ABSTRACT
Feminist theory and criticism of the last twenty years has been fertile. In Britain and America, in France and other areas of Europe, a creative phase of thought continues and, indeed, changes and expands its interests almost yearly. The history of this phase is already being written, a movement characterized by a criticism which is both interdisciplinary and international. This is what one would expect of a form of thought founded on the recognition that a new category of discussion, the category of gender, transforms and reconfigures the categories of the disciplines it addresses. Given the spirit in which feminism works, therefore, it may seem something of an anomaly that the essays in this book are all by women working and writing in Britain. This was not actually intended as a principle of unity, though it does indicate the kinds of thinking young feminists, most of them at the beginning of their careers, are undertaking in this country. A more important enterprise, however, concerned with the formulation and exploration of new concepts and methods in feminist criticism, motivates these essays. A few words about the origin of this book will provide a context for its project.
