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Papers by Erin Kingsley

Beatrice Hastings, a little-known, acerbic British modernist writer with a panoply of pseudonyms,... more Beatrice Hastings, a little-known, acerbic British modernist writer with a panoply of pseudonyms, wrote and "ghost-edited" _The New Age_ in the early years of the 20th century. Many of her articles are shocking due to their caustic attacks on motherhood and childbirth. I claim that her biting wit results in a "war on maternity " and fosters an aesthetics of unease which is productive to consider when studying the arc of reproduction and women's rights in the early 20th century.

Virginia Woolf Miscellany, Jan 2015

A Room of One's Own is many things, but it is also Woolf’s way of interrogating the uncontrollabl... more A Room of One's Own is many things, but it is also Woolf’s way of interrogating the uncontrollable reproductive female condition. This article explores how Woolf, in an effort to distance herself from the threat of reproduction symbolized by the female corporeal, turned to masculine rhetoric at crucial moments when considering the female body—for as Rita Felski points out, many women “could enter modernity only by taking on the attributes traditionally classified as masculine” (18-19). And, because a female body in patriarchal culture signifies nothing so much as the potential for reproduction, Woolf employed masculine rhetoric never so much as when contemplating instances of reproduction.

This paper explores a literary bioethical praxis of childbirth through the lens of three twentiet... more This paper explores a literary bioethical praxis of childbirth through the lens of three twentieth-century novels: Good Morning, Midnight by the British writer Jean Rhys (1939); The Birth Machine by the British contemporary author Elizabeth Baines (1983); and Cutting for Stone by the Ethiopian-American contemporary author and medical doctor Abraham Verghese (2010). All three texts construct specific bioethical narratives concerning the role of the female body versus the role of the doctor (or midwife), the doctor’s tools, and the role of medicine in birthgiving. Finally, and perhaps most crucially, all three texts feature childbirth as a predominant aspect of the plot.

In Jean Rhys’s Voyage in the Dark (1934) and Good Morning, Midnight (1939), the prevalence of the... more In Jean Rhys’s Voyage in the Dark (1934) and Good Morning, Midnight (1939), the prevalence of the gestating female body provides an overt correlation between the status of the “othered” outsider figure and the status of the gestating heroine. Both Anna and Sasha, respectively, are at the mercy of their bodies as joint pregnant and colonial women haunting the streets of the metropole. In these two novels, the colonial condition is the condition of pregnancy and of modernism, as all yield changeability, dismantling of self, ostracization, fragmentation, and outsiderness. What is most important to any conception of these novels, I suggest, is a reconsideration of the centrality of the pregnancies both heroines experience. Pregnancy in these novels is a crucial modality of the colonial condition, I claim, and is therefore the prevailing mode of meaning-making for these heroines (and for Rhys) as they attempt to navigate the fragmented modernist landscape.

Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, Nov 8, 2014

This article analyzes the significance of the unstable body in Robert Coover's _Pinocchio in Veni... more This article analyzes the significance of the unstable body in Robert Coover's _Pinocchio in Venice_ (1991), focusing on a triple model of body space: city, body, and knowledge. Notably, these body spaces are rooted in Julia Kristeva's notion of abjection, as they simultaneously horrify and compel. Further, the reinscription of Pinocchio into a "talking book" offers a new look at postmodern notions of the body and its control.

Book Reviews by Erin Kingsley

A review of Harris's "lovely little book" on Virginia Woolf, published in 2011. Harris's biograph... more A review of Harris's "lovely little book" on Virginia Woolf, published in 2011. Harris's biography affords an excellent pared-down introduction to Woolf's life, with a few photograph, and with few forays into the many lives connected to Woolf's central one. It would make a suitable gift, and would also work in the high school or college classroom.

Beatrice Hastings, a little-known, acerbic British modernist writer with a panoply of pseudonyms,... more Beatrice Hastings, a little-known, acerbic British modernist writer with a panoply of pseudonyms, wrote and "ghost-edited" _The New Age_ in the early years of the 20th century. Many of her articles are shocking due to their caustic attacks on motherhood and childbirth. I claim that her biting wit results in a "war on maternity " and fosters an aesthetics of unease which is productive to consider when studying the arc of reproduction and women's rights in the early 20th century.

Virginia Woolf Miscellany, Jan 2015

A Room of One's Own is many things, but it is also Woolf’s way of interrogating the uncontrollabl... more A Room of One's Own is many things, but it is also Woolf’s way of interrogating the uncontrollable reproductive female condition. This article explores how Woolf, in an effort to distance herself from the threat of reproduction symbolized by the female corporeal, turned to masculine rhetoric at crucial moments when considering the female body—for as Rita Felski points out, many women “could enter modernity only by taking on the attributes traditionally classified as masculine” (18-19). And, because a female body in patriarchal culture signifies nothing so much as the potential for reproduction, Woolf employed masculine rhetoric never so much as when contemplating instances of reproduction.

This paper explores a literary bioethical praxis of childbirth through the lens of three twentiet... more This paper explores a literary bioethical praxis of childbirth through the lens of three twentieth-century novels: Good Morning, Midnight by the British writer Jean Rhys (1939); The Birth Machine by the British contemporary author Elizabeth Baines (1983); and Cutting for Stone by the Ethiopian-American contemporary author and medical doctor Abraham Verghese (2010). All three texts construct specific bioethical narratives concerning the role of the female body versus the role of the doctor (or midwife), the doctor’s tools, and the role of medicine in birthgiving. Finally, and perhaps most crucially, all three texts feature childbirth as a predominant aspect of the plot.

In Jean Rhys’s Voyage in the Dark (1934) and Good Morning, Midnight (1939), the prevalence of the... more In Jean Rhys’s Voyage in the Dark (1934) and Good Morning, Midnight (1939), the prevalence of the gestating female body provides an overt correlation between the status of the “othered” outsider figure and the status of the gestating heroine. Both Anna and Sasha, respectively, are at the mercy of their bodies as joint pregnant and colonial women haunting the streets of the metropole. In these two novels, the colonial condition is the condition of pregnancy and of modernism, as all yield changeability, dismantling of self, ostracization, fragmentation, and outsiderness. What is most important to any conception of these novels, I suggest, is a reconsideration of the centrality of the pregnancies both heroines experience. Pregnancy in these novels is a crucial modality of the colonial condition, I claim, and is therefore the prevailing mode of meaning-making for these heroines (and for Rhys) as they attempt to navigate the fragmented modernist landscape.

Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, Nov 8, 2014

This article analyzes the significance of the unstable body in Robert Coover's _Pinocchio in Veni... more This article analyzes the significance of the unstable body in Robert Coover's _Pinocchio in Venice_ (1991), focusing on a triple model of body space: city, body, and knowledge. Notably, these body spaces are rooted in Julia Kristeva's notion of abjection, as they simultaneously horrify and compel. Further, the reinscription of Pinocchio into a "talking book" offers a new look at postmodern notions of the body and its control.

A review of Harris's "lovely little book" on Virginia Woolf, published in 2011. Harris's biograph... more A review of Harris's "lovely little book" on Virginia Woolf, published in 2011. Harris's biography affords an excellent pared-down introduction to Woolf's life, with a few photograph, and with few forays into the many lives connected to Woolf's central one. It would make a suitable gift, and would also work in the high school or college classroom.