The Body and the Text Hélène Cixous--reading and Teaching

This major collection of essays from British, French and American critics begins with a challenging new paper by Cixous herself and proceeds to consider a wide range of thought-provoking topics, from feminist aesthetics and 'Etudes Feminines' through detailed readings of French and English texts from the sixteenth to the twentieth century, to the impact of Cixous' theory on teaching practice. The book offers insights into issues of motherhood, mourning, death and literature, violence and poetry as well as exploring the radical implications, for the individual and for the academy, of Cixous' increasingly politicised sense of art as an affirmation of life.