Annette Kolodny

Annette Kolodny (August 21, 1941 – September 11, 2019) was an American feminist literary critic and activist, held the position of College of Humanities Professor Emerita of American Literature and Culture at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Her major scholarly writings examined the experiences of women on the American frontiers and the projection of female imagery onto the American landscape. Her other writings examined some aspects of feminism after the 1960s; the revision of dominant themes in American studies; and the problems faced by women and minorities in the American academy.

Biography Kolodny was born in New York City to Esther Rifkind Kolodny and David Kolodny. She did her undergraduate work at Brooklyn College, from which she graduated Phi Beta Kappa magna cum laude in 1962. After graduation, she took a position on the editorial staff at Newsweek. Kolodny left to return to graduate studies in 1964, citing a desire "to teach people to think critically and because she wanted to be able to publish her own ideas, not merely report the ideas of others." Her first teaching position at Yale University was cut short as she left after a year to move to Canada with her husband, whose draft board appeal for conscientious objector status for the duration of the Vietnam War was rejected.

In New Hampshire, she wrote her first major work of feminist eco-criticism, The Lay of the Land: Metaphor as Experience and History in American Life and Letters (1975). While the book got positive reviews and pioneered the field of feminist ecocriticism, Kolodny was denied promotion and tenure in the English Department at the University of New Hampshire. (Richter 1387) Active in the student movements while in Berkeley, she continued to advocate for the right to establish a program in women's studies. She later sued the University of New Hampshire charging sex discrimination and anti-Semitism. She settled with the "largest financial award in history in a case of this kind".

Her books won many awards both in the United States and abroad. Over the course of her scholarly career, Kolodny has received grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Ford Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Rockefeller Humanities Fellowship, and others. She retired from the University of Arizona in July 2007, but continued working as a consultant in higher education policy issues and as a scholar of American literature and culture. She died on September 11, 2019, in Tucson, Arizona.

Works Kolodny's first two books were The Lay of the Land: Metaphor as Experience and History in American Life and Letters (University of North Carolina Press, 1975) and The Land Before Her: Fantasy and Experience of the American Frontiers, 1630-1860 (University of North Carolina Press, 1984); both of these texts deal with environmental concerns and the historic destruction of the land (Jay 217). Based on her experience as a senior administrator in higher education, Kolodny published Failing the Future: A Dean Looks at Higher Education in the Twenty-First Century (Duke University Press, 1998), which "details the extent to which women and non-white students are still outsiders on American campuses." It has been the subject of criticism in the years since its initial publication, but can still be seen as a guide to "feminist concerns and methodologies." in the second part of her theory:

Since the grounds upon which we assign aesthetic value to texts are never infallible, unchangeable, or universal, we must re-examine not only our aesthetics but, as well, the inherent biases and assumptions informing the critical methods which (in part) shape our aesthetic responses. (Kolodny 2158)

These three general theoretical principles are then supported by the concept of pluralism. Pluralism in this context refers to a conscious effort not to limit oneself to a single critical approach when reading a text. Rather, the object of pluralism is to make use of multiple critical approaches and to get a fuller appreciation of the variety of meanings which can be present in a single text. Kolodny specifically refers to a feminist pluralism, which validates "multiple interpretations of various texts" according to the usefulness of a pluralistic view of a text. This method of reading would give equality to different approaches as well as allow critical examinations of those same approaches, which in turn helps create the "broad critical awareness" advocated by Kolodny's third principle as outlined above.

The essay emphasizes the real situation of contemporary women. Kolodny believes that feminism and women's studies should not be confined to books or classrooms. "deas are important because they determine the ways we live, or want to live, in the world" (Kolodny 2164); ideas are therefore not meant to exist in a vacuum. Rather, they must be taken into the world through activism.

Criticism Several authors have criticized "Dancing Through the Minefield". The most well-known of these criticisms appeared in a collaborative article Kolodny wrote with Judith Gardiner, Elly Bulkin, and Rena Patterson entitled "An Interchange on Feminist Criticism: On 'Dancing Through the Minefield'", which was published in the journal Feminist Studies in 1983.

Both Bulkin and Patterson believe that Kolodny, while speaking to women in her essay, is only speaking to a certain group of women — those who are white, middle class, and heterosexual. Patterson states that "despite its language and intent, [the essay]…represents classist, white, and heterosexist attitudes which are common in feminist literary criticism and which contradict the best of feminist thought and the aims of the women's movement" (Patterson, 654). This is a common criticism of second-wave feminism: that it tended to ignore the problems of non-white and non-heterosexual women in favor of a homogenized white heterosexual feminist culture. However, Kolodny's advocacy of the concept of pluralism may offset this claim. While she does not specify that alternative critical approaches should come from different ethnicities or sexualities, there is no reason why they could not and such inclusion would only increase the scope of the "broad critical awareness" mentioned above.

Gardiner, on the other hand, disagrees with Kolodny about the use of pluralism. While there can be no single ideology to which all feminist theories belong, Gardiner writes, there are some strong ideological concepts that define areas of feminism. Examples of this would include liberal feminism, socialist feminism, and ecofeminism. In Gardiner's view, the strong ideological beliefs shared by these groups would "limit their susceptibility to pluralism." (Gardiner 634)

Failing the Future: A Dean Looks at Higher Education in the Twenty-First Century Kolodny's 1998 book is not a work of literary criticism, but rather one of institutional criticism. After serving as dean of Humanities for five years at the University of Arizona, Kolodny wrote this book in order to outline some of the problems facing academic institutions. These include the ability of legislators and administrators to make uninformed decisions about budget cuts without realizing the effect of such cuts on quality education; a myriad of problems about tenure and promotions processes, which Kolodny believes still reflect an attitude antagonistic to women or ethnic minorities; a problem with anti-feminist and anti-intellectual harassment; the lack of support available for students with children; the extent to which women and non-whites are still considered outsiders on university campuses; and the effect of an outdated curriculum in the face of greater demographic diversity and changing student learning needs. She outlines a number of changes which can be made to improve conditions and, realizing that any substantial change will require equally substantial money, encourages government reinvestment in higher education.