An Ethic of Innocence

"In An Ethic of Innocence, author Kristen Renzi provides a novel interpretative framework for reconsidering the epistemic claims of women in transatlantic literature from the late nineteenth century to the present. It is the first scholarly study of the ways in which gendered choices "not to know" have been represented, and critically received, within modern literature. The book grounds itself in the late nineteenth century's changing political and generic representations of women. Ultimately, it contends that these turn-of-the-century feminine figures who choose not to know, despite having been critically overlooked or dismissed as conservative or backward, can actually represent and model crucial pragmatic strategies by which modern and contemporary subjects navigate, survive, and even oppose gender oppression. Renzi offers a feminist theory of ignorance that sheds light on the misunderstood or overlooked epistemic practices of women in literature"--