Interrogating the Postmodern: Feminist History after the Linguistic Turn
Abstract
This essay was written with the intention of exploring both
personally and critically the growing dialogue among academic
feminists and historians in regard to post-structuralism. What are the
consequences of adopting gender- and literary-theory for methods of
historical inquiry? Having been interested in the subject of female
hysteria in Victorian America, I used this subject as a case study.
This, I hope, will test claims made in the first thirty pages and
also provide a concrete example from the past on which a
historiography can be built and examined. I see this project not as
my definitive statement on the subject but instead as a beginning.