, I get what you're saying! And I heart Spivak in a pretty major way - but you can't deny the appeal of theory not immediately related to one's text of study! It feels like opening a new door, somehow.

[ilthit]

I would say that a good kind of a thought is a good thought wherever it comes but if you equate a white woman's situation to the situation of a black person, that could well turn out to be appropriative and/or derailing. It's a different matter if it's power politics or educational theory in general. Hard to say without knowing what you'd actually be writing about. Often, though, if you suspect it may be appropriative, it probably is.