Danger, you are entering the garbage vortex! Salvaging the history of women’s participation in European literary culture

Partzsch, H. (2021) Danger, you are entering the garbage vortex! Salvaging the history of women’s participation in European literary culture. In: Ryall, A. and Rønning, A. B. (eds.) Gender in Literary Exchange. Routledge, pp. 106-110. ISBN 9780367714956 (hbk); 9780367714963 (pbk) (doi: 10.4324/9781003152323-8)

Abstract

In 2016, the British Comparative Literature Association proposed a thought-provoking and topical conference theme: Salvage. The author's spontaneous associations evoked dramatic scenes of shipwrecks and last-minute rescues, as well as altogether more peaceful activity of beachcombing. It seems that the narrative of heroically salvaging the history of women’s participation in literary culture still tends to derail when people approach the crossroads of agreeing on the value of the salvaged goods. Quite often it also means that the woman writer in question is presented in isolation, as an exception; a safe bet to fall back on if people have to include “the woman’s perspective” into teaching or research; one interesting object found on the beach that somehow stands in for quite a lot of other objects of a supposedly similar kind. Delving into the debris of the great unread is precisely what people are doing in the context of the Travelling Texts project, searching historical library catalogues and the historical press.

• Item Type: Book Sections
• Status: Published
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Partzsch, Dr Henriette
• Authors: Partzsch, H.
• College/School: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Modern Languages and Cultures > Hispanic Studies
• Publisher: Routledge
• ISBN: 9780367714956 (hbk); 9780367714963 (pbk)