Women’s and feminist periodical press in literary studies’ classroom: Theory and practice

Abstract

Women’s and feminist periodical press represents a fruitful resource for researchers who explore women’s and gender history, history of women’s and feminist movement(s), women’s writing, and various gender identites which were - and still are - both described and constructed in the periodicals. Women’s and feminist periodical press enables researchers to understand certain historical - and literary - periods from different perspectives from those which dominate in the mainstream histories of culture and literature. In this article, the author argues that women’s and feminist periodical press should be introduced into the literary studies’ curriculum, especially within the MA and PhD programs. However, literary studies should be seen as one of the many disciplines and areas which might do the same. Periodical press in general, and women’s and feminist journals in particular, present valuable sources for the researchers and scholars in the social sciences and humanities, because most of the periodicals (journals, weekly reviews, daily news...), in the past and present as well, publish articles which deal with a society and its problems. This article focuses on the concrete examples of using periodical press both in researching and teaching literature, globally and locally.

Keywords

• teaching literature
• periodical press studies
• modernist journals project
• women’s and feminist journals
• feminist pedagogy