Feminism and feminist theory Books

Book SynopsisThis book is a thorough study about the upcoming of elite women in Eritrea, encompassing the time of the armed struggle for liberation as well as its aftermath up to the tenth anniversary of Eritrean independence in 2001 and beyond. It is a multi-disciplinary study, combining a comprehensive analysis of Eritrean history, society and political developments with extensive case study research into the lives of different groups of elite women. Modernisation processes created by the Eritrean revolution fostered an environment in which women are regarded as equal and encouraged to occupy positions of leadership. At the same time, the revolution’s hegemonic ideology does not envisage women opting out of its version of modernity, thus new avenues open up only for those who subscribe to the revolution’s narrative of progress. Furthermore, it is argued that while the Eritrean revolution played a decisive role in opening up possibilities for women’s emancipation, a failure to implement democratic structures of governance puts the revolution’s societal achievements at risk – its legacy might well rest with possibilities of personal liberation in individual lives.

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Book SynopsisKathryn Ambrose offers a new approach to the Woman Question in mid- to late-nineteenth-century English, German and Russian literature. Using a methodological framework based on feminist theory and post-structuralism, she provides a re-vision of canonical texts (such as Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Middlemarch, Effi Briest, Fathers and Children and Anna Karenina) alongside lesser-known works by Emily and Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot, Theodor Storm, Theodor Fontane, Ivan Turgenev and Leo Tolstoy. Her exploration of the semiotics of barriers – as opposed to the established approach of the semiotics of space – makes for a rewarding reading of this period of literature and establishes new cross-cultural and literary connections between the three countries.Table of ContentsContents Introduction Chapter 1: Brontë or Bell? Identity as Barrier in the Works of Charlotte and Emily Brontë Chapter 2: George Eliot and the “Superfluous Woman”: A Subtle Means of Protest? Chapter 3: Women in Theodor Storm: The Opposition of Conformity and Otherness Chapter 4: From Sleeping Beauty to Career Woman: The Development of Women’s Roles in Theodor Fontane Chapter 5: Turgenev and the Woman Question: Layering Barriers Chapter 6: Tolstoy, Women and Barriers: Inflexible Closedness Conclusion Bibliography

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Book SynopsisIn Between Feminism and Orthodox Judaism, Yael Israel-Cohen offers an analysis of the activism and identity of women considered at the forefront of the feminist challenge to Orthodoxy. Through a look at women’s battle over synagogue ritual and the ordination of women rabbis, an intricate and complex picture of identity, resistance, and religious change is revealed. Some of the central questions that Yael Israel-Cohen explores are: How do modern Orthodox women strategize to implement feminist changes? How do they deal with what at least on the surface seem to be conflicting allegiances? How do they perceive their role as agents of change and what are the ramifications of their activism for how we understand the boundaries of Orthodoxy more generally? "Between Feminism and Orthodox Judaism represents an interpretive study at its finest. It is well-written, theoretically sophisticated, and grounded within the literature. I highly recommend this book for scholars and nonscholars alike who are interested in studies of women’s resistance in conservative settings." Faezeh Bahreini, University of South Florida, TampaTable of ContentsPart I: Religion, Modernity, and Women Chapter 1: Religious Change and Women's Agency in Conservative Religions Chapter 2: Orthodox Judaism and Women's Standing Chapter 3: Methodology Part II: Exclusion and Resistance Chapter 4: The Battle over Women's Standing in Synagogue Ritual Chapter 5: Orthodox Women Rabbis? "It's only a matter of time" Part III: Behind the Label: "I am an Orthodox Feminist" Chapter 6: The Cultural Contextualization of Orthodox Feminist Identity Chapter 7: Orthodox Feminists talk about Feminism in a Wider Perspective Part IV: Orthodox Feminism beyond a Gendered Discourse Chapter 8: The Trend towards an Increasingly Hybrid and Pluralistic Orthodoxy Chapter 9: The Present and the Future of Orthodox Feminism Appendix: Interview Questions

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Book SynopsisThis book traces the artistic trajectories of Djuna Barnes and Jane Bowles, examining their literary representations of the nomadic ethic pervading the twentieth-century expatriate movements in and out of America. The book argues that these authors contribute to the nomadic aesthetic of American modernism: its pastoral ideographies, (post)colonial ecologies, as well as regional and transcultural varieties. Mapping the pastoral moment in different temporalities and spaces (Barnes representing the 1920s expatriation in Europe while Bowles comments on the 1940s exodus to Mexico and North Africa), this book suggests that Barnes and Bowles counter the critical trend associating American modernity primarily with urban spaces, and instead locate the nomadic thrust of their times in the (post)colonial history of the American frontier.

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Book SynopsisIn Marie Darrieussecq ou voir le monde à neuf, Colette Trout offers the first study in French of the novelist’s works, highlighting the innovative and transgressive nature of her writing that fearlessly deconstructs the clichés which paralyze our thinking. Dans Marie Darrieussecq ou voir le monde à neuf, Colette Trout offre la première étude en français des textes de l’écrivaine, soulignant les qualités novatrices et transgressives de son écriture qui déconstruit les clichés paralysant notre pensée.Table of ContentsPréface du directeur de la collection Remerciements Introduction : Dire autrement Chapitre un : La venue à l’écriture Chapitre deux : L’écriture de la perte et du vide Chapitre trois : Le corps dans tous ses états Chapitre quatre : Les zones du fantastique et de « l’entre-deux » Chapitre cinq : Déconstruire les clichés Conclusion : Voir le monde à neuf

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Book SynopsisSteve Shone’s Women of Liberty explores the many overlaps between ten radical, feminist, and anarchist thinkers: Tennie C. Claflin, Noe Itō, Louise Michel, Rose Pesotta, Margaret Sanger, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Mollie Steimer, Lois Waisbrooker, Mercy Otis Warren, and Victoria C. Woodhull. In an age of great and understandable dissatisfaction with governments around the world, Shone illuminates both the lost wisdom of the anarchists and the considerable contribution of women to intellectual thought, influences that are currently missing from many classes documenting the history of political theory.Table of ContentsIllustrations Introduction 1 Mercy Otis Warren, the So-Called “Republican” Patriot  1 The Legacy of Mercy’s Brother  2 Jemmy’s Sister: Never a Servile Servian  3 Subjugated People  4 Defining “Republican”  5 Mercy Otis Warren as a “Republican” 2 Louise Michel: Neither a Red Nor a Virgin?  1 Michel the Heroine of France  2 Michel the Anarchist 3 The Originality and Political Philosophy of Victoria C. Woodhull  1 The Originality of Victoria C. Woodhull  2 Victoria C. Woodhull as a Political Theorist 4 The Seductiveness of Tennie C. Claflin and of Her Ideas  1 Appearance  2 Marriage, Equality, and Social Change  3 Poverty 5 Lois Waisbrooker: Anarchist Opponent of Marriage  1 Waisbrooker’s Feminism  2 Waisbrooker’s Anarchism  3 Free Love  4 Spiritualism  5 No to Marriage 6 Itō Noe, Japanese Anarchist Follower of Emma Goldman  1 Anarchism  2 Free Love 7 The Radicalism of Elizabeth Cady Stanton  1 The Bible as a Weapon Used Against Women  2 Marriage and Divorce  3 Self-Sovereignty and the Solitude of Self 8 Margaret Sanger: The Scientist of Human Salvation  1 Sanger’s Anarchist Influences  2 Not a Marxist  3 Not a Racist  4 Birth Control and a New Morality 9 Forever an Anarchist: Mollie Steimer  1 Russia Attacked: Two Leaflets  2 Deported 10 Rose Pesotta, the Working Anarchist  1 Pesotta as an Anarchist Theorist  2 Pesotta as an Anarchist Union Activist Conclusion: Liberty Lost Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisWomen, Islam and Familial Intimacy in Colonial South Asia highlights the rich tradition of protest and defiance among the Muslim women of colonial India. Bringing together a range of archival material including novels, pamphlets, commentaries and journalistic essays, it narrates a history of Muslim feminism conversing with, and confronting the dominant and influential narratives of didactic social reform. The book reveals how discussion about marriage and family evoked claims of women’s freedom and rights in a highly charged literary and cultural landscape where lesser-known female intellectuals jostled for public space alongside well-known male social reformers. Definitions of Islamic ethics remained central to these debates, and the book illustrates how claims of social obligation, religious duty and freedom balanced and negotiated each other in a period of nationalism and reform. By doing so, it also illuminates a story of Muslim politics that goes beyond the well-established accounts of Muslim separatism and the Pakistan movement.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements List of Illustrations A Note on Transliteration Introduction 1 Women, Islam and Social Reform 2 Ethics and the Question of Family 3 Urdu Public Sphere 4 Gender and Nationalism 5 Structure of the Book 1 Familial Ethics and the Critique of Social Reform 1 Nineteenth Century Debates on Akhlaq: Ethics as Relationships 2 Reformist Censorship and the Battle for Women’s Voice 3 Fatherhood and Contentious Advice 4 Disruption of Social Reform: ‘Respectability’ as Oppression 5 Parent-child Relations, Rights and Social Authority 6 Conclusion 2 Marital Consent and the Discourse of ‘Women’s Freedom’ 1 Coercive Marriage and the Vision of Compatibility 2 Marital Compatibility as Social Practice 3 Marital Consent in Urdu Magazines 4 Pardah: Seclusion and/ or Participation 5 ‘Women’s Freedom’ 6 Conclusion 3 Conjugal Sexuality and the Politics of Reproduction 1 Bodily Health and Conjugality 2 Masculinity and Global “Anti-Vice” Campaigns 3 Sexual Pleasure, Female Sexual Desire and Reproduction 4 Eugenics and Family 5 Niyaz Fatehpuri: Colonial Knowledge and History of Sexuality 6 Conclusion 4 Polygyny 1 Sexuality and ‘Legitimate Polygyny’ 2 Social Reform and Its Advocacy of ‘Legitimate Polygyny’ 3 Critiques of Polygyny 4 Muslim Women’s Conference, 1918, Lahore 5 Polygynous Marriage of Saiyid ?Abid Husain and Saliha ?Abid Husain 6 Conclusion 5 Marital Annulment and Separation of Family 1 Talaq (Divorce) 2 Divorce and Male Authority 3 Respectability, Equality and Marital Annulment 4 Debating Strategies for Change 5 Women’s Freedom, Female Apostasy and Marriage 6 Two Men on Divorce: Dissolution of Muslim Marriages Act of 1939 7 Mahr and the Economy of Marriage 8 Ethical Dilemmas: Non-Legal Familial Conflict 9 Conclusion Postscript 1 Saiyida Bano Ahmad: Intimacy outside Marriage Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThis edited volume focuses on gender and love as emerging through complex “entanglements and weavings”. At a time when constructionist ideas are losing support, we interrogate theoretical paradigms to assess if constructionist notions still hold value or if new approaches are needed to address the effects of materiality and non-human agency. Without claiming any unison or definite answers, we offer situated, agential cuts into gender and love in various discursive-material phenomena, including Biblical and Rabbinic literature, ecosexual performance art, the writings of Ursula Le Guin and Angela Carter, butch identities, Bengali folktales, Ferzan Özpetek’s cinema, Golem literature, sexual pursuits in Danish nightlife, mother-daughter relationships, women warriors in the PKK, and BDSM performances. Artistic photographer Sara Davidmann has contributed to the book with the cover illustration and a creative afterword including seven photographs on the interaction between the photographer, her studio, and LGBTQ+ people.Table of Contents List of Illustration  Notes of Contributors  Introduction  Deirdre C. Byrne and Marianne Schleicher Part 1: Reflections on theory 1 Effects of Materiality in Israelite-Jewish Conceptions of Gender and Love: on a Necessary Synthesis of Constructionist and New Materialist Approaches  Marianne Schleicher 2 For Love of the World: Material Entanglements in Ecosexual Performance  Louis van den Hengel 3 “Yet the old woman will not sleep”: reading Motherhood in Ursula K. Le Guin’s Writing  Deirdre C. Byrne Part 2: Materiality in creative texts 4 Butch: a Cartography of Desire  Kelly Gardiner 5 Materiality and Agential Women in Animal Bridegroom Fairy Tales from Europe and Bengal  Amrita Chakraborty 6 Becoming-Woman in Angela Carter’s The Passion of New Eve  Wernmei Yong Ade Part 3: Fluid identities in heterotopic spaces 7 Ferzan Özpetek’s Cinema: a Post-Constructionist Approach to Gender and Love  Dikmen Yakalı-Çamoğlu 8 Love and Monsters: gender, Autonomy and Desire in Modern Golem Literature  Alana Vincent 9 Drinking, Dancing and Hooking Up: young Adults in Sexual Pursuit in Mainstream Nightlife in Denmark  Mie Birk Jensen Part 4: Social relata 10 Love in Different Climates: love, Care and Practices of Intimacy among Women in Hong Kong and Britain  Stevi Jackson and Petula Sik Ying Ho 11 New Arrangements of Embodiment, Materiality, Love and Gender in the Kurdistan Workers’ Party  Mustafa Kemal Topal 12 Bound and Entangled: masculinities, Embodiment and the Materialisation of Gender in the Sexual Field of the BDSM Club  Serena Petrella Part 5: Afterword 13 Eve, Adam and the Garden of Earthly Delights  Sara Davidmann  Index

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Book SynopsisThis book is an introduction to the role played by Spanish formal education in providing feminist pedagogies to adolescents and young people, throughout the first two decades of the 21st century. The images of Spanish feminist protests in recent years, with a considerable presence of young girls but also boys, have spread around the world. But what is their relationship with gender-based inequalities? What is the role of formal education in their understanding of social reality? The authors combine a sociological and historical analysis of the social and educational changes that have taken place in Spanish youth during these decades, with a pedagogical orientation towards practice.Table of ContentsContents Abstract Keywords  Introduction  1 Spanish Adolescence and Youth through a Gendered and Feminist Lens  2 An Advanced Country in Gender Equality Legislation  3 Despite the Legislation: Feminist Knowledge in the Educational Curricula  4 Putting Coeducation into Practice: How Schools Can Help Achieve Equality  5 Perspectives  Bibliography

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Book SynopsisThis book investigates how digitalization has affected entrepreneurship, labour markets, financial markets, and women's empowerment, underlining the opportunity it presents for a more inclusive and equal society. It explores how technology changes and creates gender, and the transformational potential it has for questioning conventional concepts of gender, drawing on the theories and critiques of cyberfeminism. The contributors discuss how women's agency and power in establishing emancipated cyberspaces are critically impacted by cyberfeminist conceptions of technical growth. Therefore, the volume sheds light on how technology may be a tool for women's empowerment and emancipation as well as how it might sustain current power imbalances and gender inequities by exploring cyberfeminism. The nexus of gender and technology is explored in depth by examining the connections between gendered, classed, and digital activities. In addition, this book looks at how technology may either support current power relations or provide disadvantaged people with a chance to question and disrupt them. Contributors are: Yarkın Çelik, Gözde Ersöz, Oktay Hekimler, Meltem İnce Yenilmez, Ayşe Mine İşler, Eylül Kabakçi Günay, Gökmen Kantar, Miray Özden, Kürşad Özkaynar, Fatma Pelin Erel, Mehtap Polat, Sedat Polat, and Gamze Yıldız Şeren.

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Book SynopsisWomen’s Movement critically explores the transgressive potential of feminist escape narratives and argues that they are, almost by definition, radically different from paradigmatic male escape narratives. While definitions of escape are necessarily broad, they have too often excluded the ambiguous escape – the escape most closely associated with the female. Indeed, feminist escape narratives often resist a happy ending, and Women’s Movement argues that these narrative closures reflect the changing face of feminism, as it sheds its old certainties, is faced with a monumental “backlash” and is refigured as the potentially less threatening “postfeminism”. Resisting the automatic association of “escape” with “escapist,” Women’s Movement analyzes male adventure and quest narratives, including Moby-Dick, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Blood Meridian, and Deliverance, before turning to a range of feminist texts. While being the first book to give critical attention to some postfeminist novels, Women’s Movement more often acts as a channel for offering different ways of approaching familiar feminist texts, including, among others, Marian Engel’s Bear, Atwood’s Surfacing and The Handmaid’s Tale, Joan Barfoot’s Gaining Ground and Dancing in the Dark, Anne Tyler’s Earthly Possessions and Ladder of Years, Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping, Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying and Margaret Laurence’s The Diviners.Trade Review"Women’s Movement is a talented work, a real contribution that proves its point incontestably…" - in: Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies 8.2.2002 "Women’s Movement is a valuable contribution to the on-going debates surrounding contemporary North American feminist fiction." - in: Atlantis 26.1 (2001) "stimulating text […]" - in: American Studies, Vol. 36 (2002), pp. 538-539 "… a remarkably insightful analysis of escape in literature. […] … an invaluable addition to the study of Canadian and American culture." - in: British Journal of Canadian Studies, 14.2Table of ContentsIntroduction: Transiency and Transgression: Feminist Literary Escape. Part One: (En)Gendering Escape. Chapter One: Escapist Literature and the Literature of Escape. Chapter Two: The Literature of Adventure. Chapter Three: The Literature of Quest Part Two: Charting the Disappeared. Chapter Four: Breaking the Ties that Bind: Escaping the 1970s. Chapter Five: From Hoboes to Handmaids: Divergent Impulses in the 1980s. Chapter Six: Patriarchy and Postfeminism: Refiguring the Ties that Bind.

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Book SynopsisThis book is about feminism, its critics, and its possible directions for change. The nine chapters raise questions about theories of sexual difference, power, justice and history. A central theme concerns the prospects for combining feminist with other, non-feminist, political perspectives.Table of ContentsPreface Lynda BURNS: Introduction Part One: Responding to Challenges Iris Marion YOUNG: The Complexities of Coalition Alison M. JAGGAR: Whose Politics? Who’s Correct? Chris BEASLEY: Speaking of Feminism . . . What Are We Arguing About? Part Two: Rethinking Feminist Alliances Jenna THOMPSON: The Purposes of Politics: A Feminist Inquiry Lisa FEATHERSTONE: Foucault, Feminism, and History Jacqui BROAD, KAREN GREEN, HELEN PROSSER: Emasculating Metaphor: Whither the Maleness of Reason? Susan DUGGIN, JASON PUDSEY: Care Ethics, Power and Feminist Socioanalysis Narelle LYDEAMORE: Pornography and Power Marguerite La CAZE: Splitting the Difference: Between Young and Fraser on Identity Politics Bibliography About the Author Index

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