Overview

In a world wherein work is increasingly feminized, historical and contemporary literature can reveal what 'women's work' entails. Reading across different genres, time periods and geographical locations, this book explores gendered working lives through novels, poetry, comics, editorial work and book collecting. It moves from the library of an early modern noblewoman to protest comics in the 2017 Women's March, from Virginia Woolf, Adrienne Rich and Buchi Emecheta to writing from the 2020s about motherhood and explores topics as various as gossip, poetic scraps and household management as well as gender-based violence and the creation of feminist solidarity. In doing so, it shows how literary perspectives on labour and gender can provide insights into work that is otherwise made invisible and can help us to better understand the challenges of today's insecure work-lives.

Full Product Details

Author:   Emily J. Hogg (Associate Professor of Contemporary Anglophone Literature at the Department of Culture and Language, University of Southern Denmark) ,  Charlotte J. Fabricius (Postdoc in the Department of Language, Culture, History and Communication, University of Southern Denmark)
Publisher:   Edinburgh University Press
Imprint:   Edinburgh University Press
ISBN:  

9781399541336

ISBN 10:   1399541331
Pages:   216
Publication Date:   30 April 2025
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Temporarily unavailable  
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Language:   English

Table of Contents

List of Figures Acknowledgements Notes on Contributors Introduction. New Literary Perspectives on Women’s Work Charlotte J. Fabricius and Emily J. Hogg PART I. THE LABOUR OF LITERATURE 1. Feminist Bibliography: Aki Hayashi, Literary Assistant Nicola Wilson 2. Reading Women’s Work in the Karen Brahe Library Lucie Duggan 3. The Labours of Shakespeare’s Sisters Varsha Panjwani PART II. THE WORK OF CHANGE 4. Comics in the RESISTance: Modelling the Feminized Work of Activism Leah Misemer 5. Mothers of Invention: New Maternal Writings, Women, and Precarious Work Culture Roberta Garrett 6. Terror as Usual: Gender Based Violence and Women’s Work in Cherie Jones’ How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House Leighan Renaud PART III. THE EMPLOYMENT OF FORM 7. Scrappy Time: Domestic Work and Adrienne Rich’s Literary Fragment Lindsay Turner 8. Cheap Talk: Conversation, Gender, and Labour in Talking to Women, The Pumpkin Eater, and The Golden Notebook Helen Charman 9. Problems with Progress: Reading Transhistorically for Feminized Work in Buchi Emecheta’s Second-Class Citizen Ida Aaskov Dolmer and Emily J. Hogg Afterword: Women’s Work Across Contexts Christina Lupton Index

Reviews

What is the relation between work and books, between women’s labor and women’s writing? And how does women’s work cut across standard divisions of space and time? This collection of case studies, prefaced by an incisive and comprehensive introduction, offers illuminating answers. -- Rita Felski, University of Virginia

What is the relation between work and books, between women's labor and women's writing? And how does women's work cut across standard divisions of space and time? This collection of case studies, prefaced by an incisive and comprehensive introduction, offers illuminating answers.--Rita Felski, University of Virginia

Author Information

Emily J. Hogg is Associate Professor of Contemporary Anglophone Literature at the Department of Culture and Language, University of Southern Denmark. She is the co-editor of Feminized Work and the Labor of Literature (Edinburgh University Press, 2025) and Precarity in Contemporary Literature and Culture (2021). Charlotte J. Fabricius is a Postdoc with the project ‘Feminized: A New Literary History of Women’s Work’ at the Center for Uses of Literature, University of Southern Denmark. She holds a PhD in cultural studies and works in the intersection of global and digital anglophone literature, comics studies, and feminist critique. She is the author of Super-Girls of the Future: Girlhood and Agency in Contemporary Superhero Comics (2023).

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