Navigating Women’s Friendships in American Literature and Culture

This volume presents a collection of critical essays that center women’s friendship in women’s literary and artistic production. Analyzing cultural portrayals of women’s friendships in fiction, letters, and film, these essays collectively suggest new models of literary interpretation that do not prioritize heterosexual romance. Instead, this book represents friendships as mature and meaningful relationships that contribute to identity formation and political coalition. Both the supportive and competitive aspects of friendships are shown to be crucial to women’s identities as individuals, political citizens, and artists. Addressing the complexities of how 20th- and 21st-century cultural texts construe women’s friendships as they navigate patriarchal institutions, this collection advances scholarship on friendship beyond men and masculine models. Kristi Branham is Associate Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies at Western Kentucky University, USA.She has published articles in the Journal of Higher Education Theory and Practice, Journal of American Studies, Literature and Film Quarterly, and contributed to the edited collection Home Sweat Home: Perspectives on House Work and Modern Relationships. Kelly L. Reames is Associate Professor of English at Western Kentucky University, USA. She is the author of Women and Race in Contemporary U.S. Writing: From Faulkner to Morrison and Toni Morrison's Paradise: A Reader's Guide.