Joanna Russ

In this major study of the work of Joanna Russ, Jeanne Cortiel gives a clear introduction to the major feminist issues relevant to Russ’s work and assesses its development. The book will be especially valuable for students of SF and feminist SF, especially in its concern with the function of woman-based intertextuality. Although Cortiel deals principally with Russ’s novels, she also examines her short stories, and the focus on critically neglected texts is a particularly valuable feature of the study. "I recommend this book to any reader interested in Russ’s fiction, or in women’s science fiction generally."--Science Fiction Studies

Dystopian literature is a potent vehicle for criticizing existing social conditions or political systems, and for warning against the potential negative consequences of utopian thought. This reference is a guide to dystopian theory and literature. It discusses the work of key theorists and summarizes several important utopian works to provide a background. The rest of the book summarizes and analyzes numerous dystopian novels, plays, and films.

This book contains fifteen in-depth interviews with important contemporary women writers from the United States, England, Ireland, and the Caribbean. The authors, who come from different racial, ethnic, and class backgrounds and sexual orientations, are all committed to telling the stories of people, especially women, who have been silenced in the past. By breaking silence, these writers are changing the face of contemporary literature. In direct, provocative conversation, these writers discuss their work and other topics: the influence of family members and their native communities, getting started as writers, writing as women, the role of "literary tradition" in helping or hindering their growth, the responsibility of the writer to the community, the question of writing accessibly versus experimenting, the energizing power of anger, the politics of publishing, and the impact of one's race, ethnicity, class, gender, and/or sexual orientation on getting read, published, and reviewed.

The history of the second wave of feminism in the United States demonstrates the potential for both serious social change and seemingly intractable divisions among women. Race, ethnicity, social class, sexual orientation, and religion have all been dividing influences among women, shaping their various perspectives on and relations to the women's movement. Yet collectively, women's efforts--identified as second wave feminism--are seen as having made a difference. This book highlights the lives and work of fifty second wave feminists, women who have served as catalysts in the developing feminist movement. A diverse group--playwrights and politicians, grassroots organizers and scientists, poets and theologians--they provide the reader with compelling stories of individual women's lives, collective feminist struggles, and the possibilities of feminist social change.