Feminist Reads

Published in 2020, Glennon Doyle’s Untamed is her third memoir. An accomplished writer, philanthropist, and activist, Doyle documents her lifelong journey of self-discovery and uses personal experiences to encourage women on their own respective journeys towards freedom. Through the intersections of gender, sexuality, religion, and race, Doyle unpacks the social conditioning that affects the lives of all humans, particularly women. Ultimately, Doyle offers a reflective guide to navigating life by looking internally and honoring one’s... Read Untamed Summary

Laura Mulvey’s essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” originally appeared in the autumn 1975 issue of the British film journal, Screen. This study guide refers to the reprint of the essay included in Mulvey’s book Visual and Other Pleasures (Palgrave Macmillan, 2nd edition 2009).Part 1: “Introduction”In the “Introduction” to her 1975 essay, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” Laura Mulvey announces her agenda: to appropriate psychoanalytic theory “as a political weapon” to expose how “the unconscious... Read Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema Summary

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Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), Jean Rhys’s best-known novel, is a retelling that contemplates the life of Bertha Mason Rochester, a minor character in Charlotte Brontë’s novel Jane Eyre (1847). Rhys made a career out of writing novels and short stories that contemplated the lives of unconventional women. She wrote and published most of her fiction in the 1930s, then went out of print for several decades. The rise of feminist and postcolonial literary studies brought... Read Wide Sargasso Sea Summary

Wise Blood is Flannery O’Connor’s first novel, and it is concerned with the journey of a young man named Hazel Motes. At the beginning of the narrative, Motes is traveling to Taulkinham, Tennessee, after fighting for four years in World War II. Before his military service, Motes had always intended to become a preacher like his grandfather before him, but his war experiences cause Motes to become an anti-religious nihilist.After arriving in Taulkinham, Motes encounters a young... Read Wise Blood Summary

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Woman on the Edge of Time is a 1976 utopian science fiction novel by Marge Piercy. Piercy is a poet, writer, and feminist activist, and the novel critiques racism, patriarchal gender roles, and medical abuse. The novel is set in the 1970s and follows Connie Ramos, an impoverished Mexican American woman who is visited by a time traveler from a utopian future. The book’s setting alternates between the psychiatric hospital where Connie is unjustly committed... Read Woman on the Edge of Time Summary

Miriam Toews’s Women Talking (2018) is a novel set in the fictional Mennonite colony of Molotschna. It follows a group of the colony’s women as they discuss how to respond to the discovery that many of their menfolk have been anesthetizing and raping them for years. The book is inspired by actual events that took place between 2005 and 2009 in a remote Mennonite colony in Bolivia. There, eight men were discovered to have been... Read Women Talking Summary

Women Who Run With the Wolves (1992) is the most well-known book by author Clarissa Pinkola Estés. It became a New York Times bestseller and appeared on the bestseller lists of USA Today, Publisher’s Weekly, and Library Journal. Other books by the same author include The Gift of Story (1993), The Faithful Gardener (1996), and Untie the Strong Woman (2011). Estés has also recorded numerous audiobooks on related topics. She holds a Ph.D. in psychology... Read Women Who Run with the Wolves Summary

Zeitoun is a nonfiction narrative recounting the trials and ordeals of the Zeitoun family during Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. Abdulrahman Zeitoun is a Syrian American who has built a successful business in New Orleans. With his wife, Kathy, an American who converted to Islam as an adult, and their children, Zeitoun feels a strong connection to his adopted city and country. He’s proud to be a builder and to help restore New Orleans in... Read Zeitoun Summary