Italian Women Writers from the Renaissance to the Present

Maria Ornella Marotti is a lecturer in Italian at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is the author of The Duplicating Imagination: Twain and the Twain Papers (Penn State, 1990).

• ContentsIntroductionRevising the Canon: Italian Women Writers/Maria O. MarottiPart I: Canon Formation/Canon Revision1. Women Writers and the Canon in Contemporary Italy/JoAnn Cannon2. From One Closet to Another? Feminism, Literary Archaeology, and the Canon/Beverly Allen3. Italian "Difference Theory": A New Canon?/Renate HolubPart II: Renaissance Women: Rethinking the Canon4. Renaissance Women Defending Women: Arguments Against Patriarchy/Constance Jordan5. Selling the Self, or the Epistolary Production of Renaissance Courtesans/Fiora A. BassanesePart III: At the Turn of the Century: Women Writers at the Margins of the Canon6. Double Marginality: Matilde Serao and the Politics of Ambiguity/Nancy Harrowitz7. The Diaries of Sibilla Aleramo: Constructing Female Subjectivity/Bernadette Luciano8. Narrative Voice and the Regional Experience: Redefining Female Images in the Works of Maria Messina/Elise MagistroPart IV: Contemporary Women Writers: Toward a New Canon9. Brushing Benjamin Against the Grain: Elsa Morante and the Jetzeit of Marginal History/Maurizia Boscagli10. From Genealogy to Gynealogy and Beyond: Fausta Cialente's Le Quattro Ragazze Wieselberger/Graziella Parati11. Ethnic Matriarchy: Fabrizia Ramondino's Neapolitan World/Maria Ornella Marotti12. Mythic Revisionism: Women Poets and Philosophers in Italy Today/Lucia RePart V: Women as Filmmakers: Images of Women/Images by Women/Images for Women13. Monica Vitti: The Image and the Word/Marga Cottino-Jones14. Signifying the Holocaust: Liliana Cavani's Portiere di notte/Marguerite Waller

“This collection is a good and discriminating introduction to the bibliography on women writers. It is well researched and argued with intelligence. It will be undoubtedly useful in undergraduate and graduate courses to give students a wider view of Italian literature and culture.”—Stefania Buccini, University of Wisconsin-Madison