Feminism and feminist theory Books

Book SynopsisA deep analysis of an enigmatic artist whose oeuvre opens new spaces for understanding feminism, the body, and identity Popular and pioneering as a conceptual artist, Rosemarie Trockel has never before been examined at length in a dedicated book. This volume fills that gap while articulating a new interpretation of feminist theory and bodily identity based around the idea of schizogenesis central to Trockel’s work.Schizogenesis is a fission-like form of asexual reproduction in which new organisms are created but no original is left behind. Author Katherine Guinness applies it in surprising and insightful ways to the career of an artist who has continually reimagined herself and her artistic vision. Drawing on the philosophies of feminists such as Simone de Beauvoir, Shulamith Firestone, and Monique Wittig, Guinness argues that Trockel’s varied output of painting, fabric, sculpture, film, and performance is best seen as opening a space that is peculiarly feminist yet not contained by dominant articulations of feminism. Utilizing a wide range of historical and popular knowledge—from Baader Meinhof to Pinocchio, poodles, NASA, and Brecht—Katherine Guinness gives us the associative and ever-branching readings that Trockel’s art requires. With a spirit for pursuing the surprising and the obscure, Guinness delves deep into a creator who is largely seen as an enigma, revealing Trockel as a thinker who challenges and transforms the possibilities of bodily representation and identity.Trade Review"Rather than merely offering a dry recounting of Rosemarie Trockel's career, sprinkled occasionally with analyses of key artworks, Schizogenesis uses the occasion of scholars' and critics' perplexity as an invitation to perform—imaginatively and enthrallingly—the associative and ever-branching readings which Trockel's art beckons."—Jane Blocker, author of Becoming Past: History in Contemporary Art"Katherine Guinness’s guiding concept of schizogenesis ingeniously frames Rosemarie Trockel’s multilayered practice in terms of split production and rapid regeneration, metaphors of procreation that simultaneously evoke destruction and violence. Written in lively, witty prose, this book does justice to Trockel’s complex works by thinking of them as ‘theoretical objects’ that demand Guinness’s extended, probing analyses."—Gregory H. Williams, author of Permission to Laugh: Humor and Politics in Contemporary German Art

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Book SynopsisA wide-ranging, interconnected anthology presents a diversity of feminist contributions to digital humanitiesIn recent years, the digital humanities has been shaken by important debates about inclusivity and scope—but what change will these conversations ultimately bring about? Can the digital humanities complicate the basic assumptions of tech culture, or will this body of scholarship and practices simply reinforce preexisting biases? Bodies of Information addresses this crucial question by assembling a varied group of leading voices, showcasing feminist contributions to a panoply of topics, including ubiquitous computing, game studies, new materialisms, and cultural phenomena like hashtag activism, hacktivism, and campaigns against online misogyny.Taking intersectional feminism as the starting point for doing digital humanities, Bodies of Information is diverse in discipline, identity, location, and method. Helpfully organized around keywords of materiality, values, embodiment, affect, labor, and situatedness, this comprehensive volume is ideal for classrooms. And with its multiplicity of viewpoints and arguments, it’s also an important addition to the evolving conversations around one of the fastest growing fields in the academy.Contributors: Babalola Titilola Aiyegbusi, U of Lethbridge; Moya Bailey, Northeastern U; Bridget Blodgett, U of Baltimore; Barbara Bordalejo, KU Leuven; Jason Boyd, Ryerson U; Christina Boyles, Trinity College; Susan Brown, U of Guelph; Lisa Brundage, CUNY; micha cárdenas, U of Washington Bothell; Marcia Chatelain, Georgetown U; Danielle Cole; Beth Coleman, U of Waterloo; T. L. Cowan, U of Toronto; Constance Crompton, U of Ottawa; Amy E. Earhart, Texas A&M; Nickoal Eichmann-Kalwara, U of Colorado Boulder; Julia Flanders, Northeastern U Library; Sandra Gabriele, Concordia U; Brian Getnick; Karen Gregory, U of Edinburgh; Alison Hedley, Ryerson U; Kathryn Holland, MacEwan U; James Howe, Rutgers U; Jeana Jorgensen, Indiana U; Alexandra Juhasz, Brooklyn College, CUNY; Dorothy Kim, Vassar College; Kimberly Knight, U of Texas, Dallas; Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, Ryerson U; Sharon M. Leon, Michigan State; Izetta Autumn Mobley, U of Maryland; Padmini Ray Murray, Srishti Institute of Art, Design, and Technology; Veronica Paredes, U of Illinois; Roopika Risam, Salem State; Bonnie Ruberg, U of California, Irvine; Laila Shereen Sakr (VJ Um Amel), U of California, Santa Barbara; Anastasia Salter, U of Central Florida; Michelle Schwartz, Ryerson U; Emily Sherwood, U of Rochester; Deb Verhoeven, U of Technology, Sydney; Scott B. Weingart, Carnegie Mellon U.

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Book SynopsisReexamining feminist sexual politics since the 1970s—the rivalries and the remarkable alliances Since the historic #MeToo movement materialized in 2017, innumerable survivors of sexual assault and misconduct have broken their silence and called out their abusers publicly—from well-known celebrities to politicians and high-profile business leaders. Not surprisingly, conservatives quickly opposed this new movement, but the fact that “sex positive” progressives joined in the opposition was unexpected and seldom discussed. Why We Lost the Sex Wars explores how a narrow set of political prospects for resisting the use of sex as a tool of domination came to be embraced across this broad swath of the political spectrum in the contemporary United States.To better understand today’s multilayered sexual politics, Lorna N. Bracewell offers a revisionist history of the “sex wars” of the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s. Rather than focusing on what divided antipornography and sex-radical feminists, Bracewell highlights significant points of contact and overlap between these rivals, particularly the trenchant challenges they offered to the narrow and ambivalent sexual politics of postwar liberalism. Bracewell leverages this recovered history to illuminate in fresh and provocative ways a range of current phenomena, including recent controversies over trigger warnings, the unimaginative politics of “sex-positive” feminism, and the rise of carceral feminism. By foregrounding the role played by liberal concepts such as expressive freedom and the public/private divide as well as the long-neglected contributions of Black and “Third World” feminists, Bracewell upends much of what we think we know about the sex wars and makes a strong case for the continued relevance of these debates today. Why We Lost the Sex Wars provides a history of feminist thinking on topics such as pornography, commercial sex work, LGBTQ+ identities, and BDSM, as well as discussions of such notable figures as Patrick Califia, Alan Dershowitz, Andrea Dworkin, Elena Kagan, Audre Lorde, Catharine MacKinnon, Cherríe Moraga, Robin Morgan, Gayle Rubin, Nadine Strossen, Cass Sunstein, and Alice Walker.Trade Review"Why We Lost the Sex Wars is a fascinating read. It provides a gripping social history of both feminist movement and of feminist political theory, including archival research into interviews and writings that current feminist ‘legends’ did as graduate students. This is intertwined with incisive and creative theoretical analysis of the arguments offered in courts, conferences, and publications. Lorna N. Bracewell shows that the so-called ‘sex wars’ were not warlike, nor a clear-cut duality, but rather multiple and complex, and that these debates and arguments still influence feminism and feminist theory today. In Bracewell’s account of the central role that feminists of color played, which is often overlooked, is particularly insightful and important. This book is essential reading for all of us interested in the history of late twentieth-century feminism and in understanding how we got to where we are today."—Nancy Hirschmann, author of Gender, Class, and Freedom in Modern Political Theory"Lorna N. Bracewell’s careful treatment of the feminist sexuality debates of the 1980s demonstrates how their framing in terms of liberal philosophies of the eighteenth century contributed to a reductive misunderstanding of key questions about freedom and sexuality that continue to resurface decades later. This is a timely and important work."—Judith Grant, Ohio University"Thoroughly researched, yet immensely readable, Why We Lost the Sex Wars provides a clear, illuminating, and utterly engaging account of antipornography feminism and sex radical feminists’ consequential encounters with liberalism. It details how liberalism remade both and, in that remaking, helped to foreclose feminist imaginations regarding damage and reparation and worked to lead us to our carceral present. It, rightly, highlights the oft-overlooked interventions of Black and ‘Third World’ feminists who critiqued the ‘monism’ of white antipornography and whose analysis helped to clarify that pornography could do far worse than simply objectify women. The book skillfully and seamlessly combines historical accounts and close textual reading. Among the latter method, the author's convincing illustration of the impact of antipornography feminism on one of liberalism's most revered feminist critics, Carole Pateman, stands out, as it demonstrates how the feminists, who we too often understand to have lost their fight ultimately, helped to shape her understanding of male power. An important contribution to feminist political theory."—Shatema Threadcraft, author of Intimate Justice: The Black Female Body and the Body Politic "A timely revisionist scholarly history certain to spark debate."—Kirkus Reviews "Why We Lost the Sex Wars is incredibly detailed, well-researched, and well-organized."—Kara Reviews "An illuminating retelling of this period of American feminist history."—The New Yorker "A thorough, thoughtful account of the multiple and evolving constellations of perspectives and interactions that composed the so-called Sex Wars."—Gender & Society Table of ContentsContentsIntroduction: Rethinking the Sex Wars1. “Pornography Is the Theory. Rape Is the Practice”: The Antipornography Feminist Critique of Liberalism2. Free Speech, Criminal Acts: Liberal Appropriations of Antipornography Feminism3. Ambivalent Liberals, Sex Radical Feminists4. Third World Feminism and the Sex WarsConclusion: The Liberal Roots of Carceral FeminismAcknowledgmentsNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisA trailblazing exploration of the political stakes of curiosity Curiosity is political. Who is curious, when, and how reflects the social values and power structures of a given society. In Curiosity and Power, Perry Zurn explores the political philosophy of curiosity, staking the groundbreaking claim that it is a social force—the heartbeat of political resistance and a critical factor in social justice. He argues that the very scaffolding of curiosity is the product of political architectures, and exploring these values and architectures is crucial if we are to better understand, and more ethically navigate, the struggle over inquiry in an unequal world. Curiosity and Power explores curiosity through the lens of political philosophy—weaving in Nietzsche, Foucault, and Derrida in doing so—and the experience of political marginalization, demonstrating that curiosity is implicated equally in the maintenance of societies and in their transformation. Curiosity plays as central a role in establishing social institutions and fields of inquiry as it does in their deconstruction and in building new forms of political community. Understanding curiosity is critical to understanding politics, and understanding politics is critical to understanding curiosity. Drawing not only on philosophy and political theory but also on feminist theory, race theory, disability studies, and trans studies, Curiosity and Power tracks curiosity in the structures of political marginalization and resistance—from the Civil Rights Movement to building better social relationships. Curiosity and Power insists that the power of curiosity be recognized and engaged responsibly.Trade Review "How curious that recent philosophy has been so incurious about curiosity. But Perry Zurn, to use his apt descriptor for Foucault, shows us how to be ‘incontrovertibly curious’ about curiosity itself. Zurn shows that this is no simple virtue but rather bears within itself a potential for dissecting dominations. There is a politics not only to our incuriosity but also to all our curiosities."—Colin Koopman, author of How We Became Our Data: A Genealogy of the Informational Person "This book is an invitation to engage in curiosity with careful attentiveness to otherwise possibilities. It is also a reminder that curiosity can turn situations into spectacles, cutting into bodies to extract knowledge and value. Perry Zurn navigates this ambiguity with insight, clarity, and compassion, teaching us to encounter the world anew, with both courage and humility."—Lisa Guenther, author of Solitary Confinement: Social Death and Its Afterlives "Curiosity and Power offers a call to acknowledge the importance of collective inquiry."—Art Discourse "The book crucially contributes not only to enhancing curiosity’s status in philosophical inquiry but also o enhancing the role of philosophy in curiosity studies. "—The European Legacy Table of ContentsContentsPrefaceWhy the Politics of Curiosity?1. A Political History of Curiosity Part I. Episodes from Political Theory2. Friedrich Nietzsche: Curiosity and the Scene of Struggle3. Michel Foucault: Institutionalized Curiosity and Resistance4. Jacques Derrida: Sovereign Curiosity and DeconstructionPart II. Archives of Political Experience5. Curiosity, Activism, and Political Resistance6. Cripping Curiosity: A Critical Disability Framework7. Trans Curiosity: Beyond the Curio Unsettling CuriosityAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex

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Book SynopsisA trailblazing exploration of the political stakes of curiosity Curiosity is political. Who is curious, when, and how reflects the social values and power structures of a given society. In Curiosity and Power, Perry Zurn explores the political philosophy of curiosity, staking the groundbreaking claim that it is a social force—the heartbeat of political resistance and a critical factor in social justice. He argues that the very scaffolding of curiosity is the product of political architectures, and exploring these values and architectures is crucial if we are to better understand, and more ethically navigate, the struggle over inquiry in an unequal world. Curiosity and Power explores curiosity through the lens of political philosophy—weaving in Nietzsche, Foucault, and Derrida in doing so—and the experience of political marginalization, demonstrating that curiosity is implicated equally in the maintenance of societies and in their transformation. Curiosity plays as central a role in establishing social institutions and fields of inquiry as it does in their deconstruction and in building new forms of political community. Understanding curiosity is critical to understanding politics, and understanding politics is critical to understanding curiosity. Drawing not only on philosophy and political theory but also on feminist theory, race theory, disability studies, and trans studies, Curiosity and Power tracks curiosity in the structures of political marginalization and resistance—from the Civil Rights Movement to building better social relationships. Curiosity and Power insists that the power of curiosity be recognized and engaged responsibly.Trade Review "How curious that recent philosophy has been so incurious about curiosity. But Perry Zurn, to use his apt descriptor for Foucault, shows us how to be ‘incontrovertibly curious’ about curiosity itself. Zurn shows that this is no simple virtue but rather bears within itself a potential for dissecting dominations. There is a politics not only to our incuriosity but also to all our curiosities."—Colin Koopman, author of How We Became Our Data: A Genealogy of the Informational Person "This book is an invitation to engage in curiosity with careful attentiveness to otherwise possibilities. It is also a reminder that curiosity can turn situations into spectacles, cutting into bodies to extract knowledge and value. Perry Zurn navigates this ambiguity with insight, clarity, and compassion, teaching us to encounter the world anew, with both courage and humility."—Lisa Guenther, author of Solitary Confinement: Social Death and Its Afterlives "Curiosity and Power offers a call to acknowledge the importance of collective inquiry."—Art Discourse "The book crucially contributes not only to enhancing curiosity’s status in philosophical inquiry but also o enhancing the role of philosophy in curiosity studies. "—The European Legacy Table of ContentsContentsPrefaceWhy the Politics of Curiosity?1. A Political History of Curiosity Part I. Episodes from Political Theory2. Friedrich Nietzsche: Curiosity and the Scene of Struggle3. Michel Foucault: Institutionalized Curiosity and Resistance4. Jacques Derrida: Sovereign Curiosity and DeconstructionPart II. Archives of Political Experience5. Curiosity, Activism, and Political Resistance6. Cripping Curiosity: A Critical Disability Framework7. Trans Curiosity: Beyond the Curio Unsettling CuriosityAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex

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Book SynopsisA radical new approach to humor, where traditional targets become its agents Humor is often dismissed as cruel ridicule or harmless fun. But what if laughter is a vital force to channel rage against patriarchy, Islamophobia, or mass incarceration? To create moments of empathy and dialogue between Black Lives Matter and the police? These and other such questions are at the heart of this powerful reassessment of humor. Placing theorists in conversation with comedians, Uproarious offers a full-frontal approach to the very foundation of comedy and its profound political impact. Here Cynthia Willett and Julie Willett address the four major theories of humor—superiority, relief, incongruity, and social play—through the lens of feminist and game-changing comics such as Wanda Sykes, Margaret Cho, Hannah Gadsby, Hari Kondabolu, and Tig Notaro. They take a radical and holistic approach to the understanding of humor, particularly of humor deployed by those from groups long relegated to the margins, and propose a powerful new understanding of humor as a force that can engender politically progressive social movements. Drawing on a range of cross-disciplinary sources, from philosophies and histories of humor to the psychology and physiology of laughter to animal studies, Uproarious offers a richer understanding of the political and cathartic potential of humor. A major new contribution to a wider dialogue on comedy, Uproarious grounds for us explorations of outsider humor and our golden age of feminist comics—showing that when women, prisoners, even animals, laugh back, comedy along with belly laughs forge new identities and alter the political climate. Trade Review"What happens when a professor of philosophy and a professor of history walk into a comedy club? If these professors are Cynthia Willett and Julie Willett, they write a brilliantly astute, acutely insightful, and sharply original book on gender, politics, ethnicities, empathy, humanism, and humor. In Uproarious, they stand up for the power of stand up, with Wanda Sykes, Margaret Cho, Hannah Gadsby, Hari Kondabolu, and Tig Notaro headlining their deeply erudite arguments. The result is an intellectual riot, overturning shibboleths and raising the roof—while breaking the glass ceiling—of ideas about women and comedy."—Gina Barreca, author of “If You Lean In, Will Men Just Look Down Your Blouse?”: Questions and Thoughts for Loud, Smart Women in Turbulent Times"Cynthia Willett and Julie Willett take the reader on a delightful and inspiring voyage into the belly of satire, comedy, and laughter. While we may have a visceral sense of humor’s powers, philosophy has not yet found the language for it. In giving us just that, Uproarious expands our understanding of feminist and race politics and exposes dimensions of sociality, embodiment, and empathy that carry rich (and, yes, humorous!) implications for critical theory and aesthetics."—Monique Roelofs, author of The Cultural Promise of the Aesthetic"If you think humans are the only animals with a sense of humor, Uproarious surely will break you out of your misleading speciesist perspective. There's a lot we can learn from other animals about how and why humans' sense of humor evolved. This wide-ranging, transdisciplinary, and future-looking collection of essays nicely lays the groundwork for stimulating discussions freed from human exceptionalism."—Marc Bekoff, University of Colorado

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Book SynopsisA radical new approach to humor, where traditional targets become its agents Humor is often dismissed as cruel ridicule or harmless fun. But what if laughter is a vital force to channel rage against patriarchy, Islamophobia, or mass incarceration? To create moments of empathy and dialogue between Black Lives Matter and the police? These and other such questions are at the heart of this powerful reassessment of humor. Placing theorists in conversation with comedians, Uproarious offers a full-frontal approach to the very foundation of comedy and its profound political impact. Here Cynthia Willett and Julie Willett address the four major theories of humor—superiority, relief, incongruity, and social play—through the lens of feminist and game-changing comics such as Wanda Sykes, Margaret Cho, Hannah Gadsby, Hari Kondabolu, and Tig Notaro. They take a radical and holistic approach to the understanding of humor, particularly of humor deployed by those from groups long relegated to the margins, and propose a powerful new understanding of humor as a force that can engender politically progressive social movements. Drawing on a range of cross-disciplinary sources, from philosophies and histories of humor to the psychology and physiology of laughter to animal studies, Uproarious offers a richer understanding of the political and cathartic potential of humor. A major new contribution to a wider dialogue on comedy, Uproarious grounds for us explorations of outsider humor and our golden age of feminist comics—showing that when women, prisoners, even animals, laugh back, comedy along with belly laughs forge new identities and alter the political climate. Trade Review"What happens when a professor of philosophy and a professor of history walk into a comedy club? If these professors are Cynthia Willett and Julie Willett, they write a brilliantly astute, acutely insightful, and sharply original book on gender, politics, ethnicities, empathy, humanism, and humor. In Uproarious, they stand up for the power of stand up, with Wanda Sykes, Margaret Cho, Hannah Gadsby, Hari Kondabolu, and Tig Notaro headlining their deeply erudite arguments. The result is an intellectual riot, overturning shibboleths and raising the roof—while breaking the glass ceiling—of ideas about women and comedy."—Gina Barreca, author of “If You Lean In, Will Men Just Look Down Your Blouse?”: Questions and Thoughts for Loud, Smart Women in Turbulent Times"Cynthia Willett and Julie Willett take the reader on a delightful and inspiring voyage into the belly of satire, comedy, and laughter. While we may have a visceral sense of humor’s powers, philosophy has not yet found the language for it. In giving us just that, Uproarious expands our understanding of feminist and race politics and exposes dimensions of sociality, embodiment, and empathy that carry rich (and, yes, humorous!) implications for critical theory and aesthetics."—Monique Roelofs, author of The Cultural Promise of the Aesthetic"If you think humans are the only animals with a sense of humor, Uproarious surely will break you out of your misleading speciesist perspective. There's a lot we can learn from other animals about how and why humans' sense of humor evolved. This wide-ranging, transdisciplinary, and future-looking collection of essays nicely lays the groundwork for stimulating discussions freed from human exceptionalism."—Marc Bekoff, University of Colorado

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Book SynopsisWinner of Outstanding Book Award of Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Human RightsAn award-winning and canonical history of radical feminism, whose activist heat and intellectual audacity powered second-wave feminism—30th anniversary edition A fascinating chronicle of radical feminism’s rise and fall from the mid-Sixties to the mid-Seventies, Daring to Be Bad is a must-read for both students of gender history and activists of intersectionality. This thirtieth anniversary edition reveals how current debates about race, transgender rights, queer theory, and sexuality echo issues that galvanized and divided feminists fifty years ago. Trade Review"Thirty years after its publication, Daring to Be Bad feels more essential than ever. Alice Echols captures the heady vision of radical feminism and documents the wrenching challenges the movement confronted, not least within its own ranks. Both rigorous and generous, Daring to Be Bad offers vital lessons to students of the revolutionary past, and to aspirants for a feminist future."—Jane Kamensky, Pforzheimer Foundation Director of the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America “Many younger feminists have a fairly negative stereotype of radical feminism: that it was an exclusively white and middle-class movement that promoted gender essentialism, ‘woman’s energy,’ separatism transphobia, and banning pornography . . . No book shattered that stereotype for me more than Daring to Be Bad.” —Julia Serano, bitchmedia “To learn more about the rise and fall of radical feminism, I highly recommend Alice Echols’s Daring to Be Bad, a detailed and vivid account of the movement’s history.”—Susan Faludi, The New Yorker “This balanced study deftly explores feminism, from its break with the coalition of leftist activist groups of the ’60s to its abandonment of radicalism and separatism in the ’70s. . . . Echols masterfully re-creates a perpetually divisive atmosphere.” —Publishers Weekly “If we are still debating the relative importance of gender, class, and race, combating the power of capitalism and patriarchy, this valuable study shows that the discussion owes much to the radical feminists who hewed out the outlines of these issues.”—Library Journal “Daring to Be Bad offers the kind of critical attention that contemporary feminism has lacked.” —The Nation “Far beyond mere nostalgic value, the enduring worth of Echols’s book is as a resource, not only for future women’s studies courses but for all who want to understand contemporary feminism. The book supplies essential background that explains the splits that persist in the feminist movement today. . . . Cheers to Daring to Be Bad.” —New Directions for Women “Daring to Be Bad is a welcome addition to feminist bookshelves. It breaks new ground, making creative use of extensive interviews and early feminist publications to recreate the environment that elicited and shaped radical feminism.” —Sojourner “Daring to Be Bad is like a long consciousness-raising session: it prods, validates, and witnesses. Echols offers an oral history that is also an homage. . . . we’re given the benefit of a clear and honest eye cast over two decades’ span of women working on that most influential social struggle toward liberation.” —Village Voice “This fine and sympathetic interpretation of the origin and evolution of radical feminism will give students of women’s history a glimpse of the passion of those hours and help explain why a new order did not emerge from them.” —American Historical Review “Echols gives a rich, detailed history of radical feminism’s heyday from 1967 to 1971 . . . offers the type of critical interpretation of the women’s liberation movement that contemporary feminism has lacked.” —Socialist Review “Daring to Be Bad is path-breaking . . . based on abundant and painstaking interviewing, as well as the tracking down and assembling of the ephemera of short-lived committees, cells, and association. . . . Echols’s writing is lucid, detailed, and extremely responsible.” —American Quarterly

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Book SynopsisA provocative peek into this complicated film as a space for subversion, activism, and imaginative powerWhile both fans and foes point to Mad Max: Fury Road’s feminist credentials, Furious Feminisms asks: is there really anything feminist or radical happening on the screen? The four authors—from backgrounds in art history, American literature, disability studies, and sociology—ask what is possible, desirable, or damaging in theorizing feminism in the contested landscape of the twenty-first century. Can we find beauty in the Anthropocene? Can power be wrested from a violent system without employing and perpetuating violence? This experiment in collaborative criticism weaves multiple threads of dialogue together to offer a fresh perspective on our current cultural moment. Forerunners: Ideas First Short books of thought-in-process scholarship, where intense analysis, questioning, and speculation take the lead

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Book SynopsisConstructing a new approach for centering empire in productions of racialized, gendered, and sexualized difference One of the oldest, most persistent issues in gender and sexuality studies is the dominance of white, northern theorizing and its consequences for what we know about sex, gender, and sexuality. There is an ongoing neglect of the significance of histories of empire and coloniality, particularly in U.S. sociology, where the United States and its theoretical productions are routinely sanitized of such histories. In Webbed Connectivities, Vrushali Patil offers a global historical sociology that reembeds the United States within histories of empire, situating the emergence of northern and U.S.-based concepts and frameworks squarely within these histories.Webbed Connectivities intercepts the political economy of knowledge production within the social sciences to argue for the work of centering the role of imperial hierarchies in knowledge production and circulation. Patil develops a new approach—webbed connectivities—which tracks imperial processes and impacts across borders, shifting from an emphasis on particular experiences and identities to the constitution and creation of the categories themselves.A sociologist of feminist thought and gender and sexuality studies, Patil explores the theoretical spaces that spotlighting imperial hierarchies within knowledge production might open, including making productive and essential connections across sites of the global south and north.Trade Review"Singular and groundbreaking! Webbed Connectivities undercuts U.S. sociology’s investments in colonial legacies, epistemologies, and categories. Vrushali Patil brilliantly shows that gender and sexuality are neither universal nor western categories but are, instead, products of intricate transnational webs of racial and imperial entanglements. The eye-opening research and piercing arguments make it impossible to return to the business of gender and sexuality (and sociology) as usual."—Jyoti Puri, author of Sexual States: Governance and the Struggle over the Antisodomy Law in India"Vrushali Patil has written an historically informed and theoretically rich text that will transform how global and transnational sociologists think about the intersection of sexuality, race, and empire. Through careful historical study and nuanced theoretical engagement, Webbed Connectivities challenges many of our extant concepts while offering a path forward for new and exciting work."—Zine Magubane, Boston College"Vrushali Patil's Webbed Connectivities analyzes how empire occupies the concepts that we use to think gender and sexuality. In doing so, the book provincializes both those concepts and the procedures that make up the sociology of sex and gender. May the field of sociology learn this book's lessons and learn them well."—Roderick A. Ferguson, author of One-Dimensional QueerTable of ContentsContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Where Is the Transnational (and the Imperial)?1. The Heterosexual Matrix as Imperial Effect2. The Biopolitics of Binary Bodies: Considering Scale, Race, and Empire3. The Special Oriental Vice, the Savage Vice, and the Sexual Furor: Racial-Imperial Webs and the Invention of “Modern” Sexuality4. The Reordering of Empire and the American Invention of GenderConclusion: Locating the Transnational and the ImperialNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisConstructing a new approach for centering empire in productions of racialized, gendered, and sexualized difference One of the oldest, most persistent issues in gender and sexuality studies is the dominance of white, northern theorizing and its consequences for what we know about sex, gender, and sexuality. There is an ongoing neglect of the significance of histories of empire and coloniality, particularly in U.S. sociology, where the United States and its theoretical productions are routinely sanitized of such histories. In Webbed Connectivities, Vrushali Patil offers a global historical sociology that reembeds the United States within histories of empire, situating the emergence of northern and U.S.-based concepts and frameworks squarely within these histories.Webbed Connectivities intercepts the political economy of knowledge production within the social sciences to argue for the work of centering the role of imperial hierarchies in knowledge production and circulation. Patil develops a new approach—webbed connectivities—which tracks imperial processes and impacts across borders, shifting from an emphasis on particular experiences and identities to the constitution and creation of the categories themselves.A sociologist of feminist thought and gender and sexuality studies, Patil explores the theoretical spaces that spotlighting imperial hierarchies within knowledge production might open, including making productive and essential connections across sites of the global south and north.Trade Review"Singular and groundbreaking! Webbed Connectivities undercuts U.S. sociology’s investments in colonial legacies, epistemologies, and categories. Vrushali Patil brilliantly shows that gender and sexuality are neither universal nor western categories but are, instead, products of intricate transnational webs of racial and imperial entanglements. The eye-opening research and piercing arguments make it impossible to return to the business of gender and sexuality (and sociology) as usual."—Jyoti Puri, author of Sexual States: Governance and the Struggle over the Antisodomy Law in India"Vrushali Patil has written an historically informed and theoretically rich text that will transform how global and transnational sociologists think about the intersection of sexuality, race, and empire. Through careful historical study and nuanced theoretical engagement, Webbed Connectivities challenges many of our extant concepts while offering a path forward for new and exciting work."—Zine Magubane, Boston College"Vrushali Patil's Webbed Connectivities analyzes how empire occupies the concepts that we use to think gender and sexuality. In doing so, the book provincializes both those concepts and the procedures that make up the sociology of sex and gender. May the field of sociology learn this book's lessons and learn them well."—Roderick A. Ferguson, author of One-Dimensional QueerTable of ContentsContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Where Is the Transnational (and the Imperial)?1. The Heterosexual Matrix as Imperial Effect2. The Biopolitics of Binary Bodies: Considering Scale, Race, and Empire3. The Special Oriental Vice, the Savage Vice, and the Sexual Furor: Racial-Imperial Webs and the Invention of “Modern” Sexuality4. The Reordering of Empire and the American Invention of GenderConclusion: Locating the Transnational and the ImperialNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisA twentieth-anniversary edition of this tour de force in feminism and Indigenous studies, now with a new preface The twentieth anniversary of the original publication of this influential and prescient work is commemorated with a new edition of Talkin’ Up to the White Woman by Aileen Moreton-Robinson. In this bold book, of its time and ahead of its time, whiteness is made visible in power relations, presenting a dialogic of how white feminists represent Indigenous women in discourse and how Indigenous women self-present. Moreton-Robinson argues that white feminists benefit from colonization: they are overwhelmingly represented and disproportionately predominant, play the key roles, and constitute the norm, the ordinary, and the standard of womanhood. They do not self-present as white but rather represent themselves as variously classed, sexualized, aged, and abled. The disjuncture between representation and self-presentation of Indigenous women and white feminists illuminates different epistemologies and an incommensurability in the social construction of gender.Not so much a study of white womanhood, Talkin’ Up to the White Woman instead reveals an invisible racialized subject position represented and deployed in power relations with Indigenous women. The subject position occupied by middle-class white women is embedded in material and discursive conditions that shape the nature of power relations between white feminists and Indigenous women—and the unjust structural relationship between white society and Indigenous society. Table of ContentsContents20th Anniversary Preface by Aileen Moreton-RobinsonPreface by Karen BrodkinIntroduction: Talkin’ the TalkChapter OneTellin’ It Straight: Self-Presentation withinIndigenous Women’s Life WritingsChapter TwoLook Out White Woman: Representations of“The White Woman” in Feminist TheoryChapter ThreePuttem “Indigenous Woman”: Representations of the“Indigenous Woman” in White Women’s Ethnographic WritingsChapter FourLittle Bit Woman: Representations of Indigenous Womenin White Australian FeminismChapter FiveWhite Women’s Way: Self-Presentation withinWhite Feminist Academics’ TalkChapter SixTiddas Speakin’ Strong: Indigenous Women’sSelf-Presentation within White Australian FeminismChapter SevenConclusion: Talkin’ Up to the White WomanNotesReferencesIndexWhiteness Matters: Implications ofTalkin’ Up to the White WomanAcknowledgements

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Book SynopsisWho’s worse, the Young-Girl or the Man-Child? Tiqqun’s Preliminary Materials for a Theory of the Young-Girl is a controversial work of anticapitalist philosophy that has attracted musicians, playwrights, feminist theorists, and men's-rights activists since its publication in 1999. More than twenty years after its publication the international reverberation of Young-Girls shows no signs of weakening. Young-Girls in Echoland: #Theorizing Tiqqun is a guide to this ongoing postdigital conversation, engaging with artworks and textual criticism provoked by Tiqqun’s audacious, arguably misogynistic textual voice. Heather Warren-Crow and Andrea Jonsson show how Tiqqun’s polarizing figure has grown and matured but also stayed unapologetically girly in the works of artists and scholars discussed here. Rethinking the myth of Echo and Narcissus by performing a different kind of listening, they take us on a journey from VSCO girls to basic bitches to vampires.With an ear for the sound of Tiqqun’s polemic and its ensemble of Anglophone and Francophone rejoinders, Young-Girls in Echoland offers a model for analyzing the call-and-response of pop philosophy and for hearing the affective rhythms of communicative capitalism.Forerunners: Ideas First is a thought-in-process series of breakthrough digital publications. Written between fresh ideas and finished books, Forerunners draws on scholarly work initiated in notable blogs, social media, conference plenaries, journal articles, and the synergy of academic exchange. This is gray literature publishing: where intense thinking, change, and speculation take place in scholarship.Table of ContentsContentsIntroduction: Garbage-Core Is My Favorite Kind of Music1. Iteration2. Orality3. Conclusion, or Fucking UpAcknowledgments

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Book SynopsisRecovering the bold voices and audacious lives of women who confronted capitalist society’s failures and injustices in the 1930s—a decade unnervingly similar to our own In the Company of Radical Women Writers rediscovers the political commitments and passionate advocacy of seven writers—Black, Jewish, and white—who as young women turned to communism around the Great Depression and, over decades of national crisis, spoke to issues of labor, land, and love in ways that provide urgent, thought-provoking guidance for today. Rosemary Hennessy spotlights the courageous lives of women who confronted similar challenges to those we still face: exhausting and unfair labor practices, unrelenting racial injustice, and environmental devastation.As Hennessy brilliantly shows, the documentary journalism and creative and biographical writings of Marvel Cooke, Louise Thompson Patterson, Claudia Jones, Alice Childress, Josephine Herbst, Meridel Le Sueur, and Muriel Rukeyser recognized that life is sustained across a web of dependencies that we each have a duty to maintain. Their work brought into sharp focus the value and dignity of Black women’s domestic work, confronted the destructive myths of land exploitation and white supremacy, and explored ways of knowing attuned to a life-giving erotic energy that spans bodies and relations. In doing so, they also expanded the scope of American communism.By tracing the attention these seven women pay to “life-making” as the relations supporting survival and wellbeing—from Harlem to the American South and Midwest—In the Company of Radical Women Writers reveals their groundbreaking reconceptions of the political and provides bracing inspiration in the ongoing fight for justice.Trade Review "This truly revelatory work pushes the already rich encounters between contemporary left feminist scholars and 1930s radical women writers in new directions—new ways of thinking and new fields of desire. Beautifully written, it is a model of engaged, compassionate, and grounded activist research."—Paula Rabinowitz, author of American Pulp: How Paperbacks Brought Modernism to Main Street and coeditor of Writing Red: An Anthology of American Women Writers, 1930-1940 "Rosemary Hennessy’s latest book (re)introduces women writers of the Communist Left who thought the unthinkable of their time and increasingly ours: Black left feminism, radical ecology, the ‘erotics of race work.’ Their work, and Hennessy’s, are primers and love letters for liberation. In the Company of Radical Women Writers exemplifies materialist feminism, scholarship on the American Left, and literary studies for the twenty-first century."—Cheryl Higashida, author of Black Internationalist Feminism: Women Writers of the Black Left, 1945-1995 "In the Company of Radical Women Writers is significant; it covers 1930s literary history, the civil rights and women’s rights movements, and the under-heralded work of seven powerful writers."—Foreword

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Book SynopsisRecovering the bold voices and audacious lives of women who confronted capitalist society’s failures and injustices in the 1930s—a decade unnervingly similar to our own In the Company of Radical Women Writers rediscovers the political commitments and passionate advocacy of seven writers—Black, Jewish, and white—who as young women turned to communism around the Great Depression and, over decades of national crisis, spoke to issues of labor, land, and love in ways that provide urgent, thought-provoking guidance for today. Rosemary Hennessy spotlights the courageous lives of women who confronted similar challenges to those we still face: exhausting and unfair labor practices, unrelenting racial injustice, and environmental devastation.As Hennessy brilliantly shows, the documentary journalism and creative and biographical writings of Marvel Cooke, Louise Thompson Patterson, Claudia Jones, Alice Childress, Josephine Herbst, Meridel Le Sueur, and Muriel Rukeyser recognized that life is sustained across a web of dependencies that we each have a duty to maintain. Their work brought into sharp focus the value and dignity of Black women’s domestic work, confronted the destructive myths of land exploitation and white supremacy, and explored ways of knowing attuned to a life-giving erotic energy that spans bodies and relations. In doing so, they also expanded the scope of American communism.By tracing the attention these seven women pay to “life-making” as the relations supporting survival and wellbeing—from Harlem to the American South and Midwest—In the Company of Radical Women Writers reveals their groundbreaking reconceptions of the political and provides bracing inspiration in the ongoing fight for justice.Trade Review "This truly revelatory work pushes the already rich encounters between contemporary left feminist scholars and 1930s radical women writers in new directions—new ways of thinking and new fields of desire. Beautifully written, it is a model of engaged, compassionate, and grounded activist research."—Paula Rabinowitz, author of American Pulp: How Paperbacks Brought Modernism to Main Street and coeditor of Writing Red: An Anthology of American Women Writers, 1930-1940 "Rosemary Hennessy’s latest book (re)introduces women writers of the Communist Left who thought the unthinkable of their time and increasingly ours: Black left feminism, radical ecology, the ‘erotics of race work.’ Their work, and Hennessy’s, are primers and love letters for liberation. In the Company of Radical Women Writers exemplifies materialist feminism, scholarship on the American Left, and literary studies for the twenty-first century."—Cheryl Higashida, author of Black Internationalist Feminism: Women Writers of the Black Left, 1945-1995 "In the Company of Radical Women Writers is significant; it covers 1930s literary history, the civil rights and women’s rights movements, and the under-heralded work of seven powerful writers."—Foreword

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Book SynopsisNow available in paperback with a new preface and foreword by Stella Nkomo. How might imperialist, masculinist and white supremacist grips on leadership be loosened? In this thought-provoking and accessible new study, Helena Liu suggests that anti-racist feminism can challenge conventional models and practices of power. Combining a critical review of leadership theory with enlightening examples from around the world, the book shows how the intellectual and activist elements of feminist movements provide antidotes to contemporary leadership research and practice. For those interested in management, organisation, feminism, race and many more studies, it sets the agenda for a radical reimagining of control and leadership in all its forms.Trade Review“Helena Liu writes an incisive critique of whiteness and anti-woman scholarship while articulating a stirring call for change in the way we think about, practice and research Leadership. A must-read for any scholar seriously engaging with Leadership.” Sadhvi Dar, Queen Mary University of LondonTable of ContentsIntroduction Part I: The Violences of Leadership Dominance Purity Destruction Salvation Part II: Anti- Racist Feminist Redemption Anti-Racist Feminisms Undoing Leadership White Allyship Restoration

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Book SynopsisWith austerity’s disproportionately heavy impact on women now apparent, this engaging book considers activism against it from a feminist perspective. Emma Craddock goes deep inside activist culture to explore the many cultural and emotional dimensions of political participation. She questions what motivates and sustains protest, considering the enabling aspects of solidarity and empathy, as well as the constraining factors of negative emotions and gendered barriers associated with activism, examining the role of gender and emotion within protest. This is a lived-in study that gets to the heart of what it means to be an anti-austerity activist and an important addition to social justice debate.Table of ContentsIntroduction Part I: Establishing Context A Critical Review of Social Movement Theory: Gender and Emotion in Activist Cultures The Empirical and Political Context of Anti-Austerity Activism Part II: Doing Activism: Enabling and Constraining Factors The Affective, the Normative and the Everyday: Exploring What Motivates and Sustains Anti-Austerity Activism Barriers to Doing Activism PART III: Being Activist: The Activist Identity and Its Problems The Authentic and Ideal Activist Identities: Having the ‘Right’ Motivation and Doing ‘Enough’ of the ‘Right’ Type of Activism The Dark Side of Activist Culture and its Gendered Dimension Part IV: Concluding Remarks Subverting/Reinforcing Neoliberal Capitalism: The Complex Ambivalence of Anti-Austerity Activism References Appendix

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Book SynopsisePDF and ePUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. The Nordic countries are regarded as frontrunners in promoting equality, yet women’s experiences on the ground are in many ways at odds with this rhetoric. Putting the spotlight on the lived experiences of women working in tech-driven research and innovation areas in the Nordic countries, this volume explores why, despite numerous programmes, women continue to constitute a minority in these sectors. Contributors flesh out the differences and similarities across different Nordic countries and explore how the shifts in labour market conditions have impacted on women in research and innovation. This is an invaluable contribution to global debates around the mechanisms that maintain gendered structures in research and innovation, from academia to biotechnology and IT.Table of Contents1. Introduction - Gabriele Griffin 2. Research and Innovation in the Academy: A Precarious Business - Gabriele Griffin 3. Navigating Career Imaginaries in Academia: A View from Women Researchers in Biotechnology - Oili-Helena Ylijoki 4. Unconventional Routes into ICT Work: Learning from Women's own Solutions for Working Around Gendered Barriers - Hilde G. Corneliussen and Gilda Seddighi 5. Changes in Funding and the Intensification of Gender Inequalities in Research and Innovation - Marja Vehviläinen, Hanna-Mari Ikonen and Päivi Korvajärvi 6. Promoting Gender Equality in STEM-oriented Universities: Institutional Policy Measures in Sweden, Finland and Norway - Charlotte Silander, Ida Drange, Maria Pietilä, Liza Reisel 7. Uniformity Dressed as Diversity? Reorienting Female Associate Professors - May-Linda Magnussen, Rebecca W. B. Lund and Trond Stalsberg Mydland 8. "Should I Stay or Should I Go?" How Early Career Researchers Imagine the (Im)Possible Future in Academia - Siri Øyslebø Sørensen and Guro Korsnes Kristensen 9. "If It Had Been Only Me, It Would Not Have Worked Out": Women Negotiating Conflicting Challenges of ICT Work and Family in Norway - Gilda Seddighi and Hilde G. Corneliussen 10. Co-creative Platforms for Societal Impact of Research on Gender Issues: A Comparative Study of the Gender Academy and Gender Contact Point - Malin Lindberg, Ulf Mellström and Paula Wennberg 11. The Discourse of Rurality in Women’s Professional-life Narratives: Gender and ICT in Rural Norway - Hilde G. Corneliussen, Gilda Seddighi, and Carol Azungi Dralega

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Book SynopsisMary Butts wrote and lived among notable modernist writers such as T.S. Eliot, Ford Madox Ford, Jean Cocteau, H.D., and Ezra Pound, and was on her way to becoming one of the most respected British female writers of the twentieth century. Yet, after her death in 1937 at the age of forty-six, her reputation suffered a decline. Butt's idiosyncratic spirituality did not lend itself to easy critical examination, modernism was generally considered a masculine endeavor, and her papers were not made public for over fifty years. The recent acquisition of those papers by the Beinecke Library at Yale University, however, has brought about a resurgence of interest in her unique writings. Mary Butts confronts and reinterprets reality in extraordinary ways, and her modernist vision recalls the natural origins and powers of the female divine. Her intense dedication to ancient rites and myth, and her dabbling in the occult, became embedded in her fiction and led to her own brand of mysticism. Indeed, the Butts heroine is at once, healer, sacred priestess, earth goddess, lover, and daimon/demon. In presenting her characters this way, Butts valorizes what she calls "the soul living at its fullest capacity." Roslyn Reso Foy gives us the first sustained critical study of Butts, exploring the signficance of feminism, mysticism, and magic in her life and writings. Foy's thoughtful analysis, combining scholarship with straightforward discussion, will serve as an introduction to, and foundation for, further critical studies of this remarkable female modernist whose work coincides with contemporary concerns and who can no longer be ignored.

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Book SynopsisMaterialist Feminisms investigates the crucial theoretical and political debates that have determined the course of British and American feminism over the last thirty years. As intellectual terrain has shifted during these decades from Marxism to cultural materialism and poststructuralist literary theory, questions of race and ethnicity, sexuality, postcoloniality, and green politics have converged and sometimes collided with the categories within feminism, but analyze many of the most important texts and movements of contemporary cultural theory. Offering not so much a unified history as an analysis of important moments within these debates, this book examines the work of such feminist theorists as MichUle Barrett, Judith Butler, Rosalind Coward, Donna Haraway, bell hooks, the m/f collective, Tania Modleski, Jacqueline Rose, Gayle Rubin, Hortense Spillers, and Gayatri Spivak. Materialist Feminisms includes new, exemplary readings of feminist detective, African-American, and postcolonial fiction, three kinds of textures commodity currently fetishized in the literary marketplace. What might the success of these kinds of writing signify about politics and desire in contemporary Anglo-American culture? Demonstrating how the poststructuralis critique of essences and identities need not end in a complete paralysis of political action, as has sometimes been claimed, Materialist Feminisms argues that feminism, soicalism, and deconstruction are not theoretical dead ends, but names for unfinished business.Table of ContentsThe Argument vii Preface ix Acknowledgments xiv Introduction 1 Part I Beyond the Marxist--Feminist Encounter 1 Origins UK and US 19 2 Institutionalizing Feminism 42 3 Deconstruction and Beyond 60 Part II Feminism and Cultural Critique 4 Feminism and the History of the Novel 83 5 How PC Can a White Girl Be When Her Sisters of Color Can Represent Themselves? 95 6 History and Poststructuralism 125 Part III The Politics of Contemporary Theory 7 The Politics of Essence 145 8 Identity and Sexuality 153 9 The Theory "Race," Imperialist Fractures, and Postcolonial Subjects 183 10 Towards a Green Cultural Criticism 206 Conclusion 229 Works Cited 231 Index of Names 248 Index of Subjects 253

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Book SynopsisIn this outstanding collection of essays, contributed by some of America's leading feminist writers, the current terrain of American feminism is charted as never before. Covering a broad range of subjects and a diversity of approaches, this volume demonstrates just how far American feminism has come in developing distinctive and sophisticated strategies for combining theory and practice. While many of the writers represented have made their careers within the academy, their interests are never exclusively academic. Indeed, at the heart of this book lies a broad concern with the key social issues of our day. Thus, Catherine MacKinnon writes on sex equality under the law, Cynthia Enloe on international politics, bell hooks on cinematic representation of blackness, and Donna Haraway on the biopolitics of postmodern bodies. The selection also includes important essays by Gayle Rubin, Tania Modleski, Rey Chow, Trinh Minh-ha, Sandra Harding, Judith Stacey and Barrie Thorne, Evelyn Fox Keller, Joan Wallach Scott, Linda S. Kauffman, Paula Treicher, Angela Davis, Gloria Anzaldua and Jean Bethke Elshtain.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements. List of Contributors. Introduction. Part 1: Sexuality and Gender:. 1. Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality: Gayle S. Rubin (1984). 2. Seductive Sexualities: Representing Blackness in Poetry and on Screen: bell hooks (1990). 3. Cinema and the Dark Continent: Race and Gender in Popular Film: Tania Modleski (1991). Part II: Theories of Difference:. 4. 'It's you, and not me': Domination and 'Othering' in Theorizing the 'Third World': Rey Chow? (1989). 5. The Language of Nativism: Anthropology as a Scientific Conversation of Man with Man: Trinh T. Minh-ha (1989). 6. Reinventing Ourselves as Other: More New Agents of History and Knowledge: Sandra Harding (1991). Part III: The Status Of Science, Technology, Academic Disciplines: . 7. The Missing Feminist Revolution in Sociology: Judith Stacey and Barrie Thorne (1985). 8. Making Gender Visible in Pursuit of Nature's Secrets: Evelyn Fox Keller (1991). 9. The Biopolitics of Postmodern Bodies: Donna Haraway (1989). 10. Women's History: Joan Wallach Scott (1992). 11. The Long Goodbye: Against Personal Testimony, or An Infant Grifter Grows Up: Linda S. Kauffman (1992). Part IV: Feminist Issues, Activism, and The National Scene: . 12. AIDS, Gender and Biomedical Discourse: Current Contests for Meaning: Paula A. Treichler 1988. 13. Outcast Mothers and Surrogates: Racism and Reproductive Politics in the Nineties: Angela Y. Davis (1991). 14. Reflections on Sex Equality Under Law: Catherine A. MacKinnon (1991). Part IV: American Feminism in an International Frame: . 15. La conciencia de la mestiza: Towards a new Consciuosness: Gloria Anzaldua (1987). 16. Bananas, Beaches, and Bases: Cynthia Enloe (1989). 17. Realism, Just War and the Witness of Peace: Jean Bethke Elshtain (1990).

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Book SynopsisThis new introductory text constructs a Christian feminist theology, and lays out a view of the world indebted to both traditional Christian faith and recent feminist thought critical of that faith. Throughout the book Professor Carmody weaves back and forth, trying to develop a conversation stimulating for both partners. Christians, she suggests, need to reconsider their traditional categories for dealing with God, nature, the self, and human community, under the challenge of feminists who find such categories inadequate and even destructive. And feminists need to stay in touch with the perennial questions of being, sin, grace, sacramentality, and the like, which have found some truly profound answers in the history of Christian theological speculation. The book will be suitable for undergraduate college or university students, and presupposes no background in theology.Trade Review"Carmody aims for constructive theology - a theology which makes use of its sources, traditional Christianity and feminism, to present Christian theology as a relevant voice in our time... Carmody's book is certainly an important contribution to the genre of undergraduate textbooks. It shifts feminist theology from its marginal position of being an optional extra, an academic luxury or a side interest of mainly female theologicans, to being an essential part of mainstream theology, an important tool for re-reading and making sense of the Christian tradition. Carmody's book is not one of ready-made answers, but the author introduces her reader to critical and constructive theological thinking, presented in accessible language. As such the book represents both a challenge and a useful tool, and will hopefully find its way on to reading lists in universities and colleges. It's for anyone interested in a basic understanding of a Christian feminist theology and critical thought - for those with no theological background." Feminist Bookstore News "Carmody's style is fluid and sweeping, engaging in its lyricism .... Carmody's approach is balanced and judicious, equally adept at critiquing secular feminism and the oppressive record of the Christian churches toward women." Francis J. Buckley, University of San Francisco for HorizonsTable of ContentsPreface. 1. Introduction: Constructive Christian Feminist Theology. 2. Foundations. 3. Revelation and Tradition. 4. Creation: Nature and Ecology. 5. Ecclesiology: Society and Politics. 6. Anthropology: The Self Sick and Healthy. 7. Theology: God So Far and Yet So Near. 8. Practice: Ethics and Spirituality. 9. Conclusion. Notes. Bibliography. Index.

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Book SynopsisHas Queer Theory 'grown out' of Feminism - in both senses? If it has, is that process a coming-out story?Table of ContentsList of Contributors. Acknowledgements. Introduction. 1. Sexualities without Genders and other Queer Utopias: Biddy Martin. 2. Sexual Traffic: Gayle Rubin (University of California, Santa Cruz) and Judith Butler (University of California, Berkeley). 3. Sissies and Sisters: Gender, Sexuality and the Possibilities of Coalition: William Spurlin (Columbia University). 4. Reflections on Gynophobia: Emily Apter (UCLA). 5. Mother, Can't You See I'm Burning? Between Female Homosexuality and Homosociality in Radclyffe Hall's The Unlit Lamp: Trevor Hope (University of Rochester). 6. Desiring Machines? Queer Re-visions of Feminist Film Theory: Carole-Anne Tyler (University of California, Riverside). 7. André Gide and the Niece's Seduction: Naomi Segal (University of Reading). 8. Savage Nights: Mandy Merck. 9. Coming Out of the Real: Knots and Queries: Elizabeth Wright (Girton College, Cambridge). Index.

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Book SynopsisHas Queer Theory 'grown out' of Feminism - in both senses? If it has, is that process a coming-out story?Table of ContentsList of Contributors. Acknowledgements. Introduction. 1. Sexualities without Genders and other Queer Utopias: Biddy Martin. 2. Sexual Traffic: Gayle Rubin (University of California, Santa Cruz) and Judith Butler (University of California, Berkeley). 3. Sissies and Sisters: Gender, Sexuality and the Possibilities of Coalition: William Spurlin (Columbia University). 4. Reflections on Gynophobia: Emily Apter (UCLA). 5. Mother, Can't You See I'm Burning? Between Female Homosexuality and Homosociality in Radclyffe Hall's The Unlit Lamp: Trevor Hope (University of Rochester). 6. Desiring Machines? Queer Re-visions of Feminist Film Theory: Carole-Anne Tyler (University of California, Riverside). 7. André Gide and the Niece's Seduction: Naomi Segal (University of Reading). 8. Savage Nights: Mandy Merck. 9. Coming Out of the Real: Knots and Queries: Elizabeth Wright (Girton College, Cambridge). Index.

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Book SynopsisThis biography of Betty Friedan traces the development of her feminist outlook from her childhood in Illinois to her marriage. Horowitz offers a reading of ""The Feminine Mystique"" and argues that the roots of Friedan's feminism run deeper than she has led us to believe. The links between the ""Popular Front"" of feminism of the ""Old Left"" and the ""New Left"" feminism of the 1960s is delineated, thereby casting doubt on the claims of novelty that many have made about social movements of the 1960s. He illuminates important details by mining everything from her papers while a student as Smith College, to her articles for the labour press. Horowitz advances the historiography with descriptions of women's experiences of left-wing politics and culture in the 1940s and 1950s and by limning Friedan's place within that context.

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Book SynopsisEach year, thousands of pilgrims visit the celebrated New Orleans tomb where Marie Laveau is said to lie. They seek her favors or fear her lingering influence. Voodoo Queen: The Spirited Lives of Marie Laveau is the first study of the Laveaus, mother and daughter of the same name. Both were legendary leaders of religious and spiritual traditions many still label as evil.The Laveaus were free women of color and prominent French-speaking Catholic Creoles. From the 1820s until the 1880s when one died and the other disappeared, gossip, fear, and fierce affection swirled about them. From the heart of the French Quarter, in dance, drumming, song, and spirit possession, they ruled the imagination of New Orleans.How did the two Maries apply their ""magical"" powers and uncommon business sense to shift the course of love, luck, and the law? The women understood the real crime--they had pitted their spiritual forces against the slave system of the United States. Moses-like, they led their people out of bondage and offered protection and freedom to the community of color, rich white women, enslaved families, and men condemned to hang.The curse of the Laveau family, however, followed them. Both loved men they could never marry. Both faced down the press and police who stalked them. Both countered the relentless gossip of curses, evil spirits, murders, and infant sacrifice with acts of benevolence.The book is also a detective story--who is really buried in the famous tomb in the oldest ""city of the dead"" in New Orleans? What scandals did the Laveau family intend to keep buried there forever? By what sleight of hand did free people of color lose their cultural identity when Americans purchased Louisiana and imposed racial apartheid upon Creole creativity? Voodoo Queen brings the improbable testimonies of saints, spirits, and never-before-printed eyewitness accounts of ceremonies and magical crafts together to illuminate the lives of the two Marie Laveaus, leaders of a major, indigenous American religion.

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Book SynopsisOctavia Butler (1947-2006) spent the majority of her prolific career as the only major black female author of science fiction. Winner of both the Nebula and Hugo Awards as well as a MacArthur ""genius"" grant, the first for a science fiction writer, Butler created worlds that challenged notions of race, sex, gender, and humanity. Whether in the postapocalyptic future of the Parable stories, in the human inability to assimilate change and difference in the Xenogenesis books, or in the destructive sense of superiority in the Patternist series, Butler held up a mirror, reflecting what is beautiful, corrupt, worthwhile, and damning about the world we inhabit. In interviews ranging from 1980 until just before her sudden death in 2006, Conversations with Octavia Butler reveals a writer very much aware of herself as the ""rare bird"" of science fiction even as she shows frustration with the constant question,""How does it feel to be the only one?"" Whether discussing humanity's biological imperatives or the difference between science fiction and fantasy or the plight of the working poor in America, Butler emerges in these interviews as funny, intelligent, complicated, and intensely original.

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Book SynopsisIn 1799, when the French artist Jacques-Louis David (1748–1825) exhibited his Intervention of the Sabines, a history painting featuring the ancient heroine Hersilia, he added portraits of two contemporary women on either side of her—Henriette de Verninac, daughter of Charles-François Delacroix, minister of foreign affairs, and Juliette Récamier, a well-known and admired socialite. Drawing on many disciplines, Norman Bryson explains how such a combination of paintings could reveal the underlying nature of the Directoire, the period between the vicious and near-dictatorial Reign of Terror (1793–94) and the coup in 1799 that brought Napoleon to power. Hersilia’s Sisters illuminates ways that cultural life and civil society were rebuilt during these years through an extraordinary efflorescence of women pioneers in every cultural domain—literature, the stage, opera, moral philosophy, political theory, painting, popular journalism, and fashion. Through a close examination of David’s work between The Intervention of the Sabines (begun in 1796) and Bonaparte Crossing the Alps (begun in 1800), Bryson explores how the flowering of women’s culture under the Directoire became a decisive influence on David’s art. With more than 150 illustrations, this book provides new and brilliant insight into this period that will captivate readers.

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Book SynopsisBorn in 1898 in Bunkerville, Nevada, Juanita Brooks led an early life similar to that of many who grew up in isolated, tightly knit, rural Mormon communities. An early marriage suggested her future would follow a predictable course, but the death of her husband, the need to raise a young son, and a passion for knowledge led her along a different path, when at mid-life she became a well-known author after publishing The Mountain Meadows Massacre. In this book she exposed the killing of some 100 California-bound emigrants travelling through southern Utah in 1856 as an atrocity carried out by a Mormon militia with Indian allies and not solely as an Indian massacre, as it had been for so long portrayed. Juanita Brooks was a faithful and active member of the Mormon Church, and her courage to tell the truth about this dark moment in Mormon history established her reputation as a respected historian. While there was no official church condemnation of the book, there was unofficial disapproval and Brooks was shunned by many in her community. She nevertheless doggedly pursued church authorities to revise their stand on the incidents at Mountain Meadows. The desire to tell the truth as she saw it became her hallmark, and Brooks's life as wife, mother, teacher, community member, and undaunted historian became an uncommon story of personal stamina and intellectual courage.

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Book SynopsisHistorian Sara Egge offers critical insights into the woman suffrage movement by exploring how it emerged in small Midwestern communities—in Clay County, Iowa; Lyon County, Minnesota; and Yankton County, South Dakota. Examining this grassroots activism offers a new approach that uncovers the sophisticated ways Midwestern suffragists understood citizenship as obligation. These suffragists, mostly Yankees who migrated from the Northeast after the Civil War, participated enthusiastically in settling the region and developing communal institutions such as libraries, schools, churches, and parks. Meanwhile, as Egge’s detailed local study also shows, the efforts of the National American Women’s Suffrage Association did not always succeed in promoting the movement’s goals. Instead, it gained support among Midwesterners only when local rural women claimed the right to vote on the basis of their well-established civic roles and public service. By investigating civic responsibility, Egge reorients scholarship on woman suffrage and brings attention to the Midwest, a region overlooked by most historians of the movement. In doing so, she sheds new light onto the ways suffragists rejuvenated the cause in the twentieth century.

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Book SynopsisAs feminism gained prominence in twentieth-century popular culture, dramatic conventions progressed accordingly, offering larger and more diverse roles for women characters. Feminist Rehearsals documents the early stages of feminist theatre in Argentina and Mexico, revealing how various aspects of performance culture—spectator formation, playwriting, professional acting and directing, and dramatic techniques—paralleled political activism and championed the goals of the women’s rights movement. Through performance and protest, feminists enacted new identities and pushed for myriad social and legislative reforms during a time when women were denied suffrage and full citizenship status. Together, feminist theatre and demonstrations politicized women spectators’ collective presence and promoted women’s rights in the public sphere.Trade Review“This study provides a deserved platform for female artists and activists who continue to exert influence over our understanding of the role of the arts in inspiring a questioning of dominant patriarchal values. Most importantly, it will update everyone’s ideas of what constitutes a theatre history in the dynamic field that is Latin American theatre, especially as it relates to feminist movements across the Americas."—Analola Santana, author, Freak Performances: Dissidence in Latin American Theater"Feminist Rehearsals is an impressive study of the political, sociocultural, and intellectual struggles women playwrights, actresses, and activist pioneers experienced during the early twentieth century in Argentina and Mexico. With a fresh look at feminist theory and practice, Farnsworth offers a crucial analysis regarding the role women had in the public sphere through the lens of theatre and performance studies."—Paola HernÁndez, author, Staging Lives in Latin American Theater: Bodies, Objects, Archives"An authoritative, nuanced, and thoughtful analysis of the role of feminist political and aesthetic movements in Argentina and Mexico, Feminist Rehearsals offers new insights into how women in the Americas create space for feminist spectatorship in the twentieth century. This book is for anyone engaged in feminist performance scholarship."—E. J. Westlake, Ohio State University

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Book SynopsisVirginia Claypool Meredith's role in directly managing the affairs of a large and prosperous farm in east-central Indiana opened doors that were often closed to women in late nineteenth century America. Her status allowed her to campaign for the education of women, in general, and rural women, in particular. While striving to change society's expectations for women, she also gave voice to the important role of women in the home. A lifetime of dedication made Virginia Meredith "the most remarkable woman in Indiana" and the "Queen of American Agriculture." Meredith was also an integral part of the history of Purdue University. She was the first woman appointed to serve on the university's board of trustees, had a residence hall named in her honor, and worked with her adopted daughter, Mary L. Matthews, in creating the School of Home Economics, the predecessor of today's College of Consumer and Family Sciences.Table of Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Farm and Family 1. A Hoosier Family's Rise to Prominence 2. An Independent Woman Emerges 3. The Woman Farmer from Cambridge City 4. A Voice for Rural People Community and Service 5. Empowering Women Through Club Work 6. The Lady Manager from Indiana at the Chicago World's Fair Educator and Advocate 7. Advancing the Science of Home Life 8. Purdue University's First Woman Trustee 9. A Landmark for Veterans and a Home for Women 10. Farewell to the Grand Lady of Agriculture Epilogue Appendix 1: Complete Text of "Farm Life: Its Privileges and Possibilities" Appendix 2: Complete Text of "Why Short-horns Are the Best Cattle for Indiana Farms" Appendix 3: Complete Text of "The Relation of Women to the Columbian Exposition" Appendix 4: Complete Text of "The Need of Special Training for Agricultural Pursuits" Appendix 5: Complete Text of "Roads of Remembrance" Appendix 6: Obituary of Virginia C. Meredith, Lafayette (Ind.) Journal and Courier Appendix 7: Complete Text of "Mrs. Virginia Meredith," Lafayette (Ind.) Journal and Courier Notes Sources Index

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Book SynopsisA candid and generous color-illustrated account of women artists creating politically and personally effective art works, exhibitions, and actions over two tumultuous decades This abundantly illustrated personal narrative takes readers through twenty-two years of activism in the women's art movements in New York City during a period of great cultural change. Author Sabra Moore vividly recounts life in this era of social upheaval in which women artists responded to war, racial tension and reconciliation, cultural and aesthetic inequality, and struggles for reproductive freedom. We learn intimately how she and fellow women artists found ways to create politically and personally effective art works, exhibitions, actions, and institutions. The book features Moore's involvement in pivotal art organizations of this time and her own development as an artist, counterbalanced with her connections to family in rural East Texas and friends in New Mexico. Moore was a member of the Heresies Collective, an influential feminist activist group, became editor of their art and politics journal Heresies, and was president of the NYC/Women's Caucus for Art. She helped coordinate and curate many of the earliest large-scale exhibitions of women artists in NYC, including Views by Women Artists (1982), and the collaborative shows Reconstruction Project and Connections Project/Conexus. Moore was a principle organizer of the 1984 demonstration against MoMA over their lack of inclusion of women artists and was a member of various groundbreaking collaborative arts groups in the 1970s, including Atlantic Gallery and WAR (Women Artists in Revolution). While Openings is an historical narrative of women artists' actions, organizations, and ideas, it also candidly describes their periods of challenge, including the death of sculptor Ana Mendieta and the indictment of her husband and the author's own attempted murder by her former art teacher. The book is illustrated throughout by a treasure of 950 color and black & white images of the art from this momentous period: a valuable collection that is concurrently being archived by Barnard College along with papers, letters, show cards, posters, original artworks, and other documents. This eye-opening book includes forewords by renowned art critic Lucy Lippard and poet/activist Margaret Randall.Trade Review“Openings puts you right there—at the heart of the passion, brilliance, and creative chaos of the feminist art uprising . . . an intimate and soulful glimpse into a critical epoch." -- Chellis Glendinning * author of My Name is Chellis and I’m in Recovery from Western Civilization *"The writing is so fluid and honest . . . it really hasn't been done before." -- Lucy R. Lippard * Art critic and activist *“This is important reading for aspiring women artists today, and evidence that the received history of the feminist movement . . . is not always the full picture.” -- Artist, Professor of Art, University of Southern California, Roski School * Suzanne Lacy *"[Openings is] crucial to the understanding of women artists in New York . . . it really captures what it must have been like to be an artist in New York in the 70s and 80s." -- Patricia Hills * Art historian and Professor Emerita, Boston University *"Moore's memoir is radical not only because it frames feminist art history as central, but also in its very telling, where monumental events in the art world stand equal to Moore's personal life, her dreams, and her poetic tenderness.” -- Rachel Kauder Nalebuff * playwright, creator of My Little Red Book, and co-editor of The Feminist Utopia Project *“Deeply complex and vivid.” -- Moira Roth * Trefethen Professor of Art History, Mills College *

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Book SynopsisA feminist organizer in East Central Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall reveals the struggles of women fighting for their rights during the rise of the Right in Europe Visitors tells the story of Ann Snitow’s adventures as a Western feminist helping to build a new, post-communist feminist movement in Eastern Central Europe. Snitow stumbles onto this fast-changing, chaotic scene by chance, but falls in love with the passionate feminists she meets in Poland, the former Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, Hungary and Romania. What kinds of feminism should they hope for? Visitors is a book about forging enduring relationships and creating formerly unimaginable institutions—a feminist school, the Network of East-West Women, women’s centers, gender studies programs. It is about unity amid fractiousness and perseverance through uncertainty, Snitow’s flickering lodestar. Visitors moves gracefully between vivid anecdote, political analysis, and unsparing introspection. It is richly peopled with “brilliant” comrades and vexing detractors alike, all described with respect and humor. Every sentence is imbued with the experience and insight of this sui generis feminist activist, writer, and pedagogue of 50 years. Most of all, Visitors is the story of friendship, the heart and sinew of the leaderless feminist movement. Reading like the best historical novel, it is intimate and worldly, resolutely unsentimental yet finally, even as the political skies darken, optimistic in the conviction that feminism can make life meaningful, fascinating, fun, pleasurable—and better for everyone, even as better is redefined again and again.Trade Review"This is an inspired piece of personal journalism that takes us to Eastern Europe where we follow the social and political adventures, over a period of twenty five years, of one of the great feminists of the Second Wave. As Ann Snitow discovers the historic antagonism to women’s rights that marks the region, she also experiences the remarkably courageous women who are spending their lives fighting it. Richly informed, emotionally centered, beautiful written, Visitors is a book to be read by all who crave a deeper understanding of the times in which we live." -- Vivian Gornick"Ann Snitow’s extraordinary gifts for friendship and organizing spill off the pages of this illuminating memoir, which lights up a formerly obscure but important aspect of our history. The lucky reader gets to follow Ann and her new friends as they create a broad, potent network of feminist activists practically from scratch in the ruins of Soviet communism." -- Alix Shulman

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Book SynopsisA feminist organizer in East Central Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall reveals the struggles of women fighting for their rights during the rise of the Right in Europe Visitors tells the story of Ann Snitow’s adventures as a Western feminist helping to build a new, post-communist feminist movement in Eastern Central Europe. Snitow stumbles onto this fast-changing, chaotic scene by chance, but falls in love with the passionate feminists she meets in Poland, the former Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, Hungary and Romania. What kinds of feminism should they hope for? Visitors is a book about forging enduring relationships and creating formerly unimaginable institutions—a feminist school, the Network of East-West Women, women’s centers, gender studies programs. It is about unity amid fractiousness and perseverance through uncertainty, Snitow’s flickering lodestar. Visitors moves gracefully between vivid anecdote, political analysis, and unsparing introspection. It is richly peopled with “brilliant” comrades and vexing detractors alike, all described with respect and humor. Every sentence is imbued with the experience and insight of this sui generis feminist activist, writer, and pedagogue of 50 years. Most of all, Visitors is the story of friendship, the heart and sinew of the leaderless feminist movement. Reading like the best historical novel, it is intimate and worldly, resolutely unsentimental yet finally, even as the political skies darken, optimistic in the conviction that feminism can make life meaningful, fascinating, fun, pleasurable—and better for everyone, even as better is redefined again and again.Trade Review"This is an inspired piece of personal journalism that takes us to Eastern Europe where we follow the social and political adventures, over a period of twenty five years, of one of the great feminists of the Second Wave. As Ann Snitow discovers the historic antagonism to women’s rights that marks the region, she also experiences the remarkably courageous women who are spending their lives fighting it. Richly informed, emotionally centered, beautiful written, Visitors is a book to be read by all who crave a deeper understanding of the times in which we live." -- Vivian Gornick"Ann Snitow’s extraordinary gifts for friendship and organizing spill off the pages of this illuminating memoir, which lights up a formerly obscure but important aspect of our history. The lucky reader gets to follow Ann and her new friends as they create a broad, potent network of feminist activists practically from scratch in the ruins of Soviet communism." -- Alix Shulman

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Book SynopsisUnited States Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey (b. 1966) describes her mode as elegiac. Although the loss of her murdered mother informs each book, Trethewey's range of forms and subjects is wide. In compact sonnets, elegant villanelles, ballad stanzas, and free verse, she creates monuments to mixed-race children of colonial Mexico, African American soldiers from the Civil War, a beautiful prostitute in 1910 New Orleans, and domestic workers from the twentieth-century North and South.Because her white father and her black mother could not marry legally in Mississippi, Trethewey says she was ""given"" her subject matter as ""the daughter of miscegenation."" A sense of psychological exile is evident from her first collection, Domestic Work (2000), to the recent Thrall (2012). Biracial people of the Americas are a major focus of her poetry and her prose book Beyond Katrina, a meditation on family, community, and the natural environment of the Mississippi Gulf Coast.The interviews featured within Conversations with Natasha Trethewey provide intriguing artistic and biographical insights into her work. The Pulitzer Prize-winning poet cites diverse influences, from Anne Frank to Seamus Heaney. She emotionally acknowledges Rita Dove's large impact, and she boldly positions herself in the southern literary tradition of Faulkner and Robert Penn Warren. Commenting on ""Pastoral,"" ""South,"" and other poems, Trethewey guides readers to deeper perception and empathy.

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Book SynopsisAt the outbreak of the Civil War, Sarah Kennedy watched as her husband, D.N., left for Mississippi, leaving her alone to care for their six children and control their slaves in a large home in downtown Clarksville, Tennessee. D. N. Kennedy left to aid the Confederate Treasury Department. He had steadfastly supported secession and helped recruit local boys for the Confederate army. The Civil War Letters of Sarah Kennedy: Life under Occupation in the Upper South showcases the letters Sarah wrote to her husband during their time apart, offering readers an inside look at life on the home front during the Civil War through the eyes of a slave-owning, town-dwelling wife and mother.Featuring fifty-two of Sarah Kennedy’s letters to her husband from August 16, 1862, to February 20, 1865, this important collection chronicles Sarah Kennedy’s personal struggles during the Civil War years, from periods of illness to lack of consistent contact with her husband and everything in between. Her love and devotion to her family is apparent in each letter, contrasting deeply with her resentment and harsh treatment toward her enslaved people as Emancipation swept through Clarksville. A useful volume to Civil War historians and women’s history scholars alike, The Civil War Letters of Sarah Kennedy pulls back the curtain on upper-middle-class family life and social relations in a mid-sized Middle Tennessee town during the Civil War and reveals the slow demise of slavery during the Union occupation.

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Book SynopsisWhen she is seventeen, Emily Merritt’s beloved father gives her the piano she has always wanted. A few days later, having lost his job, he sells Emily’s piano and moves the family out of its two-story house in Cleveland, Ohio, to his mother’s three-room house in his hometown of Knoxville, Tennessee. The loss of her piano casts a shadow over Emily’s life in Knoxville, a city she could never love. Throughout the rest of her life, Emily longs to return to Cleveland, where she had an idyllic youth with many boyfriends and girlfriends and was, above all, a good piano student. Her life becomes like that of a nomad, moving from house to house and from job to job.Her great love of life is expressed by dancing in highway honky-tonks, along with her six beautiful girlfriends. After divorcing her lovable, alcoholic husband, Emily falls deeply in love with troubled married men. She doesn’t enjoy whiskey or smoking, but she’s not a churchgoer. She raises three boys in poverty. A fourth son dies soon after birth. Oldest Dickie becomes a life-long petty conman, but little brother John, known as “Sunshine,” becomes a legendary rescuer of wayward boys and girls. Jerry, the middle brother, becomes a merchant seaman, a soldier, and finally a professor and successful writer. Rather than a chronological narrative, Madden employs an impressionistic style that enables readers to experience Emily’s memories as he imagines them. In sharply focused scenes, Madden evokes the colorful expressions of the articulate, witty woman he has spent all his life listening to—and this memoir will inspire readers to listen eagerly, too.

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Book SynopsisIn an era of online streaming, it may be difficult to recognize the importance of a woman who in 1908 established the first silent movie theater in Richmond, Virginia: the Dixie nickelodeon. But Amanda Thorp, an independent, self-made woman, was on the ground floor of a popular culture that would grow to be enormously influential in our modern era. In Nickelodeons and Black Vaudeville: The Forgotten Story of Amanda Thorp, Kathi Clark Wong’s extensive archival research uncovers Thorp’s impressive contributions not only to moviegoing and its growth in America, but also perhaps even more surprisingly, Thorp’s support of early Black vaudeville in the Jim Crow South. Movie theater entrepreneurs like Thorp, who got her start at her Wonderland Theater in Bucyrus, Ohio, helped create our culture’s insatiable appetite for film. But it was after she established the Dixie in Richmond, that Thorp—a White woman—also saw a market for providing Black-centric entertainment. She converted the Dixie to all-Black patronage and began to bring in scores of Black vaudeville acts. Later, she built the Hippodrome Theater, in the heart of Richmond’s now-historic Jackson Ward, expressly for Black entertainment. Though she eventually left the field of Black entertainment behind, Thorp developed other movie venues in Richmond that brought in tens of thousands of (White) moviegoers over the years and which were widely admired for their elaborate trappings. Thanks to Wong’s research, contemporary readers can now benefit from the story of Amanda Thorp, a woman who amidst severe gender role constraints not only claimed social capacity on the crest of a rapidly growing industry but also, almost inadvertently, contributed to the success of early Black vaudeville, a subject which thus far has not received the scholarly attention it deserves.

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Book SynopsisInternational Advances in Education: Global Initiatives for Equity and Social Justice is an international research monograph series of scholarly works that primarily focus on empowering students (children, adolescents, and young adults) from diverse current circumstances and historic beliefs and traditions to become non-exploited/non-exploitive contributing members of the 21st century. The series draws on the research and innovative practices of investigators, academics, and community organizers around the globe that have contributed to the evidence base for developing sound educational policies, practices, and programs that optimize all students' potential. Each volume includes multidisciplinary theory, research, and practices that provide an enriched understanding of the drivers of human potential via education to assist others in exploring, adapting, and replicating innovative strategies that enable ALL students to realize their full potential. Chapters in this volume are drawn from a wide range of countries including: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Finland, Georgia, Haiti, India, Italy, Kyrgyzstan, Portugal, Slovenia, Tanzania and The United States all addressing issues of educational inequity, economic constraint, class bias and the links between education, poverty and social status.The individual chapters provide examples of theory, research, and practice that collectively present a lively, informative, cross-perspective, international conversation highlighting the significant gross economic and social injustices that abound in a wide variety of educational contexts around the world while spotlighting important, inspirational, and innovative remedies. Taken together, the chapter’s advance our understanding of best practices in the education of economically disadvantaged and socially marginalized populations while collectively rejecting institutional policies and traditional practices that reinforce the roots of economic and social discrimination.Chapter authors, utilize a range of methodologies including empirical research, historical reviews, case studies and personal reflections to demonstrate that poverty and class status are socio-political conditions, rather than individual identities. In addition, that education is an absolute human right and a powerful mechanism to promote individual, national, and international upward social and economic mobility, national stability and citizen wellbeing.

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Book SynopsisInternational Advances in Education: Global Initiatives for Equity and Social Justice is an international research monograph series of scholarly works that primarily focus on empowering students (children, adolescents, and young adults) from diverse current circumstances and historic beliefs and traditions to become non-exploited/non-exploitive contributing members of the 21st century. The series draws on the research and innovative practices of investigators, academics, and community organizers around the globe that have contributed to the evidence base for developing sound educational policies, practices, and programs that optimize all students' potential. Each volume includes multidisciplinary theory, research, and practices that provide an enriched understanding of the drivers of human potential via education to assist others in exploring, adapting, and replicating innovative strategies that enable ALL students to realize their full potential. Chapters in this volume are drawn from a wide range of countries including: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Finland, Georgia, Haiti, India, Italy, Kyrgyzstan, Portugal, Slovenia, Tanzania and The United States all addressing issues of educational inequity, economic constraint, class bias and the links between education, poverty and social status.The individual chapters provide examples of theory, research, and practice that collectively present a lively, informative, cross-perspective, international conversation highlighting the significant gross economic and social injustices that abound in a wide variety of educational contexts around the world while spotlighting important, inspirational, and innovative remedies. Taken together, the chapter’s advance our understanding of best practices in the education of economically disadvantaged and socially marginalized populations while collectively rejecting institutional policies and traditional practices that reinforce the roots of economic and social discrimination.Chapter authors, utilize a range of methodologies including empirical research, historical reviews, case studies and personal reflections to demonstrate that poverty and class status are socio-political conditions, rather than individual identities. In addition, that education is an absolute human right and a powerful mechanism to promote individual, national, and international upward social and economic mobility, national stability and citizen wellbeing.

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Book SynopsisAuthor, advocacy journalist, disability rights activist, feminist, and founder of Mouth magazine, Lucy Gwin (1943—2014) made her mark by helping those in "handicaptivity" find their voice. Gwin produced over one hundred issues of the magazine—one of the most radical and significant disability rights publications—and masterminded its acerbic, sometimes funny, and often moving articles about people from throughout the disability community.In this engrossing biography, James M. Odato provides an intimate portrait of Gwin, detailing how she forged her own path into activism. After an automobile accident left her with a brain injury, Gwin became a tireless advocate for the equal rights of people she termed "dislabled." More than just a publisher, she fought against corruption in the rehabilitation industry, organized for the group Not Dead Yet, and much more. With Gwin's story at the center, Odato introduces readers to other key disability rights activists and organizations, and supplies context on current contentious topics such as physician-assisted suicide. Gwin's impact on disability rights was monumental, and it is time her story is widely known.

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Book SynopsisIn the spring of 1862, Lucy McKim, the nineteen-year-old daughter of a Philadelphia abolitionist Quaker family, traveled with her father to the Sea Islands of South Carolina to aid him in his efforts to organize humanitarian aid for thousands of newly freed slaves. During her stay she heard the singing of the slaves in their churches, as they rowed their boats from island to island, and as they worked and played. Already a skilled musician, she determined to preserve as much of the music as she could, quickly writing down words and melodies, some of them only fleeting improvisations. Upon her return to Philadelphia, she began composing musical settings for the songs and in the fall of 1862 published the first serious musical arrangements of slave songs. She also wrote about the musical characteristics of slave songs, and published, in a leading musical journal of the time, the first article to discuss what she had witnessed.In Songs of Sorrow renowned music scholar Samuel Charters tells McKim's personal story. Letters reveal the story of young women's lives during the harsh years of the war. At the same time that her arrangements of the songs were being published, a man with whom she had an unofficial ""attachment"" was killed in battle, and the war forced her to temporarily abandon her work.In 1865 she married Wendell Phillips Garrison, son of abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, and in the early months of their marriage she proposed that they turn to the collection of slave songs that had long been her dream. She and her husband--a founder and literary editor of the recently launched journal The Nation--enlisted the help of two associates who had also collected songs in the Sea Islands. Their book, Slave Songs of the United States, appeared in 1867. After a long illness, ultimately ending in paralysis, she died at the age of thirty-four in 1877. This book reclaims the story of a pioneer in ethnomusicology, one whose influential work affected the Fisk Jubilee Singers and many others.

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Book SynopsisThis first biography of Susan Sontag (1933-2004) is now fully revised and updated, providing an even more intimate portrayal of the influential writer's life and career. The authors base this revision on Sontag's newly released private correspondence - including emails - and the letters and memoirs of those who knew her best. The authors reveal as never before her early years in Tucson and Los Angeles, her conflicted relationship with her mother, her longing for her absent father, and her precocious achievements at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Chicago. Papers, diaries, and lecture notes, many accessible for the first time, spark a passionate fire in this biography.The authors follow Sontag as she abruptly ends an early first marriage, establishes herself in Paris, and embraces the open lifestyle she began as a teenager in Berkeley. As a single mother she struggled with teaching at Columbia University and other colleges while aiming for a career as a novelist and essayist. Eventually she made her own way in New York City after acquiring her one and only publisher, Farrar, Straus & Giroux.In her later years Sontag became a world figure, a tastemaker, dramatist, and political activist who risked her life in besieged Sarajevo. Love affairs with men and women troubled her. Diagnosed with cancer, she responded with determination, and her experience with illness inspired some of her best writing. This biography shows Sontag always craving ""more life"" at whatever cost and depicts her harrowing final decline even as she resisted terminal cancer. Susan Sontag: The Making of an Icon, Revised and Updated presents in candid and stark relief a new assessment of a heroic and controversial figure.Trade ReviewRollyson and Paddock's determined research, especially the interviews they conducted...make this book a valuable resource." - The Times Literary Supplement

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