Description: Reads a wide range of contemporary feminist theorists to show how they invest in sound as a medium of critical thought.
Brief description: Ruth Salvaggio is Professor of American Studies at the University of New Mexico. She is the author of Dryden's Dualities and Enlightened Absence: Neoclassical Configurations of the Feminine; and coeditor, with the Folger Collective on Early Women Critics, of Women Critics, 1660-1820.
Review Quotes:
"The author distinguishes her approach from the familiar feminist thematization of 'voice' (in opposition to silence) as a trope for agency, creativity, and empowerment, and distinguishes what she calls the 'O' from simple 'orality'--the 'O' being the marker for the ways in which something about orality--sonority, rhythm, physicality, etc.--is being deliberately used in written language in order to produce certain critical and transformative effects." -- Patrocinio P. Schweickart, University of New Hampshire
"Salvaggio gives a wonderfully nuanced exposition of feminist critical discourse as both interdisciplinary and part of--a leader in--a larger theoretical discourse that has shaped the study of literature over the past twenty years. She provides one of the clearest discussions of the French critics (Kristeva, Irigaray, Cixous) that I have read, and a very nice summary of lesbian criticism and queer theory." -- Susanne Woods, Franklin & Marshall College
"Salvaggio is identifying what may well be recognized twenty years from now as a major and permanent change in how we understand and articulate critical discourse." -- Michelle A. Massé, Louisiana State University