Sexualizing Power in Naturalism: Theodore Dreiser and Frederick Philip Grove

by Irene Gammel

Sexualizing Power In Naturalism, sheds light on the function of female sexuality in a predominantly male naturalist fiction. Gammel reveals that naturalism is frequently implicated in the very power structures it critiques. Reading European and North American naturalism through the lens of feminist and Foucaultian theories of power, Gammel argues that twentieth-century naturalism increasingly deconstructs itself in its depiction of sexuality, inevitably exposing the genre's internal ideological contradictions. The book makes a special contribution to Canadian studies.

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Irene Gammel is a literary historian, biographer, and curator. Gammel teaches at Ryerson University in Toronto. She holds the Canada Research Chair in Modern Literature and Culture and is the Director of the Modern Literature and Culture Research Centre.

Gammel holds a PhD (1992) and MA (1987) in English from McMaster University, and a Staatsexamen’s degree from the Universität des Saarlandes in Germany. She taught at the University of Prince Edward Island and held Visiting Professorships at the Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena and Erfurt Universität in Germany. She also served as the President of the Canadian Comparative Literature Association. In 2009, she was elected a member of the Royal Society of Canada.