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Feminist Perspectives on Cultural and Religious Identities

Rewriting Mary Magdalene, Mother Ireland and Cú Chulainn of Ulster

by Birgit Breninger (Author)
©2012 Monographs 280 Pages

Summary

Throughout the second half of the 20th century various societies were shaped by conflicting trends of globalization and nationalist resurgence, powerful surges of collective identities as well as fragmentation into individualistic subjects. Against this background of various socio-cultural movements aiming to transform established value systems, women poets and novelists set out to deconstruct dominant ways of perceiving and experiencing ‘reality’ and identities by raising their voices against demystification and powerlessness. This book analyzes what is termed by the author as ‘deconstructive rewritings’ in culturally relevant ways. Due to the specialist focus on the choice of ‘reworked threads of mythical strands’, an analysis referred to as mytho-literanalysis is introduced and deployed. By using what Barthes has termed the best weapon against myth, namely the mythification of myth in its turn, the women writers’ rewritings embody the idea to tell the well-known stories so many times in so many different ways that one embraces and finally ‘becomes’ the plethora of stories and not the petrified reiteration of the mimicry of one popular version.

Details

Pages
280
Publication Year
2012
ISBN (PDF)
9783653013917
ISBN (Hardcover)
9783631633557
DOI
10.3726/978-3-653-01391-7
Language
English
Publication date
2012 (June)
Keywords
deconstructive rewritings identity nation French feminists religious myths Banshee
Published
Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Wien, 2012. 280 pp., 2 graphs

Biographical notes

Birgit Breninger (Author)

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Title: Feminist Perspectives on Cultural and Religious Identities