This book is organized around three approaches towards understanding feminism --theoretical tenets,literary criticism and applications. Beginning with an account of the nature of feminist movement and mappin out the feminist ideology,the book proceeds to examine the complexities of feminist thought and the major concerns of feminist theory. This brings into close focus the issues of the 'otherness' and 'marginality'of woman'the essentialist/constructionist binarism in feminist theory the relational and individualistic aspects of feminist thought,and the spurt in feminist thought and theory in the wake of poststructuralist theories. The critique ultimately centres on the question is woman born or made ?.Feminist literary criticism as outlined in the book has developed as a component of the women's movement and its impact has brought about a revolution in literary studies. It has opened up altogether new perspectives and provided refreshing and insightful strategies in reading and responding to literary texts, this study offers an analysis of the selected works of Norman Mailer,Joyce Carol Oates,Margaret Atwood and Margaret Drabble from this perspective. The newly emerging dimensions of feminism have also been discussed in the context of the politics of postcolonial culture. About Author : Sushila Singh (b.1945) is Professor of English at the Banaras Hindu University. She obtained Ph.D. in 1969 for her thesis on Jane Austen. Senior Fulbright Fellow at the Department of English,Yale University,USA in the year 1992, she was awarded the Olive I. Reddick Proze (1994) for research in Literature (Senior Category) by the Indian Association for American Studies. She has published extensively on fiction,feminism and cultural criticism. Her publications include two books : Jane Austen: Her Concept of Social Life (1981) and Feminism and Recent Fiction in English (1991). Contents : Preface1. Feminism : The Movement and the Ideology2. Recent Trends in Feminist Thought : A Tour de Horizon3. Utopian Element in Feminist Thought4. Essentialist / Constructionist Binarism in Feminist Literary Theory5. Feminist Literary Criticism: Breaking the Silence6. Outlining Feminist Literary Criticism: Woman as Reader/ Writer Perspective7. Woman and Academe in America (1860-1900): A Historical Perspective8. From the Relational to the Individualistic: Woman Thought in Elizabeth Cady Stanton9. The Frontier in American History and the Concept of Masculinity10. Women in Norman Mailer's Novels11. Margaret Drabble in Quest for the Middle Ground12 Joyce Carol Oates: The Woman Question in her Exploration of the Contemporary Human Condition13 Joyce Carol Oates and Margaret Atwood : Two Faces of the New World Feminism14 Woman of the American West : Cultural Pluralism and the Question of Identity15 Multiplying Identities : Theorizind Difference Works Cited Index