Contents: Introduction Revising the Canon: Italian Women Writers/Maria O. Marotti Part I: Canon Formation/Canon Revision Women Writers and the Canon in Contemporary Italy/JoAnn Cannon From One Closet to Another? Feminism, Literary Archaeology, and the Canon/Beverly Allen Italian "Difference Theory" A New Canon?/Renate Holub Part II: Renaissance Women: Rethinking the Canon Renaissance Women Defending Women: Arguments Against Patriarchy/Constance Jordan Selling the Self, or the Epistolary Production of Renaissance Courtesans/Fiora A. Bassanese Part III: At the Turn of the Century: Women Writers at the Margins of the Canon Double Marginality: Matilde Serao and the Politics of Ambiguity/Nancy Harrowitz The Diaries of Sibilla Aleramo: Constructing Female Subjectivity/Bernadette Luciano Narrative Voice and the Regional Experience: Redefining Female Images in the Works of Maria Messina/Elise Magistro Part IV: Contemporary Women Writers: Toward a New Canon Brushing Benjamin Against the Grain: Elsa Morante and the "Jetzeit" of Marginal History/Maurizia Boscagli From Genealogy to Gynealogy and Beyond: Fausta Cialente's Le Quattro Ragazze Wieselberger/Graziella Parati Ethnic Matriarchy: Fabrizia Ramondino's Neapolitan World/Maria Ornella Marotti Mythic Revisionism: Women Poets and Philosophers in Italy Today/Lucia Re Part V: Women as Filmmakers: Images of Women/Images by Women/Images for Women Monica Vitti: The Image and the Word/Marga Cottino-Jones Signifying the Holocaust: Liliana Cavani's Portiere di notte/Marguerite Waller Maria Ornella Marotti is a lecturer in Italian at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is the author of The Duplicating Imagination: Twain and the Twain Papers (Penn State, 1990).