Writing Women's Communities: The Politics and Poetics of Contemporary Multi-Genre Anthologies

Writing Women's Communities: The Politics and Poetics of Contemporary MultiGenre Anthologies. Cynthia G. Franklin. Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press. 1997. xi, 268 pp. Cloth, $34.95; paper, $18.95.

Cynthia Franklin prefaces her study of women's multigenre anthologies, all of which focus on marginalized, silenced, or oppressed groups, with a consideration of the tensions between identity politics and poststructuralist theories, arguing throughout her book that it is important to avoid "either/or" thinking. Hence she stresses knowable identity, while complicating the concept of identity to include multiplicity contradiction, and change over time. She is interested in the ways that multigenre anthologies challenge canonical anthologies as well as the supposed oppositions between the academy and the "real" world, theory and practice, contemplation and action. She is also interested in the opportunities such anthologies offer for creating communities and coalitions.

In each chapter she pairs two anthologies,...