[LMB] OT: Recs for a class on Feminist Critical Theory?

[Jessy Brody]

Hello! Greetings from the cusp of midterms! I'm completely out of the loop,
and I hope I'm not popping in at an inconvenient time ; ) But you see:

We've been reading theoretical pieces for the first half of my Critical
Feminist Theory course; now we're going to discuss what fiction we want to
read for the second half. I'd love to do some science fiction, of course,
and Ursula K. le Guin and Octavia Butler are the first to spring to my mind.
But I haven't read a great deal by either of them (Left Hand, The Telling,
The Birthday of the World which is a collection of short stories; Kindred,
and Bloodchild which has four short stories), and I haven't read much scifi
(or much of anything at all, for that matter) compared to many others on the
List. Below is a list of possibilities put together by the professor, for an
idea of what sort of thing we're looking for. Anything that might possibly
be described as a feminist or queer text, it seems; if there's a text you
think every young feminist should read, feel free to mention that as well.
So, recs and opinion and advice, please! And general recs and opinions as
well, for my sake - I bought a second bookshelf at the beginning of the
school year, and I seem determined to fill it up as fast as I can. I take
advice, too ; )

Thanks so much! And if I've forgotten any rules for posting, my apologies.

Jessy
Classics major, ex-classicist, planning on Media Studies for graduate school
(classics is Media Studies for the ancient world, really ...)
omnivorously.livejournal.com

PS I've missed the list! Here's hoping I find a way to make time for it
sometime soon ...

   - *Jane Eyre --> Wide Sargasso Sea*
   - *Frankenstein --> Technolust*
   - feminist science fiction (Ursula Leguin, *The Left Hand of Darkness;
   *Joanna Russ, *The Female Man;* James Tiptree/Alice Sheldon, *Her
   Smoke Rose Up Forever)*
   - Native American texts (Ella DeLoria, *Waterlily;* Leslie Silko, *
   Ceremony*; Louise Erdrich, *The Antelope Wife*; Paul Gunn Allen, *Spider
   Women's Granddaughters)*
   - feminist poetry (Emily Dickinson, Adrienne Rich and descendents)
   - Intersex (*Herculine Barbin, Orlando, Middlesex*) and/or Transgender

   - in search of l*'ecriture feminine (*Jeanette Winterson, *Written on
   the Body*, Marguerite Duras, *The Lover*)
   - Classic Theoretical Texts (Simone de Beauvoir, *The Second Sex*)
   - class (Alexandra Kollantai, "The Labour of Women in the Evolution of
   the Economy," "Sexual Relations and the Class Struggle," "Communism and the
   Family," etc; Charlotte Gilman, *Woman and Economics*; Dorothy
   Allison, S*kin: Talking About Sex, Class and Literature)*
   - politics of sexuality (Gail Rubin, "Sexual Traffic" and "Thinking
   Sex"; Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick*, Epistemology of the Closet; *Judith
   Butler, "Against Proper Objects," and with Gail Rubin, "Sexual Traffic";
   Diana Fuss. "Inside/Out"*;* Samuel Delany,
   "Aversion/Perversion/Diversion"; Jennie Livingston, *Paris Is Burning;
   * Judith Butler, "Gender is Burning"; bell hooks, "Is Paris Burning?")
   - Latina feminisms (Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz, *La Respuesta; *Cherrie
   Moraga. "The Breakdown of the Bicultural Mind")
   - womanism (Alice Walker et. al.)
   - abortion rights (Linda McClain, "Equality, Oppression, and Abortion:
   Women Who Oppose Abortion Rights in the Name of Feminism"; Iris Young,
   "Pregnant Embodiment")
   - philosophy? political theory? art history