âBrandishing Her Plumesâ: Virginia Woolf, Feather Tropes, and the Plumage (Prohibition) Bill

Saskia McCracken

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Chapter 10 âBrandishing Her Plumesâ: Virginia Woolf, Feather Tropes, and the Plumage (Prohibition) Bill

In: Modernism beyond the Human

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Saskia McCracken

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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 220â239

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004549685_012

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Abstract

This chapter argues that feathers and feathered women are major tropes in Virginia Woolfâs writing, tropes that enable new ways into her (anti)imperialist, and posthumanist feminist politics. What can Woolfâs 1920 feminist essay âThe Plumage Billâ tell us about the relationship between âinjustice against womenâ, empire, the posthuman, and feathers in her works? What kind of âtropological transformationsâ (Paul de Man) do her plumes undergo, as signifiers? This chapter places âThe Plumage Billâ in the context of global trade in fashion feathers, arguing that Woolf writes her way into what historian Antoinette Burton calls âBritish imperial feminismâ. I consider examples of feathers as tropes across Woolfâs fiction and nonfiction, tropes that both critique imperialist feminism, and take on posthuman layers of signification. This re-signification invokes an empathy for birds from a position of shared âothernessâ with women, and is expressed through the feathering of women across Woolfâs works. By analysing Woolfâs feather tropes we can see that her explicit opposition to the Plumage debate is problematic in the complicity of her feminism with imperialist discourse, if we think about the trope of the feather across her writing however, we can see an alternative source of opposition, which is posthumanist feminist.

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Modernism beyond the Human

Transnational Perspectives

Series:Â Critical Posthumanisms, Volume: 4

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004549685

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 29 Sep 2023

Subjects
- Literature and Cultural Studies

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Part 1 Modernism and the Nonhuman

Part 2 Modernist Animals

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Chapter 10 âBrandishing Her Plumesâ: Virginia Woolf, Feather Tropes, and the Plumage (Prohibition) Bill

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Modernism beyond the Human

Transnational Perspectives

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Chapter 10 âBrandishing Her Plumesâ: Virginia Woolf, Feather Tropes, and the Plumage (Prohibition) Bill