Journal Facts

Journal
Auto/Biography
ISSN
0967-5507
Volume
12
Issue
2

Article Facts

Title
Censored/Uncensored: Lovers in Dialogue
DOI
10.1191/0967550704ab011oa
Author
Margaretta Jolly (University of Exeter, UK, mjolly at exeter.ac.uk)
Pages
147-166

Article Links

Censored/Uncensored: Lovers in Dialogue

Margaretta Jolly (University of Exeter, UK, mjolly at exeter.ac.uk)

DOI: 10.1191/0967550704ab011oa

Abstract

This paper considers the practice — and art — of personal letter writing in the context of `second wave' feminist politicization of personal relationships. It focuses on excerpts and analysis of a brief correspondence between Carole Harwood and her husband Kevin Littlewood when Harwood was imprisoned for dancing on the nuclear missile silos at Greenham Common Airforce Base in 1983. Reversing the traditions of domestic letter writing as the extension of a waiting wife's role as well as the gender paradigms of men leaving home for war, these letters reflect a transformation of gender relations that can also be seen in published epistolary literature of the time. At the same time, the letters' playfully elliptical allusion to Harwood's burgeoning lesbian feminism suggest that letter writing reflected the fears and fantasies that feminist relationships could involve, even as it helped to carry women and men into new and challenging relations in the context of 1980s activism.1

References

  1. Acker, K. 1983. Great expectations. New York : Grove Press.
  2. Altman, J. 1982. Epistolarity: approaches to a form. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press.
  3. Banner, A. 1969. Ant and Bee time. New York: F. Watts.
  4. ——— 1970. Ant and Bee and the secret. New York : F. Watts.
  5. Barreno, M.I., Horta, M.T., Costa, M.V.D. 1975. The three Marias: new Portuguese letters. St AlbansPaladin.
  6. Barton, D., Hall, N. Barton, D., Hall, N. 2000. `Introduction' pp. 1-14. AmsterdamPhiladelphia: John Benjamins.
  7. Edwards, N. 1986. Mud. London: The Women's Press.
  8. Gilroy, A., Verhoeven, W.M. 2000. Epistolary histories: letters, fiction, culture. Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia.
  9. Hanscombe, G.E. 1982. Between friends. Boston: Alyson Publications.
  10. Harwood, C. 2003. Interview with the author, 20 May.
  11. ——— 2003. Letter to the author, 21 January.
  12. Hopkins, S., Harford, B. 1984. Greenham common: women at the wire. London: Women's Press.
  13. Jolly, M. 2002. Confidantes, Co-Workers and Correspondents: Feminist Discourses of Letter writing from 1970—Present. Journal of European Studies vol. 32 pp. 267-82.
  14. Littlewood, K. 2001. Letter to the author, 4 September.
  15. ——— 2001. Interview with the author, 1 September.
  16. ——— 2003. Email to the author, 21 May.
  17. Morgan, D. 1992. Discovering men. LondonNew York: Routledge.
  18. Morgan, R. 1977. Going too far: the personal chronicle of a feminist. New York: Random House.
  19. Oakley, A. 1984. A French Letter pp. 113-16. New York: Random House.
  20. Piercy, M. 1983. Braided lives: a novel. London : Penguin.
  21. Porter, C.A. 1986. `Foreword'. Men/women of letters. Yale French Studies vol. 71 pp. 16.
  22. Roseneil, S. 1995. Disarming patriarchy: feminism and political action at Greenham. Buckingham, UK and. Philadelphia: Open University Press.
  23. ——— 2000. Common women, uncommon practices: the queer feminisms of Greenham. LondonNew York : Cassell.
  24. Turner, K., Tornatore, S. 1996. Dear Sappho: a legacy of lesbian love letters. London: Thames and Hudson.
  25. Tweedie, J. 1982. Letters from a fainthearted feminist. London: Robson Books.
  26. ——— 1983. More from Martha: further letters from a fainthearted feminist. London: Robson.
  27. Walker, A. 1982. The color purple: a novel. New York : Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.