Shifting Voices: Feminist Thought and Women's Writing in Fin-de-Siecle Austria and Hungary »

Agatha Schwartz is associate professor, German, University of Ottawa, and co-editor of The Third Shore: Women's Prose from East-Central Europe.

With the rise of modernism, the organized women's movement in Austria-Hungary became increasingly important and feminist concerns ranging from women's legal and political rights, access to education, professional opportunities, economic independence, and sexual freedom found expression in print. Agatha Schwartz analyses the connections between the women's movements and women's writing in Austria and Hungary to explore differences between works written in Austria and those coming from Hungary, whose urban culture was younger. She provides critiques of major works of fiction and theory by Rosa Mayreder, Grete Meisel-Hess, Margit Kaffka, and Szikra, among others.

Illustrations     vii
Acknowledgments     ix
Introduction: Feminism, the Women's Movement, and Women's Writing in the Context of Fin-de-Siecle Austria and Hungary     3
A "First Wave": The Emergence of a Feminist Discourse in Austria and Hungary     20
The Fight for Women's Education, Suffrage, and a New Sexual Paradigm     35
Feminism, Misogyny, and Viriphobia and Their Dialogic Relationship     74
The New Woman's Thorny Road to Independence     97
Sexuality, Desire, and the Female Subject     121
A Return to Tradition?     167
The City and its Metaphors     183
Conclusion     195
Authors' Biographies     201
Bibliography of Hungarian Fin-de-Siecle Women Writers     212
Notes     243
Bibliography     255
Index     271