Welcome to March, where we are not only celebrating OLR’s 40th Anniversary, but also Women’s History Month. In honour of these two events, we are sharing the work of Hélène Cixous. An academic, philosopher, literary theorist, playwright and feminist, Cixous founded the Centre d’Etudes Féminines at the University of Paris VIII in 1974 and has written on topics including memory and women’s writing.
In her beautifully written and compelling article, ‘The Unforeseeable’, Cixous asks “how does the prickly unforeseen thing get there?” and draws on a range of experiences and questions, as well as writings of Marcel Proust and Franz Kafka, in order to deliberate various answers to this intricate question. She says:
“I never know which dream is going to happen to me. I turn out the lamp, with joy and curiosity. What a joy to have to expect to find myself acted in a play I have not written, to have no idea what my next adventure or misadventure will be.”
An inspiring and thought-provoking article, Cixous has certainly made a solid contribution to philosophy and life-writing.
Enjoy the full article, free until 15th April.
To further celebrate Women’s History Month we have made 10 selected articles about women and history free until 31st March. Find out more and access them here.
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Oxford Literary Review (OLR), founded in 1977 by Ian McLeod, Ann Wordsworth and Robert J. C. Young, is now celebrating its 40th anniversary. To celebrate, in each month of 2017 the Edinburgh University Press blog will highlight an influential article published in OLR.
