Infiltrating culture
Subtitle: power and identity in contemporary women's writing
By: Mireille Rosello
Publisher: Manchester University Press; distributed exclusively in the USA and Canada by St. Martin's Press
Published: 1996
Place of publication: Manchester, UK; New York; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 205
Subjects: French literature -- 20th century -- History and criticism; Identity (Psychology) in literature; Feminism in literature; National characteristics, French, in literature
Description: The infiltrator may be a foreigner, a spy, a child, a cleaner, a woman. Like Donna Haraway's cyborg or Michel Serres' parasite, the figure of the infiltrator offers a powerful new way of articulating cultural difference and cultural practice. Issues of gender, race and age are all addressed in a subtle and forceful close reading of a series of texts - from Claire Bretecher's sharp-edged cartoons to Colette's recipes, from the diary of a Martinican cleaning lady to the James Bond thrillers.

Mireille Rosello's analysis explodes the notion of binary oppositions: the insider/outsider, black/white, straight/queer, rich/poor, solid/fluid. The infiltrator, she argues, is an ambivalent figure, one who penetrates a closed territory only to expose the fantasy upon which power relations are founded.

Rosello's lucid and passionate engagement with theories of multiculturalism and hybridity marks this as a major step forward in the field of cultural theory. As a critique of power, it is a seminal text and will be impossible to ignore.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [193]-199) and index