Feminist Theory & Criticism


Primary Sources   I    Second Wave Feminisms 


Deborah Babcox and Madeline Belkin, eds., Liberation Now! Writings from the Women’s Liberation Movement (1971).

Toni Cade Bambara, ed., The Black Woman: An Anthology (1970).

Simone de Beauvoir, Le Deuxième Sexe (1949, The Second Sex, trans. H. M. Parshley, 1953).

Caroline Bird, Born Female: The High Cost of Keeping Women Down (1969).

Phyllis Birkley et al., eds., Amazon Expedition: A Lesbian Anthology (1973).

Selma R. Burkom, "Feminist Criticism: Humanism," Feminist Literary Criticism: A Symposium (ed. Karen W. Borden and Fauneil J. Rinn, 1974).

Selma R. Burkom, College English 32 (1971, special feminist issue).

Susan Koppelman, ed., Cornillon Images of Women in Fiction: Feminist Perspectives (1972, rev. ed., 1973).

Barbara A. Crow, ed., Radical Feminism: A Documentary Reader (2000).

Marlene Dixon, "Why Women’s Liberation?" Ramparts 8 (1969).

Mary Ellmann, Thinking about Women (1968).

Nancy Burr Evans, "The Value and Peril for Women of Reading Women Writers" (Cornillon).

Eva Figes, Patriarchal Attitudes (1970).

Eva Figes, Female Studies 1–10 (1970–75).

Shulamith Firestone, The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution (1970).

Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (1963).

Vivian Gornick and Barbara K. Moran, eds., Woman in Sexist Society: Studies in Power and Powerlessness (1971).

Germaine Greer, The Female Eunuch (1971).

Carol Hanisch, "An Experience with Worker Consciousness Raising" (1969, Sarachild, Feminist Revolution).

Casey Hayden and Mary King, "Sex and Caste," Liberation 10 (1966).

Carolyn Heilbrun and Catharine Stimpson, "Theories of Feminist Criticism: A Dialogue," Feminist Literary Criticism: Explorations in Theory (ed. Josephine Donovan, 1975).

Judith Hole and Ellen Levine, Rebirth of Feminism (1971).

Jill Johnston, Lesbian Nation: The Feminist Solution (1973).

Fraya Katz-Stoker, "The Other Criticism: Feminism vs. Formalism" (Cornillon).

Francine Klagsbrun, ed., The First Ms. Reader (1974).

Anne Koedt, Ellen Levine, and Anita Rapone, eds., Radical Feminism (1973).

Joyce Ladner, Tomorrow’s Tomorrow: The Black Woman (1971).

Paul Lauter and Florence Howe, The Conspiracy of the Young (1970).

Gerda Lerner, Black Women in White America (1972).

Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, Lesbian/Woman (1972).

Margaret Mead and Frances Balgley Kaplan, eds., American Women: The Report of the President’s Commission on the Status of Women (1965).

Kate Millett, Sexual Politics (1970).

Juliet Mitchell, Woman’s Estate (1971).

Juliet Mitchell, "Women: The Longest Revolution," New Left Review 40 (1966).

Robin Morgan, ed., Sisterhood Is Powerful: An Anthology of Writing from the Women’s Liberation Movement (1970).

Katharine M. Rogers, The Troublesome Helpmate: A History of Misogyny in Literature (1966).

Alice S. Rossi and Ann Calderwood, eds., Academic Women on the Move (1973).

Betty Roszak and Theodore Roszak, eds, Masculine/Feminine (1969).

Kathie Sarachild, "Consciousness-Raising: A Radical Weapon" (1973, Sarachild, Feminist Revolution).

Kathie Sarachild, "A Program for Feminist ‘Consciousness Raising’" (1968, Crow).

Kathie Sarachild, ed., Feminist Revolution: An Abridged Edition with Additional Writings (1976).

Sookie Stambler, ed., Women’s Liberation: Blueprint for the Future (1970).

Leslie Tanner, ed., Voices from Women’s Liberation (1970).


Primary Sources  I    Poststructuralist Feminisms


Elizabeth Abel, ed., Writing and Sexual Difference (1982).

Rosi Braidotti, Metamorphoses: Towards a Materialist Theory of Becoming (2002).

Rosi Braidotti, Patterns of Dissonance (trans. Elizabeth Guild, 1991).

Teresa Brennan, ed., Between Feminism and Psychoanalysis (1989).

Elisabeth Bronfen and Misha Kavka, eds., Feminist Consequences: Theory for the New Century (2001).

Ann Brooks, Postfeminisms: Feminism, Cultural Theory, and Cultural Forms (1997).

Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of "Sex" (1993).

Judith Butler, Gender Trouble (1990).

Catherine Clément, L’Opéra, ou la défaite des femmes (1979, Opera, or the Undoing of Women, trans. Betsy Wing, 1988).

Drucilla Cornell, Beyond Accommodation: Ethical Feminism, Deconstruction, and the Law (1991).

Teresa De Lauretis, Alice Doesn’t: Feminism, Semiotics, Cinema (1984).

Teresa De Lauretis, Technologies of Gender: Essays on Theory, Film, and Fiction (1987).

Christine Delphy, Close to Home (ed. and trans. Diana Leonard, 1984).

Jacques Derrida and Christie V. McDonald, "Choreographies," diacritics 12 (1982).

Mary Ann Doane, The Desire to Desire: The Woman’s Film of the 1940s (1987).

Claire Duchen, Feminism in France: From May ’68 to Mitterrand (1986).

Jane Gallop, The Daughter’s Seduction: Feminism and Psychoanalysis (1982).

Alice Jardine, Gynesis: Configurations of Woman and Modernity (1985).

Alice A. Jardine and Hester Eisenstein, eds., The Future of Difference (1980).

Barbara Johnson, The Critical Difference (1980).

Barbara Johnson, A World of Difference (1987).

Ann Rosalind Jones, "Writing the Body: Toward an Understanding of L’Écriture féminine," Feminist Studies 7 (1981).

Dorothy Kaufmann-McCall, "Politics of Difference: The Women’s Movement in France from May 1968 to Mitterrand," Signs 9 (1983).

Sarah Kofman, L’Énigme de la femme: La Femme dans les textes de Freud (1980, The Enigma of Woman, trans. Catherine Porter, 1985).

Sarah Kofman, Le Respect des femmes (1982).

Michèle Le Doeuff, "Cheveux longs, idées courtes," L’Imaginaire philosophique (1980, "Women and Philosophy," trans. Debbie Pope, in Moi, French Feminist Thought).

Eugénie Lemoine-Luccioni, Partage des femmes (1974, The Dividing of Women, or Women’s Lot, trans. Marie-Laure Davenport and Marie-Christine Réguir, 1987).

Susan Lurie, Unsettled Subjects: Restoring Feminist Politics to Poststructuralist Critique (1997).

Elaine Marks and Isabelle de Courtivron, eds., New French Feminisms: An Anthology (1980).

Nancy K. Miller, ed., The Poetics of Gender (1986).

Toril Moi, Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory (1985).

Toril Moi, ed., French Feminist Thought: A Reader (1987).

Michèle Montrelay, L’Ombre et le nom: Sur la féminité (1977).

Laura Mulvey, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" (1975, Visual and Other Pleasures, 1989).

Linda J. Nicholson, ed., Feminism/Postmodernism (1990).

Denise Riley, Am I That Name? Feminism and the Category of "Women" in History (1988).

Jacqueline Rose, Sexuality in the Field of Vision (1986).

Joan Wallach Scott, Gender and the Politics of History (1988).

Susan Sellers, Language and Sexual Difference: Feminist Writing in France (1991).

Kaja Silverman, The Acoustic Mirror: The Female Voice in Psychoanalysis and Cinema (1988).

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, "Displacement and the Discourse of Woman," Displacement: Derrida and After (ed. Mark Krupnick, 1983).

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics (1987).

Domna Stanton, "Difference on Trial: A Critique of the Maternal Metaphor in Cixous, Irigaray, and Kristeva," The Poetics of Gender (Miller).

Susan Rubin Suleiman, "On Maternal Splitting: A Propos of Mary Gordon’s Men and Angels," Signs 14 (1988).

Trinh T. Minh-ha, When the Moon Waxes Red: Representation and Cultural Politics (1991).

Trinh T. Minh-ha, Woman, Native, Other (1989).

Chris Weedon, Feminist Practice and Poststructuralist Theory (1996).

Kathi Weeks, Constituting Feminist Subjects (1998).

Hélène Vivienne Wenzel, "The Text as Body/Politics: An Appreciation of Monique Wittig’s Writings in Context," Feminist Studies 7 (1981).

Monique Wittig, "The Category of Sex," Feminist Issues 2 (1982).

Monique Wittig, "The Mark of Gender," The Poetics of Gender (Miller).

Monique Wittig, "One Is Not Born a Woman," Feminist Issues 1 (1981).

Monique Wittig, "On the Social Contract," Feminist Issues 9 (1989).

Monique Wittig, "The Straight Mind," Feminist Issues 1 (1980).


Primary Sources  I    Materialist Feminisms


Parveen Adams and Elizabeth Cowie, "The Last Issue between Us," m/f 11/12 (1986).

Michèle Barrett, "Feminism and the Definition of Cultural Politics," Feminism, Culture, and Politics (ed. Rosalind Brunt and Caroline Rowan, 1982).

Michèle Barrett, Imagination in Theory: Culture, Writing, Words, and Things (1999).

Michèle Barrett, The Politics of Truth: From Marx to Foucault (1991).

Michèle Barrett, Women’s Oppression Today: Problems in Marxist Feminist Analysis (1980, rev. ed., Women’s Oppression Today: The Marxist/Feminist Encounter, 1988).

Michèle Barrett and Duncan Barrett, Star Trek: The Human Frontier (2001).

Catherine Belsey, Critical Practice (1980).

Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of "Sex" (1993).

Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment (1991, rev. 2d ed., 2000).

Donna J. Haraway, Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (1991).

Rosemary Hennessy, Materialist Feminism and Politics of Discourse (1993).

Rosemary Hennessy and Chrys Ingraham, eds., Materialist Feminism: A Reader in Class, Difference, and Women’s Lives (1997).

Cora Kaplan, Sea Changes: Culture and Feminism (1986).

Annette Kuhn and AnnMarie Wolpe, eds., Feminism and Materialism: Women and Modes of Production (1978).

Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, Materialist Feminisms (1993).

Juliet Mitchell, "An Interview with Juliet Mitchell," by Angela McRobbie, New Left Review 170 (1988).

Juliet Mitchell, Psychoanlysis and Feminism (1974).

Juliet Mitchell, Woman’s Estate (1971).

Juliet Mitchell, "Women: The Longest Revolution," New Left Review 40 (1966).

Juliet Mitchell, Women: The Longest Revolution (1984).

Tania Modleski, Feminism without Women: Culture and Criticism in a "Postfeminist" Age (1991).

Tania Modleski, Loving with a Vengeance: Mass-Produced Fantasies for Women (1982).

Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Ann Russo, and Lourdes Torres, eds., Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism (1991).

Toril Moi, Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory (1985).

Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa, eds., This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (1981, 1983).

Judith Newton and Deborah Rosenfelt, eds., Feminist Criticism and Social Change: Sex, Class, and Race in Literature and Culture (1985).

Gayle Rubin, "The Traffic in Women: Notes on the ‘Political Economy’ of Sex," Toward an Anthropology of Women (ed. Rayna R. Reiter, 1975).

Hortense J. Spillers, "A Hateful Passion, A Lost Love," Feminist Studies 9 (1983).

Hortense J. Spillers, "Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe: An American Grammar Book," diacritics 17 (1987).

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History of the Vanishing Present (1999).

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics (1987).

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, The Spivak Reader (ed. Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, 1996).

Patricia J. Williams, The Alchemy of Race and Rights (1991).

Meyda Yegenoglu, Colonial Fantasies: Towards a Feminist Reading of Orientalism (1998).