Sifting the Feminine Bones: essays

Abstract

Sifting the Feminine Bones: Essays is a two-part project of critical analysis and creative nonfiction that examines how literary, cultural, and social constructions of femininity and the ways in which they influence our understanding of feminine identities. The critical introduction, "Resisting Definitions," takes a cross-disciplinary approach to examine how creative writers can reconceptualize the essay considering current conversations in the field of creative writing regarding inclusivity. When creative writers engage in the approach suggested in "Resisting Definitions," they see that our understanding of the essay changes when writers consider genre from the standpoint of rhetorical genre studies (RGS) and when thinking about the relationship between theories of genre and gender. Ultimately, this introduction argues that the essay is a genre that is feminine in its gendering and methodological approach to knowledge creation and extraction. The creative nonfiction component of this project is a collection of personal, lyric, and hermit crab essays that look at the writer's understanding of femininity in light of illness and disease. Sifting the Feminine Bones examines how illness and disease changes not only the physical body, but also considers the writer's evolving understanding of femininity and the stories our identities ask us to tell. This essay collection gathers those stories of identity rooted in a changed and changing body and works to break down constructions of femininity rooted in the body. The writer's deconstruction becomes a way of interrogating how the writer understands her body and the standards against which it has been measured and judged. Sifting the Feminine Bones also reflects on the iv challenges people face when their femininity resides outside the boundaries of supposed normalcy.