Publishing feminism in the feminist press movement, 1969-1994

This dissertation engages major issues of late twentieth-century feminist theory through a cultural analysis of the twenty-five year history of U.S. feminist presses and their publication of groundbreaking works and argues that the feminist press movement is vital to the development of feminism as an inclusive social movement.;The opening chapter, "PressWork: The Print Evolution of Feminist Revolution," examines the initial impetus behind the establishment of the print apparatus of feminist production. Chapter Two, "Pressing Issues: Separatist Politics and the 1970s Feminist Publishing Movement," presents how the separatist debates involving Daughters, Inc. raised concerns about the material consequences of separatist practices for presses, writers, and readers in terms of economic survival, financial autonomy, and increased accessibility to movement ideas. Chapter Three, "True-to-Life Feminist Fictions," focuses on how the experimental fiction published by early feminist presses pioneered stylistic and thematic innovations that constituted a practice of feminist literary criticism. Chapter Four, "Coming to the Table: The Differential Politics of This Bridge Called My Back," engages theories of oppositional consciousness advanced by feminists of color to situate the publication of this important anthology within the context of U.S. feminism of the early 1980s. Finally, Chapter Five, "How Would We Market It?: Blood Ties in The Gilda Stories," uses Jewelle Gomez's Black lesbian vampire novel to contrast the feminist press's expansive response to a lesbian audience with mainstream publishing's narrow conception of a lesbian market.