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I found Schweikart's essay very useful in developing my own thoughts on both reader response theory and feminist criticism. Therefore, I was a little disappointed that we didn't spend as much time on the text in class. There is so much in it! Even though I didn't agree with a lot of it, I still found her arguments interesting and thought-provoking.

The aspect of the essay I most wanted to highlight and discuss was what she lists as the second story of reading: Malcolm X learning to love to read in prison. I found this story extremely compelling. She quotes him as saying that "the ability to read awoke inside me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive." I love this disctinction he makes here between being alive and being mentally alive.

However, I was frustrated by the direction the rest of her essay took. After bringing in his story, she appears to dismiss it with a comment about Malcolm X's interpretation of Mendelian genetics, saying "whether you start with a black man or a white man, without a woman, you get nothing."

In fact, I found the story of Woolf's invented heroine, Mary, to greatly parallel his story. Schweickert does too, saying that both are subject to "the pervasive systemic injustices of our time." But how/why can/does she admit this similarity and then not include aspects of race in her ideal description of feminist criticism? Is this another example of a theorist who thinks that gender trumps race? Or thinks they must be analyzed differently? Or don't apply to each other? How? This is so short sighted. They affect each other! I don't think I know the answers to these questions, but I want to think about them.

I am so deelpy troubled by both her and Woolf's insistence on the strict dualist model of gender. Rigidly assigning all women and all men certain modes of communication is certainly, I hope, a dated rhetorical approach.

Flora