In the past twenty years Quebec women writers, including Aline Chamberland, Claire Dé, Suzanne Jacob, and Hélène Rioux, have created female characters who are fascinated with bold sexual actions and language, cruelty, and violence, at times culminating in infanticide and serial killing. Paula Ruth Gilbert argues that these Quebec feminist writers are "re-framing" gender. Violence and the Female Imagination explores whether these imagined women are striking out at an external other or harming themselves through acts of self-destruction and depression. Gilbert examines the degree to which women are imitating men in the outward direction of their anger and hostility and suggests that such "tough" women may be mocking men in their "macho" exploits of sexuality and violence. She illustrates the ways in which Quebec female authors are "feminizing" violence or re-envisioning gender in North American culture. Gilbert bridges methodological gaps and integrates history, sociology, literary theory, feminist theory, and other disciplinary approaches to provide a framework for the discussion of important ethical and aesthetic questions.

Paula Ruth Gilbert is professor of French, Canadian, and women's studies, George Mason University.

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"Violence and the Female Imagination should find a place of honor in any university library with a Canadian studies or a top-notch cultural and literary studies collection. Indeed, while this book may deal principally (but not exclusively) with a Quebec corpus, its applicability to other literatures and cultures is abundantly manifest." American Review of Canadian Studies

"Violence and the Female Imagination should find a place of honor in any university library with a Canadian studies or a top-notch cultural and literary studies collection. Indeed, while this book may deal principally (but not exclusively) with a Quebec corpus, its applicability to other literatures and cultures is abundantly manifest." American Review of Canadian Studies
"This volume provides an excellent study of the state of Quebec society and literature at the turn of the twenty first century, and it is clear that the theoretical and cultural discussions throughout the book have many universal applications. Gilbert's prose throughout is balanced and well documented, and she poses important questions for the reader about women's roles in society and literature." Juliette M. Rogers, Macalester College

"This volume provides an excellent study of the state of Quebec society and literature at the turn of the twenty first century, and it is clear that the theoretical and cultural discussions throughout the book have many universal applications. Gilbert's p