ABSTRACT. Starting from an inquiry into the formation of the American feminist literary (counter)canon, the paper raises several questions about its future. It does so by focusing on three challenges currently posed by the new approaches to literature and the new direction of feminist ideology which threaten to destabilize this canon: the cultural-studies approach to literature as “cultural text,” the transnational view of literature under the impact of globalization, and the subversiveness of postfeminist ideology. The future of the feminist literary (counter)canon is discussed in relation with the much wider process of decanonization of American literature. pp. 24–32
Keywords: feminist literary canon, cultural studies, postfeminism, de-/re-territorialization of American literature, decanonization, multiculturalism, trans-nationalism, globalization