Swedish Institute for North American Studies (SINAS) Research Seminar: ‘A woman of striking vigour’ Gertrude Stein’s embodied nationality

Description

Isabelle Parkinson discussed her recent monograph, Gertrude Stein and the Politics of Participation, which explores the politics of the right to write in Gertrude Stein’s practice and its reception, examining how conceptions of authorship intersected discourses of democracy and rights in the period 1909-1933. The book investigates the ways in which Stein reconfigured her authorship in response to rapidly changing political and cultural conditions. It shows how the arguments over her authorial validity reproduced debates about who should participate in public life, refracted an emerging discourse of human rights and echoed fears about the consequences of mass democracy as political franchise was extended. In the seminar, Isabelle focused on the shifting constructions of European and American literary identities in the discourse of Stein’s authorship, considering how conceptions of national ‘character’ are figured in discursive imaginings of the author’s body.

Period	4 Sept 2023
Held at	Uppsala University, Sweden
Degree of Recognition	International