Women‘s literature and the canon

how to write history of women’s literature today?

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.60056/CCL.2016..85-98

Keywords:

women’s literature, women’s literary canon, female writing, Bulgarian literature, alternative canon, feminist criticism

Abstract

The paper opens by briefly outlining the development of women’s literature in the ex–East European countries since 1989. Then it turns to feminist literary theory, tracking two different periods of its reception by and adaptation to literary criticism in post-communist academic research. The concepts of women’s generations and women’s literary canon, vital for the Western tradition of gynocriticism, are closely analyzed in relation to their relevance to present-day women’s literature in post-communist culture. The paper closes by outlining a threefold model of the perspective from which to speak of women’s literature embedded in, or in counter-stance to, the traditional literary canon.

Author Biography

  • Milena Kirova, Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski"

    Milena Kirova is a professor of Bulgarian Literature and Biblical Studies at the University of Sofia. She has a Ph.D. in Literature (1987) and a Doctor of Sciences degree in Literature and Anthropology (2000). Apart from a long teaching career (since 1983) at the University of Sofia, she has taught Bulgarian Literature and History of Bulgarian Culture at many other universities in Bulgaria and abroad (University of Warsaw, 2009; University of Belgrade, 2002; University of Helsinki, 2000; University of Kent, 1995; UCLA, 1989–1991, and others).

    M. Kirova has authored twelve books and a large number of chapters in collections and articles in scientific journals. She has been a new books columnist for the Culture weekly since 1995, having published about 600 book reviews. Some of her books are: The Dream of Meduza: Towards Psychoanalysis of Bulgarian Literature (1995); The Problematic Realism (2002); Biblical Femininity: Mechanisms of Construction, Politics of Representation (2005); David, The Great: History and Masculinity in the Hebrew Bible (2009). She is also the editor of the first history of women’s literature in Bulgaria, The Canon Which Never Happened, Part 1 (2009) and Part 2 (2013).

References

Boyadzhievska, M. (2004). La jeune née: Vseki pat. V M. Kirova, B. Boyadzhievska i B. Doychinovich-Neshich (sast.), Glasove: Nova humanitaristika ot balkanski avtorki.

Doychinovich-Neshich, B. (2004). Sarbia: S drug glas. V M. Kirova, B. Boyadzhievska i B. Doychinovich-Neshich (sast.), Glasove: Nova humanitaristika ot balkanski avtorki.

Nikolchina, M. (2002). Rodena ot glavata: Fabuli i syuzheti v zhenskata literaturna istoria.

Mohanty, C. T. (1995). Feminist encounters: Locating the politics of experience. In L. Nicholson & S. Seidman (Eds.), Social postmodernism: Beyond identity (pp. 68–85). Cambridge University Press.

Papić, Ž. (1993). Novija feministička kritika patrijarhata: Relativizacija universalizma. Sociologija: Časopis za sociologiju, socijalnu psihologiju i socijalnu antropologiju, 35(1), 118.

Showalter, E. (1999, May 11). Written off. The Guardian. http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/1999/may/11/features11.g2

Strathern, M. (1981). Culture in a net bag: The manufacture of a subdiscipline in anthropology. Man, 16(4), 665–688.

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Published

2025-11-06

Issue

Vol. 2 (2016)

Section

Articles

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How to Cite

Women‘s literature and the canon: how to write history of women’s literature today?. (2025). Colloquia Comparativa Litterarum, 2, 85-98. https://doi.org/10.60056/CCL.2016..85-98