DWF
donnawomanfemme
Roma, Editrice coop. UTOPIA, 1986-

Writing (from) the world, 2000, n. 45-46

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Editorial note, p. 2

BONO Paola - FORTINI Laura
Writing (from) the world, pp. 3-4

CRISPINO Annamaria
Gender/actions, pp. 5-7

RICCIO Alessandra
Ena Lucia Portela: hunter and prey, pp. 8-18

PORTELA Ena Lucia
Bad painting, or the subject's innocence, pp. 19-21

CALABRESE Rita
Living her own little life, pp. 22-35

BARTULI Elisabetta
The young women of Cairo, pp. 36-47

PUTINO Angela
Ingeborg Bachmann. Entering the desert, pp. 48-53

RICALDONE Luisa
Leaving the West. Women and harem in the travel narratives of Amalia Nizzoli, Cristina di Belgioioso and Matilde Serao, pp. 54-73

GIARDINI Federica (edited by)
Politics, Knowledge and the academy, pp. 74-99



Editorial note, p. 2

This issue is the result of collaboration with the Società Italiana delle Letterate, publishing papers prepared for a seminar organised by the SIL.

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BONO Paola - FORTINI Laura, Writing (from) the world, pp. 3-4

The authors, members both of DWF's editorial board and of the steering committee of the SIL, briefly tell the reasons for the collaboration resulting in this issue.

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CRISPINO Annamaria, Gender/actions, pp. 5-7

Crispino, President of the SIL, explains the aims of this association of women in literature (critics, writers, journalists etc.), and informs about their recent and future activities.

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RICCIO Alessandra, Ena Lucia Portela: hunter and prey, pp. 8-18

Born in Havana in 1972, Ena Lucia Portela is the most remarkable among the post-novisimos, the youngest generation of Cuban writers, who, as is indeed the case with Portela, have very often published very little.

They have grown in a complex intellectual situation, where the absence of the "market" and its rules has - paradoxically - permitted a great liberty from both censorship and self-censorship; what was at stake was merely "virtual", as the possibility of being published and read was minimal.

Riccio analyses two short stories by Portela, underlining the ways in which she transgresses the rules of the genre, with the presence of several narrating voices which contradict one another, retelling the story again and again; as the narration proceeds, the diabolically naive enunciating subject is proposed and negated as it moves between story and discourse.

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PORTELA Ena Lucia, Bad painting, or the subject's innocence, pp. 19-21

Reviewing a book by the Spanish-speaking Russian writer Ana Lidia Vega Serova, Portela reflects on the new possibilities a distance from tradition, even a gendered tradition, can open up for an "innocent" subject.

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CALABRESE Rita, Living her own little life, pp. 22-35

In this survey of young German women writers, Calabrese underlines the main features of this new generation: their composite identity and their awareness of a complexity which must constantly be interrogated and redefined. Free from the shadows of Germany's Nazi past, these writers centre on their present, minutely describing the little events of everyday life, looked at with both irony and a light melancholy.

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BARTULI Elisabetta, The young women of Cairo, pp. 36-47

The Egyptian cultural scene can be seen as a good example of the whole Arab-speaking world. The women writing in the 1990s - who will continue writing in the next century - belong to several generations who, as is often the case in non Western countries, have followed one another entering and sharing the literary scene in the short span of twenty-five years.

The younger authors are different from the others in their open individualism and in their minimalist, "post-modern", style of writing. However, the reception of their works changes, from the way they are read in the Arab-speaking world, to their reception in Western countries where they are often considered not exotic enough.

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PUTINO Angela, Ingeborg Bachmann. Entering the desert, pp. 48-53

Reading Bachman's unfinished book on the desert, Putino reflects on the desert as the only possible space for an "I" on the run, an "I" who is the Western, white, male colonising subject; running away in/from the desert, where this "I" 's discursive features - signs, traps, lies - are revealed.

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RICALDONE Luisa, Leaving the West. Women and harem in the travel narratives of Amalia Nizzoli, Cristina di Belgioioso and Matilde Serao, pp. 54-73

Women's travel narratives of their experiences in the Islamic world have changed the representation of the harem and its inhabitants; from the site of an exotic sexuality presented in men's narratives, and dominating the Western imaginary, to a more realistic description of piaces of constraint and sometimes suffering.

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GIARDINI Federica (edited by), Politics, Knowledge and the academy, pp. 74-99

Presenting passages from a debate between Susan Gubar, Robyn Wiegman and Caroliyn Heilbrun published in "Critical Inquiry" in 1999, Giardini underlines that the issues at stake take on a specific interest in the Italian situation, where the problems of the relation between the academy and feminist thought are different from the USA.

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