Delusional Girl

Genre and the Representation of Feminized and Feminist Subjectivity

Authors

  • Eva-Lynn Jagoe University of Toronto

Abstract

This essay compares the feminized subjectivity and agency that is represented in Lena Dunham’s 2014 coming-of-age memoir, Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She’s ‘Learned’, to the more complex depictions found in the dramatic comedy of her fictional show, Girls. In its production of a self who progresses towards self-knowledge, the memoir is inextricably shaped by the fantasies of neoliberal feminist individualism. In Girls, on the other hand, Dunham represents the contradictions of this kind of subject formation, thus exposing the frictions of contemporary liberal feminism.

Author Biography

  • Eva-Lynn Jagoe, University of Toronto

    Eva-Lynn Jagoe is an associate professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Toronto, where she teaches new media, film, literature, and cultural studies. She publishes both academic essays and creative writing. Her forthcoming book is a memoir of feminism and psychoanalysis, Take Her, She’s Yours (Punctum Books, Spring 2020).

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Published

2026-05-04

Issue

Vol. 32 No. 2 (2019): Feminist Bodies

Section

Main Section

License

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

How to Cite

Jagoe, E.-L. (2026). Delusional Girl: Genre and the Representation of Feminized and Feminist Subjectivity. FRAME, Journal of Literary Studies, 32(2), 11-26. https://platform.openjournals.nl/FRAME/article/view/27279