Making the Personal Political
Dutch Women Writers 1919-1970

Jane Fenoulhet

Cover of Making the Personal Political

Legenda (General Series)

Legenda

14 December 2007  •  230pp

ISBN: 978-1-905981-37-3 (hardback)  •  RRP £80, $110, €95

DutchFiction

Making the Personal Political is an interdisciplinary account of a now forgotten success story in the history of the society and culture of the Netherlands. While Dutch women had apparently retreated into domesticity after gaining the vote in 1919, women writers were out there in the market place selling the inside story of women's lives. Eight case studies of women writers between 1919 and 1970 trace the unconscious politics of the personal in narratives of women's identity and experience through close readings of texts located in the culture of the time. Jane Fenoulhet, whose knowledge of Dutch literature and culture in the twentieth century is unparallelled in the English-speaking world, tracks the public representation of women's private project of self development to the moment when the personal is finally accepted as politically important in Dutch society.

Reviews:

  • ‘Fenoulhet's project is exciting and original. It is a well-researched and informative account of how women writers in the Netherlands shaped the self at a time when self-realization was a male prerogative. And it makes you want to reread Carry van Bruggen, and that is surely a good thing.’ — Henriëtte Louwerse, Modern Language Review 104.3, 2009, 929-31 (full text online)
  • ‘Eight excellent case studies... that explore how through their work individual writers reflect upon and challenge the role of women in society.’ — The Year's Work in Modern Language Studies 69, 2007, 853)

Bibliography entry:

Fenoulhet, Jane, Making the Personal Political: Dutch Women Writers 1919-1970 (Legenda, 2007)

First footnote reference: 35 Jane Fenoulhet, Making the Personal Political: Dutch Women Writers 1919-1970 (Legenda, 2007), p. 21.

Subsequent footnote reference: 37 Fenoulhet, p. 47.

(To see how these citations were worked out, follow this link.)

Bibliography entry:

Fenoulhet, Jane. 2007. Making the Personal Political: Dutch Women Writers 1919-1970 (Legenda)

Example citation: ‘A quotation occurring on page 21 of this work’ (Fenoulhet 2007: 21).

Example footnote reference: 35 Fenoulhet 2007: 21.

(To see how these citations were worked out, follow this link.)

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Permanent link to this title:

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