Dr. Nancy Frelick, Associate Professor of French Studies at UBC, explores various constructions or preconceptions surrounding gender with regards to women writers of the French Renaissance in her latest research project.
Marguerite d’Orléans (Marguerite de Navarre) by Jean Clouet
“The purpose of this project is to advance our understanding of the various constructions or preconceptions around gender that can affect the reception of texts over time.”
Research
Dr. Nancy Frelick, Associate Professor of French Studies at UBC
My research project is titled “Reading, Writing, and Gender: Refashioning Women Writers of the French Renaissance”.
The purpose of this project is to advance our understanding of the various constructions or preconceptions around gender that can affect the reception of texts over time – particularly readings of early modern works attributed to women writers, including those published under a nom de plume and whose authorship (and gender) therefore remains uncertain.
It is revealing to study the self-representation of authors in their own writings, as well as the ways in which such images are refashioned by others (by readers, writers, editors, critics, etc.) at different times, based on assumptions about sexual identity and according to different kinds of agendas, ideologies, etc. Such reconstructions have all-too-often overshadowed the reception of women’s writings, along with their careful self-fashioning. Conscious or unconscious biases have also shaped literary canon formation (the inclusion, exclusion, and fashionability of certain authors, topics, genres, and so on).
Approach
I have been developing an approach inspired by post-structuralism, feminism, reception theory, gender studies, and psychoanalytic criticism (especially projection and transference) to investigate the ways in which writers are read and refashioned according to shifting aesthetics and changing images of sexual or even national identity that are frequently constructed around discourses about masculinity and femininity. Such constructs have a significant impact on who, what, and how we read. They affect not only literary canon formation, but can also play a crucial role in determining self-concept and access to knowledge or self-expression.
My book project is designed to explore six different authors/case studies, each presenting different kinds of problems/contexts (ranging from authors who are well known, to those about whom there are very few verifiable facts). The methodology employed will rely on close textual readings as well as detailed analysis of assorted discursive (and other) strategies by selected authors, editors, admirers, detractors, critics, readers, and other writers (of poems in homage to the authors in question or fiction based on their lives, for example), in order to see the ways gender mediates an assortment of constructions and readings. Rather than attempting to locate the “real” people behind the texts in question, this project aims to examine the multiple images and/or figures of female authorship created/produced by these writers and their editors, printers, critics, and readers.
Insights
Surprisingly, even though much has been done to change preconceptions about women and gender in the last few decades (thanks in large part to feminist critics/editors who have made early modern women’s writings more available), one still encounters troubling assumptions and gender biases, as some twenty-first century critics and editors continue to dismiss early modern women’s writing, categorizing their texts as autobiographical and second-rate, or attributing them to men (see Mireille Huchon’s 2006 book on Louise Labé, for example).
Impact
This project engages with a number of scholarly and public debates about the status of women’s writing, not only during the early modern period, but also in terms of present-day controversies around female authorship and the place of women’s works in the literary canon and school curriculum. Its potential impact is therefore far-reaching. This kind of research also helps us to question different kinds of assumptions, preconceptions, and gender biases that are still present in certain discourses.
The gendered images we construct of authors in scholarly and public discourses have an impact, not only on the texts we read, but also on the ways we read them and, ultimately, on the ways we see ourselves and what we think might be possible in terms of our own access to knowledge and self-expression. This has important implications for everyone.
Dr. Nancy Frelick is a recipient of the Insight Grant by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), which enables scholars to address complex issues pertaining to individuals and societies, and to further our collective understanding. Learn more.
