The Short Story Anthology and the Politics of Gender

Abstract

This thesis studies the cultural function that the short story anthology has fulfilled and continues to fulfil in relation to discourses of gender developed in the last forty or so years. Its central claim is that the unique formal properties of the genre have allowed it not only to respond to or represent changing ideas of gender identity and politics over this period of time, but also, more importantly, to influence and shape these ideas. Through a focus on some of the most culturally relevant women-only short story anthologies published since the 1980s until now, thus, this thesis argues for a reevaluation of the centrality of this literary form in the articulation of questions of gender-formation and of feminist politics. It proposes and demonstrates that the short story anthology is a key genre through which women have been and continue to be variously able to imagine and reflect on who they are both in terms of individual and collective identity.