Feminist Interpretations of Ayn Rand (Re-Reading the Canon) - Softcover

Gladstein, Mimi Reisel; Sciabarra, Chris Matthew

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0271030224 ISBN 13: 9780271030227

Publisher: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999

Synopsis

This landmark anthology is the first to engage critically the writings of Ayn Rand from feminist perspectives. The interdisciplinary feminist strategies of re-reading Rand range from the lightness of camp to the darkness of de Sade, from postandrogyny to poststructuralism. A highly charged dialogue on Rand's legacy provides the forum for a reexamination of feminism and its relationship to egoism, individualism, and capitalism. Rand's place in contemporary feminism is assessed through comparisons with other twentieth-century feminists, such as Beauvoir, Wolf, Paglia, Eisler, and Gilligan. What results is as provocative in its implications for Rand's system as it is for feminism.

About this title

Review:

"Too often, Rand is either revered as a prophet or dismissed as a crank. Feminist Interpretations of Ayn Rand approaches her as a writer and thinker of profound insights and equally profound contradictions, who offered an important and inspiring but flawed and limited vision of life. . . . Such a serious approach can ultimately end Rand's intellectual marginalization. This volume takes a major step in that direction. In the process, it addresses issues of sexual equality and difference that are more relevant than ever today."

--Cathy Young, Reason Magazine

From the Author:

A landmark anthology on the relationship of Rand & feminism
I am co-editor of this book, with Mimi Gladstein. The book is a deeply controversial look at Ayn Rand thru the lenses of various feminist approaches. It features reprints by such authors as Camille Paglia, Barbara Harrison, and Susan Brownmiller, and original articles by Barbara Branden, Nathaniel Branden, Joan Kennedy Taylor, Judith Wilt, Robert Sheaffer, Susan Love Brown, Sharon Presley, Melissa Jane Hardie, Thomas Gramstad, Diana Mertz Brickell, Valerie Loiret-Prunet, Barry Vacker, Wendy McElroy, and Karen Michalson. The volume is part of the Penn State Press series, "Re-Reading the Canon," which features 20+ books on different philosophers in the Western tradition. The Rand collection covers every aspect of the novelist-philosopher's system of thought, and features discussions on everything from individualism and egoism to sex and gender. What emerges is as provocative in its implications for feminism as it is for Rand's Objectivism.

About this edition

• Publisher: Pennsylvania State University Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0271030224
• ISBN 13: 9780271030227
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 432