Sarah Waters and Contemporary Feminisms, 1st ed. 2016

Sarah Waters and Contemporary Feminisms presents ten readings of Sarah Waters?s fictions published to date in relation to feminism and contemporary feminist theory. The analysis offered in the collection investigates how Waters engages with recent debates on women and gender and how her writings reflect the different concerns of contemporary feminist theories. In particular, the collection includes new and innovative readings of how Waters?s novels address issues of patriarchy, female confinement, madness and misogyny, exploitation and oppression, repression and subordination, abortion, marriage and spinsterhood alongside passionate portrayals of female agency, desire, aesthetics, female sexual expression, and, of course, lesbianism.

Introduction; Adele Jones and Claire O’Callaghan.- Part I. Feminist Foremothers.- 1. Teasing (Out) a New Generation;Lucie Armitt.- 2. Quick and Queer; Kathryn Simpson.- 3. “Accompanied by Ghosts”; Natasha Alden.- Part II. Second Wave Hauntings.- 4. Anxious Affinities; Jessica Gildersleeve.- 5. The Feminist Gothic in The Little Stranger;Gina Wisker.- 6. The Feminist Politics of Textuality; Adele Jones.- 7. ‘Better a prison … than a madhouse!’; Mari Hughes-Edwards.- Part III. Beyond the Second Wave.- 8. Written on the Body; Helen Davies.- 9. ‘My dress is not a yes’; Louisa Yates.- 10. ‘Grisley “L” business’; Claire O’Callaghan;- Afterword. Sarah Waters and the Future of Feminisms; Adele Jones and Claire O’Callaghan.