Thinking about the reading…
- Why is the first line of this reading so important? What question is Weiss answering by starting with “We know that we do not know about women’s lives to the extent we know about men’s” ?
- What are the four things that Weiss claims that are often left out of histories written by men?
- Why is collective authorship important?
- Why is it important to make theory accessible to all?
- Weiss defines feminist manifestos as “assertions of agency that function to establish working groups, build community, and direct joint actions and relationships…critical, oppositional pieces that make the marginalized more central and visible, suggest new ways of interpreting the familiar, and propose alternatives to it…creative, strategic, and theoretical political acts..factors in emancipation and social transformation” (3). What do you think of her definition?
- Why does it matter that most manifestos we will discuss are grassroots?
- Do these manifestos express expertise? Is expertise important?
- Why are these documents considered feminist?
Beyond the reading…
- Why are we starting off a class about Women Writers by looking at manifestos?
- How do manifestos differ from fiction?
- If all the manifestos we are reading are feminist and written by women, does that mean all the other fiction texts we will read that are written by women are also feminist? How do you know?
