Feminist aesthetics

212 Pages·1986·40.957 MB·English

by  Gisela Ecker

Feminist Aesthetics

Feminist Aesthetics
Edited by Gisela Ecker
Translated by Harriet Anderson
BEACON PRESS BOSTON
Beacon Press
25 Beacon Street
Boston, MA 02108
First published by The Women's Press Limited 1985
Introduction and collection copyright © by Gisela Ecker 1985
Translation copyright © by Harriet Anderson 1985
All rights reserved.
First published by Beacon Press in 1986 by arrangement with The Women's Press
Beacon Press books are published under the auspices
of the Unitarian Universalist Association
of Congregations in North America.
Printed in the United States of America
90 89 88 87 86 5 4 3 2
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Feminist aesthetics
Bibliography: p.
Contents: Is there a feminine aesthetic? I Silvia
Bovenschen-The self-reflecting woman/ Elisabeth
Lenk-Double focus : on the history of women's
writing/ Sigrid Weigel-[e tc.]
I. Feminism and the arts-Addresses, essays,
lectures. I. Ecker, Gisela.
NXI80.F4F44 1986 700'. I 85-47946
ISBN 0-8070-6728-8
ISBN 0-8070-6729-6 (pbk.)
Gisela Ecker completed her Ph.D. in 1978 at Munich University. She has lectured
at the universities of Munich, Cologne, and Sussex. Her publications include a
book on sixteenth-century broadsheets and articles on twentieth-century English
literature and feminist literary criticism.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Translator's Foreword
Preface 11
Introduction 15
I. Silvia Bovenschen: ls There a Feminine Aesthetic? 23
2. Elisabeth Lenk: The Self-reflecting Woman 51
3. Sigrid Weigel: Double Focus: On the History of Women's
Writing 59
4. Heide Gottner-Abendroth: Nine Principles of a Matriarchal
Aesthetic 81
5. Christa Wolf: A Letter about Unequivocal and Ambiguous
Meaning, Definiteness and Indefiniteness; about Ancient
Conditions and New View-Scopes; about Objectivity 95
6. Gertrud Koch: Why Women Go to Men's Films 108
7. Jutta Bruckner: Women Behind the Camera 120
8. Christiane Erlemann: What Is Feminist Architecture? 125
9. Eva Rieger: 'Dolce semplice'? On the Changing Role of
Women in Music 135
10. Renate Mohrmann: Occupation: Woman Artist- On the
Changing Relations Betweeen Being a Woman and
Artistic Production 150
11. Gisela Breitling: Speech, Silence and the Discourse of Art.
On Conventions of Speech and Femin.ine Consciousness. 162
About the Artists 175
Notes on the Contributors 178
Notes 181

Acknowledgments
The following essays have been previously published. We are grateful
to the publishers for permission to reprint.
Silvia Bovenschen, 'Uber die Frage: Gibt es eine weibliche Asthetik?',
Copyright in the translation by Beth Weckmueller, © New German
Critique 12 (1977).
Sigrid Weigel, 'Der schielende Blick: Thesen zur Geschichte weiblicher
Schreibpraxis,' in Die verboregene Frau (Berlin, © Argument Verlag,
1983).
Heide Gottner-Abendroth, 'Thesen zu einer matriarchalen Asthetik,' in
Die tanzende Gottin (Miinchen, © Verlag Frauenoffensive, 1982).
Christa Wolf, from Kassandra. Voraussetzungen einer Erziihlung (Darms
tadt, © Verlag Luchterhand, 1983); trans. Jan Van Heurck (London,
Virago, 1984), © copyright in the translation by Farrar, Straus and
Giroux, 1984.
Gertrud Koch, 'Warum Frauen ins Mannerkino gehen,' in Gislind Naba
kowski et al., Frauen in der Kunst (Frankfurt, © Suhrkamp Verlag,
1980).
Jutta Bruckner, 'Nachbemerkungen,' in Renate Mohrmann, Die frau mit
der Kamera (Miinchen, © Hanser Verlag, 1980).
Christiane Erlemann, 'Was ist ferninistische Architektur?' in Luise Pusch
(ed.), Feminismus, lnspektion der Herrenkultur (Frankfurt, Suhrkamp
Verlag, 1983).
Eva Rieger, 'EinJeitung,' in Frau und Musik (Frankfurt,© Fischer Verlag,
_ 1980).
Renate Mohrmann, 'Beruf Kiinstlerin', © Frau und Kultur (1982).
Gisela Breitling, 'Sprechen und Stummsein. Die kiinstlerische Rede.
Gedanken Uber Redekonventionen und weibliches Selbstverstandnis ',
Die Horen, 28 (1983).
Translator's Foreword
My priority in translating these texts was to produce a readable
English rendering which conveys the sense and style of the original
as closely as possible. However, some of the finer shades of meaning
have necessarily been lost, as English, both in its vocabulary and
structure, often cannot convey the metaphors, associations and word
games of the German. An added difficulty is that some of the authors
draw on intellectual traditions which may be largely unfamiliar to
British readers. Where it was impossible to do so in the text itself I
have tried to clarify the more important obscurities in translator's
footnotes.
As the contributions by Silvia Bovenschen and Christa Wolf were
already available in English when we started to prepare this
anthology, we have reprinted these earlier translations.
Harriet Anderson
London, 1984