NEEDLEWORK AS POLITICAL AND CULTURAL RESISTANCE IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN NOVEL

Year 2021, Volume: 4 Issue: 2, 51 - 59, 30.04.2021

Nesrin Yavaş

https://doi.org/10.33390/homeros.4.2.01

Abstract

Handcrafts like quilting, knitting, sewing, and cross-stitching have traditionally been viewed as a “woman’s thing,” a gendered leisure time activity. However, women’s handcrafts when read as texts can yield multi-layered narratives. With the coming of the second wave feminism in the US in the 1960s, many feminist scholars, critiques turned to study literary texts in which women’s handcrafts yielded political and/or cultural meanings. In fact, there is a bulk of scholarly literature on the representations of needlework in American literary tradition. The aim of this research paper is not to offer a comprehensive study on the representations of women’s handcrafts in American literary tradition but to bring attention to three contemporary American novels, Mama Day by African American feminist author Gloria Naylor, Four Souls by Native American Louise Erdrich, and Flight Behaviour by Barbara Kingsolver. the study of which, I believe, will bring a new breath to the already existing scholarship on the topic

Keywords

Women’s handcrafts, culture, identity, Barbara Kingsolver, Louise Erdrich, Gloria Naylor

References

• Betterton, S. (1976). The American Quilt Tradition. London: The American Museum.
• Clover, D. E. & Budd L. H. (2010). “Critique, Create, and Act. Social Movement Learning in the Era of Climate Change,” Education and Climate Change: Living and Learning in Interesting Times, Fumiyo Kagawa and David Selby (Eds). London: Routledge. Pp.161-175.
• Erdrich, L. (2005). Four Souls. New York: Harper Perennial.
• Hedges, E. (1986). “Small Things Reconsidered: Susan Glaspell’s A Jury of Her Peers,” Women’s Studies, (12)1, pp. 89-110.
• ---. (1991). “The Needle or the Pen: The Literary Rediscovery of Women’s Textile Work,” Traditions and Talents of Women, Florence Howe (Ed). Urbana: University of Illinois P. pp. 338-364.
• Hedges, E., Par F. & Julie S. (1996). Hearts and Hands: Women, Quilts, and American Society. Nashville: Rutledge Hill Press.
• Hammond, H. (1977). “Feminist Abstract Art: A Political Viewpoint”, Heresies. pp. 66-70. Retrieved from: hhtp://heresiesfilmproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/heresies1-pdf
• Hooks, B. (1990). “The Chitlin Circuit: On Black Community,” Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics, Bell Hooks (Ed). Boston: South End Press. pp.33-40.
• ---. (2009). “Aesthetic Inheritances: History Worked by Hand,” Belonging: A Culture of Place, Bell Hooks (Ed). New York and London: Routledge. pp. 153-161.
• Glaspell, S. (1978). “A Jury of Her Peers,” Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense, Laurence Perrine (Ed).3rd ed. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Inc. pp. 377-392
• Kingsolver, B. (2012). Flight Behavior. London: Faber and Faber.
• Kırtunç, A. L. (2000). İğnem İpliğim Diktiğim Kimliğim. İzmir: Ege Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi Yayınları.
• Naylor, G. (1989). Mama Day. New York: Vintage.
• Nixon, R. (2011). Slow Violence. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University P.
• Norgaard, K. M. (2011). Living in Denial. Climate Change, Emotions, and Everyday Life. Cambridge, MA and London: MIT P.
• Onion, R. (2020, February 8). “The Quilters and Knitters Who are Mapping Climate Change,” Slate. Retrieved from: https://slate.com/technology/2020/02/quilts-knitting-cross-stitch-climate-change.html.
• Showalter, E. (1986). “Piecing and Writing,” The Poetics of Gender, Nancy K. Miller (Ed). New York: Columbia UP. pp. 222-247.
• Showalter, E. (1991). Sister’s Choice: Tradition and Change in America. Oxford: Oxford University P.
• Walker, A. (1994). “In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens,” An Anthology of Literary Criticism from the Harlem Renaissance to the Present, Angelyn Mitchell (Ed). Durham and London: Duke University P. pp. 401-409
• Ward, B. (2015, March 31). “Climate Change, Art Quilts and National Parks.” Retrieved from: https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2015/03/climate-change-art-quilts-national-parks/
• Welter, B. (1966). “The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860,” American Quarterly, (18)2, pp.151-174. Retrieved from: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2711179/