Surrealism, Feminism, Psychoanalysis

Using cultural sites such as women's magazines, fashions, debutante culture, sexology, the modernist lesbian subculture, pornography and female criminality, Lusty (gender and culture studies, U. of Sydney) analyzes female identity in terms of their own aesthetic and intellectual practice and women surrealists' uses of Freud's construction of femininity. She is proficient at locating the ambiguities about what constitutes "the feminine" by such thinkers as Breton, Bataille, Lacan and Benjamin and artists of various stripes, and through the lens of such as Cindy Sherman and Judith Butler investigates the modernist preoccupation with the subjectivity and representation. The result is a fresh look at how surrealism and gender inform literary criticism, gender studies, visual culture, cultural studies and cultural history, despite what Freud said about women. Annotation c2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Natalya Lusty is a Lecturer in the Department of Gender and Cultural Studies at the University of Sydney, Australia.