SOURCE: Wiegman, Robyn. “Critical Response I: What Ails Feminist Criticism? A Second Opinion.” Critical Inquiry 25, no. 2 (winter 1999): 362-79.

In the following essay, Wiegman uses Susan Gubar's article “What Ails Feminist Criticism?” as a point of departure for discussing some of the challenges facing contemporary feminist rhetoric.

In “Murder without a Text,” Amanda Cross (better known to academics as Carolyn Heilbrun) offers a tale of feminist generational fury and murder that might be of interest to readers of Susan Gubar's “What Ails [formerly “Who Killed”] Feminist Criticism?” (Critical Inquiry 24 [Summer 1998]: 878-902). Cross's murder mystery features a seasoned feminist scholar accused of bludgeoning a student to death. The murder takes place during a highly contentious women's studies senior thesis seminar, in which Professor Beatrice Sterling, an early Christian history specialist, has difficulty convincing students of the importance of academic research and canonical texts. To these students, as Sterling explains, “‘All...