Help with my feminism in literature presentation please!

[Jaquelinehyde]

Evening all, I am currently completing a womens writing and feminist theory module for my degree and I need to give a five min presentation in a few weeks (for 30% of my assignment mark) and I was hoping you could all help me

The book I have to give the presentation on is Zadie Smith's White Teeth. The presentation is only 5 mins long so I shall probably take 2-3 passages and pull them apart applying feminist theory and postcolonial theory.

My problem is I don't know where to begin. Does anyone have any opinions on the book, anything that jumped out at you (I'm still reading it) is there any theory that you can point me in the direction of that either talks about the book directly or can be applied to the book from a particular angle.

Basically Heeelp! Anything would be appreciated, I have a really important and scary hospital appointment the day before I deliver this so just want to feel as confident as possible.

[steviesmith]

It's a long time since I read it and I can't remember much about it. I was always interested in intertextuality; how texts refer to other texts.


You could look at it in the context of other black women writers; Zora Neale Hurston, Alice Walker and Toni Morrison are the ones I can immediately think of it. It is a very different British multiculturalism to the American writers. Interestingly I can't think of a tradition of black British female writers that you can place her in.

I'm sure there are lots of other references; Dickens, Salman Rushdie..

[Jaquelinehyde]

Stewie - JStore is my first port of call today fololowed quickly by Google scholar, hopefully they will both throw up some ideas or new angles.

Stevie - I like the issue you raise about no tradition of black British female writers. That's certainly something I would be interested in researching further. I think that may be something I will use for my full essay though, instead of the 5 min presentation.

[ElephantsAndMiasmas]

It's ages since I read the book, but I can't remember anything about any of the female characters in it. Who are they?

[InmaculadaConcepcion]

I remember being thoroughly bored by the passages involving the two geezers sitting in the cafe blathering on about stuff....

Not exactly a feminist crit, though!