scholarly journals Review Article: The Wedding Gown Writes Back. Borgos, Anna. 2013. Nemek között: Nőtörténet, szexualitástörténet ('Between the Sexes: Women's History, Sexuality History'). Budapest: Noran Libro Kiadó. 317 pp.; and Lovas, Ildikó. 2008. Spanyol menyasszony (‘The Spanish Bride’). Bratislava/Pozsony: Kalligram Kiadó. 304 pp.

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 97-104
Author(s):  
Mateusz Chmurski

In Central Europe nowadays universities, research institutes or museums are attempting to reconfigure the region's complex history from the perspectives of formerly forgotten or marginal/ized individuals and groups. Besides initiatives such as the opening of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw, or of the Center for Queer Memory in Prague, new studies and literary works presently (re-)create narratives that challenge the generally accepted past. Two recently published Hungarian books, a novel and a study that partly deals with the novel, exemplify this revisionist tendency. Ildikó Lovas’ novel, Spanyol Menyasszony ['The Spanish Bride'] (2007), which questions the cult of Géza Csáth (1887-1919), the writer and psychoanalyst who was also a drug addict that murdered his wife, renders the fictional diary of Csáth's wife and victim, Olga Jonás (1884-1919); Anna Borgos’ study, Nemek között: Nőtörténet, szexualitástörténet ['Between the Sexes: Women’s History, Sexuality History'] (2013), examines the Csáth affair within an inclusive analysis of women’s positions, roles and sexuality in the Hungarian culture of the last century. In this article Chmurski traces the ways in which both authors reread the lives and tragic marriage of Csáth and Jonás.

Author(s):  
Marilyn Booth

This chapter juxtaposes Fawwaz’s use of female biography with selected works by male contemporaries that include biographies or mention of famous women. These comprise a treatise on marriage by Hamza Fathallah; a translation of a French history of ancient Egypt focusing on women, authored by Georges Paturet and translated by ‘Ali Jalal; a history of pre-Islamic women by Habib al-Zayyat al-Dimashqi; and a marriage and conduct manual for young men, by Husayn Fawzi. They all differ markedly from Fawwaz’s dictionary, in emphasis and subject choice. It is fascinating that several Arab male intellectuals of the late 19th century wrote on the ancient history of women in the region, but what kinds of messages did their works yield?


Author(s):  
Katharine M. Cockin

Cicely Hamilton, lesbian actor, author, and women’s suffrage activist, is best known for her plays Diana of Dobson’s (1908), exposing exploitation in the retail trade, How the Vote Was Won (1909), a suffrage comedy co-authored with Christopher St. John, and A Pageant of Great Women, which raised consciousness about women’s history in productions across Britain from 1909 to 1912. Hamilton also wrote nondramatic works, including the political tract Marriage as a Trade (1909) and the novel William, An Englishman (1919), which was inspired by her experience of wartime France. Hamilton’s prolific writing career reflects her wide-ranging interests, political commitments, and sense of public duty; her plays exemplify the intersection of Feminism and theater in the early 20th century.


2008 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 466a-466a
Author(s):  
Noga Efrati

The history of the women's movement in Iraq before 1958 has received little attention in contemporary scholarly literature published in English. Moreover, when surveying the brief accounts in secondary sources, one is struck by their inconsistency. Upon closer examination, two historiographical approaches emerge. One primarily follows the development of women's activities sanctioned by the regime, focusing on organizations and activists associated with the Iraqi Women's Union, established in 1945. The second approach traces developments and organizations linked with the underground League for the Defense of Women's Rights, founded in 1952. This essay argues that members of the rival union and league constructed two competing narratives in presenting the history of the women's movement in pre-1958 Iraq. The article unpacks these two different narratives as they were originally articulated by activists in order to piece together a more elaborate portrayal of the evolution of the early Iraqi women's movement. The essay also explores how scholars have reproduced these narratives, arguing that both activists and researchers were active participants in a “war of narratives” that left women's history the unfortunate casualty


1992 ◽  
Vol 28 (109) ◽  
pp. 1-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret MacCurtain ◽  
Mary O’Dowd

In the last twenty years women’s history has emerged as a major field of scholarly inquiry. An extensive literature has accumulated on the history of women in western Europe and North America, and the contribution which women have made to many different aspects of western society has been rediscovered. New areas of study have been developed as the gender differences in men’s and women’s lives have been recognised and researched. The expanding secondary literature has also led to a lively debate about the purpose, methodology and theory of women’s history. A central focus of discussion has been the relationship between women’s history and mainstream history. Initially research on the history of women tended to work within the parameters of traditional history: to be fitted into its ‘empty spaces’. But dissatisfaction with the male-centred and patriarchal nature of the predominant historical discourse has led women historians to seek out new methodologies and to argue that consideration of history from the perspective of women, as well as of men, is a major challenge to the whole nature of historical inquiry. As Gerda Lerner, a pioneer of women’s history in the United States, put it, women’s history challenges the traditional assumption that man is the measure of all that is significant, and that the activities pursued by men are by definition significant, while those pursued by women are subordinate in importance. It challenges the notion that civilization is that which men have created, defended, and advanced while women had babies and serviced families and to which they, occasionally and in a marginal way, ‘contributed’.


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