February Books 6) How to Suppress Women's Writing, by Joanna Russ
A passionate, fairly concise polemic about the way in which women as writers are marginalised by academics, though also about the experience of minority erasure generally. Although towards the end it veered closer to micro-critiques of college course reading lists from over thirty years ago (I would be interested to know how much things have changed since), it's mostly full of wisdom and rage simultaneously. Numerous very good lines, including: The social invisibility of women's experience is not "a failure of human communication". It is a socially arranged bias persisted in long after the information about women's experience is available (sometimes even publicly insisted on).
In other words, a book at least as much about society as a whole as it is about literature studies, its ostensible subject. Excellent.
In other words, a book at least as much about society as a whole as it is about literature studies, its ostensible subject. Excellent.