Ideas and Literary Criticism
Sedgwick's oeuvre ranges across a wide variety of media and genres; poetry and artworks are not easily separated from the rest of her texts. Disciplinary interests included literary studies, history, art history, film studies, philosophy, cultural studies, anthropology, women’s studies and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) studies. Her theoretical interests have been synoptic, assimilative and eclectic.
Her work may be best suited to literary students who can cope with, make up their own minds about, and appreciate Sedgwick’s sometimes elaborate prose. She was fond of neologisms, and of extending the meaning of existing words and phrases in new directions. In her own estimate, her style of writing cannot be called easy to understand or clear in meaning, either. Sedgwick was not without her critics, however. Elizabeth Kantor, for example, suggests that Sedgewick's scholarship is seriously lacking, as when she "find some slight similarity between a Jane Austen novel and another text, and then argue from the other text."
Read more about this topic: Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
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