Women Among Monuments: Solitude, Permission, and the Pursuit of Female Genius - Paperback

by Kasia Van Schaik (Author)

A lyrical meditation on the enduring obstacles women artists and writers face in a world still unaccustomed to recognizing female genius.

What does it take for a woman to don the mantle of genius -- a title long reserved for male artists? From her studies in Montreal to a dead-end job in Berlin, a midnight tour of Paris, a bankrupt art residency on the Toronto Islands, and a mysterious sculpture garden in the Karoo desert, South African-Canadian author and professor Kasia Van Schaik considers what it means for a young woman to call herself an artist and claim a creative life.

Drawing on a diverse web of literary and cultural sources and artistic icons -- from Georgia O'Keeffe to Ana Mendieta, Gertrude Stein to Jamaica Kincaid, Leslie Marmon Silko to Bernadette Mayer -- Women Among Monuments asks, What, beyond a room of one's own, are the necessary conditions for female genius? Where does the inner flint of artistic permission come from? What is the oxygen that keeps it burning?

In her memoir interwoven with incisive biographies of female solitude, constraint, and perseverance, Van Schaik blazes a trail for more inclusive artmaking practices, communities, and monuments.

Author Biography

Kasia Van Schaik is the author of the linked story collection We Have Never Lived On Earth, which was longlisted for the Giller Prize and shortlisted for the Concordia First Book Prize and the ReLit Award for Short Fiction. Her writing has appeared in Electric Literature, the LA Review of Books, the Best Canadian Poetry, and the CBC. Kasia holds a PhD in English Literature from McGill University. She lives in Fredericton, where she teaches English and creative writing at the University of New Brunswick.