1st Edition

Discourses of Difference An Analysis of Women's Travel Writing and Colonialism

By Sara Mills Copyright 1991
    240 Pages
    by Routledge

    244 Pages
    by Routledge

    Discourses of Difference unravels the complexities of writings by British women travellers of the `high colonial' period. Sara Mills examines the relation of women travellers to colonialism, positioned as they were at the site of conflicting discourses: femininity, feminism, and patriarchal imperialism. Using feminist discourse theory, Sara Mills analyses the writings of three women travellers - Alexandra David-Neel, Mary Kingsley and Nina Mazuchelli. Her examination of agency, identity, and the contemporary social environment, is an important and inspiring step forward in post-colonial cultural and literary theory.

    Acknowledgements, INTRODUCTION, Part I Critical Responses to Women’s Travel Writing, Part II Constraints on Production and Reception, Part III Case Studies, Notes, Bibliography, Index

    Biography

    Sara Mills

    `Evinces a keen awareness of the constraints governing the production and reception of women's travel writing. Mills's approach, [a combination of Marxism, feminism, and Foucaudianism], shines through...and is capable of generating highly suggestive cultural analyses.' - Times Higher Educational Supplement