"Woman, Red in Tooth and Claw": Angry Essentialism, Abjection, and Visionary Liberation in Women's Performances

A Bibliography

Cassie Carter Department of American Thought and Language 229 Ernst Bessey Hall Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1033 H: 517-339-5739; fax 517 353-5250 e-mail: carterca@pilot.msu.edu>

Sources Cited

Acker, Kathy. "On Top of a Peak." New Statesman and Society 11 May 1990: 42- 43.

Adler, Anthony. "Kali Incarnate." Chicago 39.1 (1990): 111-12.

Carr, C. "'Telling the Awfullest Truth': An Interview with Karen Finley." Acting Out: Feminist Performances. Eds. Lynda Hart and Peggy Phelan. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1993. 153-60.

---. "Unspeakable Practices, Unnatural Acts: The Taboo Art of Karen Finley." On Edge: Performance at the End of the Twentieth Century. Hanover, NH: UP of New England, 1993.121-31.

Champagne, Leonora, ed. Out from Under: Texts by Women Performance Artists. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1990.

Cixous, Helene. "Sorties: Out and Out: Attacks/Ways Out/Forays." The Feminist Reader: Essays in Gender and the Politics of Literary Criticism. Eds. Catherine Belsey and Jane Moore. New York: Blackwell, 1989. 101-16.

Davis Natalie Zemon. "Women on Top." Society and Culture in Early Modern France. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1975. 124-51.

DeKoven, Marianne. "Male Signature, Female Aesthetic: The Gender Politics of Experimental Writing." Breaking the Sequence: Women's Experimental Fiction. Eds. Ellen G. Friedman and Miriam Fuchs Princeton: Princeton UP, 1989. 72-81.

Devine, Maureen. Woman and Nature: Literary Reconceptualizations. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow, 1992.

Diamond, Elin. "Brechtian Theory/Feminist Theory: Toward a Gestic Feminist Criticism." The Drama Review 32.1 (1988): 82-94.

Evans, Rowland, and Robert Novak. "The NEA's Suicide Charge." Washington Post 11 May 1990: A27.

Finley, Karen. The Constant State of Desire. Out from Under: Texts by Women Performance Artists. Ed. Leonora Champagne. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1990. 55-70.

Flaherty, Gloria. "Sex and Shamanism in the Eighteenth Century." Sexual Underworlds of the Enlightenment. Eds. G. S. Rousseau and Roy Porter. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1988. 261-80.

Gerard, Jeremy, and Greg Evans. "Serious Fun." Rev. Of A Certain Level of Denial by Karen Finley. Variety 27 July 1992: 66.

Grenier, Richard. "Chocolate Smeared Revenge." Washington Times 7 Aug. 1990: G3.

Griffin, Susan. Woman and Nature: The Roaring Inside Her. New York: Harper, 1978.

Hart, Lynda. Fatal Women: Lesbian Sexuality and the Mark of Aggression. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1994.

Hertz, Neil. "Medusa's Head: Male Hysteria Under Political Pressure." Representations 1.4 (1983): 27-54.

Hughes, Holly. World Without End. Out from Under: Texts by Women Performance Artists. Ed. Leonora Champagne. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1990. 3-32.

Jan, Alfred. "Sex Reflex." Rev. Of " I'm an Ass Man" by Karen Finley. High Performance 8.4 (1985): 76.

Juno, Andrea, and V. Vale. Angry Women. Re/Search 3. San Francisco: Re/Search, 1991.

Kaplow, Susi. "Getting Angry." Radical Feminism. Eds. Anne Koedt, Ellen Levine, and Anita Rapone. New York: Quadrangle, 1973.

Kelly, Kevin. "Rant, Cant--But Not Art." Rev. Of We Keep Our Victims Ready by Karen Finley. Boston Globe 5 Sept. 1990: 59.

Kristeva, Julia. The Powers of Horror. Trans. Leon S. Roudiez. New York: Columbia UP, 1982.

Larson, Kay. "Censor Deprivation." New York 6 Aug. 1990: 48-49.

Levy, Mark. "The Shaman Is a Gifted Artist." High Performance11 (Fall 1988): 54- 61.

Marks, Elaine, and Isabelle de Courtivron, eds. New French Feminisms: An Anthology. Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 1980.

McCaffery, Larry. "The Artists of Hell: Kathy Acker and 'Punk' Aesthetics." Breaking the Sequence: Women's Experimental Fiction. Eds. Ellen G. Friedman and Miriam Fuchs Princeton: Princeton UP, 1989. 215-30.

McEvilley Thomas. "Art in the Dark." Apocalypse Culture. Ed. Adam Parfrey. New York: Amok, 1987. 81-100.

Merchant, Carolyn. The Death of Nature: Woman, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution. New York: Harper, 1989.

Nachman, Gerald. "Karen Gets It Off Her Chest." Rev. Of We Keep Our Victims Ready by Karen Finley. San Francisco Chronicle 22 Feb. 1991: E1.

Nestle, Joan. "My Mother Liked to Fuck." Powers of Desire: The Politics of Sexuality. Eds. Ann Snitow, Christine Stansell, and Sharon Thompson. New York: Monthly Review, 1983. 468-70.

Paglia, Camille. Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson. New York: Vintage, 1991.

Paster, Gail Kern. The Body Embarrassed: Drama and the Disciplines of Shame in Early Modern England. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1993.

Reynolds, Simon, and Joy Press. The Sex Revolts: Gender, Rebellion and Rock 'n' Roll. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1995.

Rimbaud, Arthur. Complete Works. Trans. Paul Schmidt. New York: Harper, 1975.

Roth, Moira. The Amazing Decade: Women and Performance Art in America, 1970- 1980. Los Angeles: Astro Artz, 1983.

Schneemann, Carolee. Meat Joy. Mirrors for Man: 26 Plays of the World Drama. Ed. Leonard R. N. Ashley. Cambridge, MA: Winthrop, 1974. 898-913.

Spackman, Barbara. Decadent Genealogies: The Rhetoric of Sickness from Baudelair to D'Annunzio. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1989.Wartenberg, Dorothy M. "Verlaine, Rimbaud and Brecht: A Study in the Change of a Literary Relationship." Diss. U of Cincinnati, 1975.

Suleiman, Susan Rubin. Subversive Intent: Gender, Politics, and the Avant-Garde. Cambridge: Harvant UP, 1990.

Wight, Doris T. Seeking Promethean Woman in the New Poetry: Stein, Vallejo, Artaud, Rimbaud, Eliot, Jacob. American University Studies, Series 19, General Literature 2. New York: Peter Lang, 1988.

Wilmoth, Charles. Rev. of We Keep Our Victims Ready by Karen Finley. High Performance 13 (Spring 1990): 57.

-- http://www.cinema.ucla.edu/women/carter/carter1.html

CDs

  1. Fear of Living [LIVE] - Karen Finley [1 book, Amazon US]
    You may remember Finley as one of the 5 controversial performing artists who struggled against bigoted conservative congressmen in the early 90s to keep their Performing Arts funding. Their in-your-face performance art, often dealing openly/squarely with important issues such as homosexuality, AIDS, spousal abuse, sex, drugs and a host of other "liberal" issues, was seen as "dirty," "un-American," "immoral,"etc. by the Religious Right.( I forget who won out in the end.) I caught Finley in Berkeley in 1992--it was a formal "reading"(!) in an academic setting--we were all floored! In her full concert performances, Finley would hypnotically chant unnerving, tawdry litanies at the top of her lungs (especially)about female angst (at full-screech, mind you) while covering her semi-nude body in chocolate syrup and faux-masturbating with yams--(No unfortunately I missed the full show!) The next day after the reading (during which she belted and raved, but no foodstuffs! )I bought her first album, and let my friends listen--I remember we were all transfixed from beginning to end...a totally original sound, lots of comedy, even some tears...WOW, we thought, what powerful--and appalling use of rhythm and language and that pleasantly blood-chilling voice! It's captured in all of its irreverent yet uplifting power on this album, with some of her chants set to music. (NOTE: The catchy "SUSHI SUSHI SUSHI! ALBACORE AND EEL!" has nothing to do with maguro!) I bought this later Finley offering FEAR OF LIVING (many tracks taken/ re-mixed from original album) on the cheap many years later, and have played the heck out of it. There's lots of obscenity on the album, but it serves the higher purpose of articulating this artist's rage at the Male Machine--and in this sense she is a very high-minded, intellectual artist! If you are not easily offended--or better, if you love being offended-- and are looking for a PRIMO, CATHARTIC ALBUM--give this unique performance art a chance! (Warning: this album is not for most grandmas! ) (By the way, look for Finley in the role of the female MD in PHILADELPHIA with Tom Hanks--you'd never guess from that movie that this woman had screwed sweet potatoes on stage before appreciative audiences less than a decade before!) [...]

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