UI Press | Edited by Joan Newlon Radner | Feminist Messages: Coding in Women's Folk Culture

Feminist Messages

Coding in Women's Folk Culture

Awards and Recognition:

First Prize Winner of Elli Kongas-Maranda Prize, American Folkore Society.

Burning dinners, stitching "scandalous" quilts, talking "hard" in the male dominated world of rap music---Feminist Messages interprets such acts as instances of coding, or covert expressions of subversive or disturbing ideas. While coding may be either deliberated or unconscious, it is a common phenomenon in women's stories, art, and daily routines. Because it is essentially ambiguous, coding protects women from potentially dangerous responses from those who might be troubled by their messages.

"Will be welcomed by folklorists, anthropologists, oral historians, and scholars of literature, arts, and women's studies alike."--Marta Weigle, author of Spiders and Spinsters: Women and Mythology

Joan Newlon Radner is a professor of literature, Celtic studies, and folklore at American University, Washington, D.C.