优生学与女性主义——英美女性主义文学经典再解读

Eugenics and Feminism:Rereading of Feminist Literary Classics

优生学于19世纪末到20世纪30年代在英美风行一时,渗透于政治、文化等各个知识领域,构成英美现代话语的重要"范式"之一。英美女性主义第一次浪潮恰与优生学发展鼎盛时期交叉重叠,以吉尔曼和伍尔夫为代表的女性主义先驱作家不仅将优生学思想的有益方面纳入女性主义,还将这种科学话语拓展到文学的想象空间。文章从优生学视角入手,对吉尔曼和伍尔夫的女性主义经典之作《黄色糊墙纸》、《女儿国》、《一间自己的屋子》进行分析,探讨优生学与女性主义的交融在特定历史背景下的内涵和使命,以及对当下女性主义文学和批评的重要启示。

In Britain and the United States, the First Wave Feminism coincided with the emergence and expansion of eugenics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The feminist literary foremothers like Charlotte Gilman and Virginia Woolf extended the eugenics thought not only into the realm of feminist theorization but to literary imagination. This paper intends to draw attention to the alliance between feminism and eugenics. By rereading the feminist classics such as The Yellow Wallpaper, Herland, A Room of One＇ s Own through the lens of eugenics, this paper explores the significance of the intersection of feminism and eugenics and charts the continuity between the text in the past and contemporary feminist literary criticism.