This lively collection of essays showcases recent research into the impact of the conflict on British women during the First World War and since. Looking outside of the familiar representations of wartime women as nurses, munitionettes, and land girls, it introduces the reader to lesser-known aspects of women's war experience, including female composers' musical responses to the war, changes in the culture of women's mourning dress, and the complex relationships between war, motherhood, and politics. Written during the war's centenary, the chapters also consider the gendered nature of war memory in Britain, exploring the emotional legacies of the conflict today, and the place of women's wartime stories on the contemporary stage. The collection brings together work by emerging and established scholars contributing to the shared project of rewriting British women's history of the First World War. It is an essential text for anyone researching or studying this history. This book was originally published as a special issue of Women's History Review.

This lively collection of essays showcases recent research into the impact of the conflict on British women during the First World War and since. Looking outside of the familiar representations of wartime women as nurses, munitionettes, and land girls, it introduces the reader to lesser-known aspects of women's war experience, including female composers' musical responses to the war, changes in the culture of women's mourning dress, and the complex relationships between war, motherhood, and politics. Written during the war's centenary, the chapters also consider the gendered nature of war memory in Britain, exploring the emotional legacies of the conflict today, and the place of women's wartime stories on the contemporary stage. The collection brings together work by emerging and established scholars contributing to the shared project of rewriting British women's history of the First World War. It is an essential text for anyone researching or studying this history. This book was originally published as a special issue of Women's History Review.

This clever bit of literary mischief is an "exquisite, exuberant, X-rated" ("Mirabella") novel about an imaginary eleventh-century Japanese writer. Onogoro, poet and concubine of the general Motosuke, hides a stable boy behind the screen at the head of her bed to spice up her love life with her master.

Historical and literary scholars have become increasingly interested in women's roles in and approaches to war. In times of conflict, French and francophone women have made crucial contributions in aid of the patrie, but wars have also set women against the governing powers, frequently forcing them to choose between their concerns as women, and the economic and social demands of their belligerent nations. This volume, the proceedings of the 9th UK Women in French conference entitled 'Les femmes et la guerre', brings together scholars from different academic disciplines - history, sociology, politics, literary criticism and gender studies - who explore the impact of war upon women in French and francophone societies. Les critiques litteraires et les historiens s'interessent de plus en plus aux roles des femmes pendant les periodes de guerre. Les femmes francaises et francophones ont, par leurs actions cruciales, aide la patrie en temps de guerre ; cependant, les conflits ont egalement oppose les femmes a leur gouvernement, en les obligeant souvent a choisir entre leurs interets en tant que femmes et les exigences economiques et sociales de leur pays belligerant. Ce volume, reproduisant les actes du 9e colloque britannique organise par " Women in French ", intitule " Les femmes et la guerre ", rassemble des specialistes de diverses disciplines - histoire, sociologie, sciences politiques, critique litteraire et etudes de genre - pour analyser les effets de la guerre sur les femmes en France et dans les pays francophones.

The concept of motherhood emerges strongly in the writings of Simone de Beauvoir, Violette Leduc and Annie Ernaux, whose work is examined here in the light of current debates about women's reproductive function and the longstanding glorification of the mere au foyer in France, driven by fear of a falling population. In this interdisciplinary study of twentieth-century French women's writing, Fell uncovers tensions at the heart of the literary critique. She shows these authors challenging the patriarchal view of motherhood as the sole justification for a woman's existence while at the same time confronting the conflict inherent in their relationship with their own mothers. A survey of theoretical and historical material demonstrates vividly that the changing concept of motherhood remains a problematic and highly contentious issue for French feminists, whether writing in 1940 or 1999.