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Number of entries found - alphabetical by author: 58
The Women's Movement Against Sexual HarassmentAuthor(s): Carrie Baker Reviews: The Women's Movement Against Sexual Harassment examines how a diverse grassroots social movement created public policy on sexual harassment in the 1970s and 1980s. The collaboration of women from varying racial, economic, and geographic backgrounds strengthened the movement by representing the perspectives and activism of a broad range of women. Based on interviews and voluminous original research, this book is the first to show how the movement against sexual harassment fundamentally changed American life in ways that continue to advance women's opportunities today.
Stripped: Inside the Lives of Exotic DancersAuthor(s): Bernadette Barton Reviews: Reviews of Stripped have appeared in the Women's Review of Books, American Journal of Sociology, the Psychology of Women's Quarterly, Women's Studies, and Contemporary Sociology.
Makes an impressive contribution to the sociology of work and its intersection with sex and gender studies at the theoretical and applied levels. It is an excellent examples of the rich data and critical methodological insights that can emerge in the course of engaged field research.
American Journal of Sociology
"The thrust of stripper scholarship is that both dancers and customers are more like your next-door neighbors. Some are your next-door neighbors."
Philadelphia Inquirer
"Stripped is a revealing book about a revealing (and controversial) trade that focuses on a philosophical clash between old?and new?school feminism." - Courier-Journal
"Compelling. . . . This accessibly written, matter-of-fact book makes important contributions to what is known about the lives and experiences of the growing number of women who ?dance? naked for money. . . . Throughout, the author listens attentively to the shifting, insightful, diverse voices of women with whom she has a palpably respectful connection. Barton uses the complex picture that emerges to engage longstanding debates over the meanings of commodified femininity and sexuality." -Choice
Fragments of Development: Nation, Gender and the Space of ModernityAuthor(s): Suzanne Bergeron Reviews: "A bold and challenging consideration of questions of development, economic globalization, communities and subjectivity from a unique feminist perspective. A must-read book for those who wish to understand restructuring and resistance in this era of intensified globalization." ---Isabella C. Bakker, York University
"Bergeron's pathbreaking analysis challenges orthodox development theories, questions current feminist economic thinking and highlights crucial new gendered challenges to globalization." ---Jane Parpart, Dalhousie University
"Cutting-edge scholarship. Bergeron deftly engages the complexity of current debates while retaining clarity, improving analyses, and illuminating alternatives."---V. S. Peterson, University of Arizona
By tracing out the intersection between the imagined space of the national economy and the gendered construction of "expert" knowledge in development thought, Suzanne Bergeron provides a provocative analysis of development discourse and practice. By elaborating a framework of including/excluding economic subjects and activities in development economics, she provides a rich account of the role that economists have played in framing the contested political and cultural space of development.
Bergeron's account of the construction of the national economy as an object of development policy follows its shifting meanings through modernization and growth models, dependency theory, structural adjustment, and contemporary debates about globalization and highlights how intersections of nation and economy are based on gendered and colonial scripts. The author's analysis of development debates effectively demonstrates that critics of development who ignore economists' nation stories may actually bolster the formation they are attempting to subvert. Fragments of Development is essential reading for those interested in development studies, feminist economics, international political economy, and globalization studies.
Rape on the Public Agenda: Feminism and the Politics of Sexual AssaultAuthor(s): Maria Bevacqua Reviews: Women's responses to rape have taken many forms over the past three decades, from guerrilla actions targeting individual assailants to the founding of rape crisis centers. This timely book illuminates the movement's importance to the broader women's movement and discusses the public policy implications of this activism.
Maria Bevacqua locates the roots of rape consciousness, traces the evolution of an anti-rape ideology on the feminist agenda, describes how the rape issue moved to the wider public agenda, and investigates the various manifestations and strategies of anti-rape politics. She examines how feminists first articulated the rape experience as a women's issue, traces the evolution of anti-rape ideology over a thirty-year period, and considers recent tensions in the movement, including allegations of a feminist date rape hype in the media and in the academy.
The author untangles the public and legislative responses to the rape issue, analyzing both the political context that made policymakers receptive to anti-rape goals and the effect of the anti-rape movement on American political and social life.
Workplace Chemistry: Promoting Diversity through Organizational ChangeAuthor(s): Meg Bond Reviews: Publisher's Description:
A detailed history of a multiyear effort to promote diversity in one organization. In 1995, Meg A. Bond began working as a researcher, consultant, and trainer at “ChemPro” a New England manufacturing firm. Brought on board to guide ChemPro’s efforts to create an equitable, efficient, and diverse workplace, for seven years Bond enjoyed open access to the organization’s change process and to all the individuals involved. Using ecological theory as her conceptual framework, Bond delineates the stages of this process as it unfolded, drawing out lessons for workers, managers, and consultants from the nitty-gritty dynamics that emerged as the organization underwent change. Workplace Chemistry addresses such issues as privilege, multiple realities, intent versus impact, interdependence, and reactions — both positive and negative — to diversity interventions. Emphasizing messy dilemmas as well as successful strategies, this book offers an nuanced appraisal of a long-term diversity effort, with lessons that apply to other institutions and organizations. In a society of growing heterogeneity, this is a central challenge that is increasingly affecting most workplaces.
The Practice of U.S. Women's HistoryAuthor(s): Eileen Boris, S. Jay Kleinberg , Vicki L. Ruiz, Reviews: Gayle Gullett, author of Becoming Citizens: The Emergence and Development of the California Women's Movement, 1880-1911 "Beautifully written, [this anthology] allows the reader to experience the excitement of the field: the thrill of new insights, the denouncement of the pass and the call to seek another horizon."
Book Description In the last several decades, U.S. women's history has come of age. Not only have historians challenged the national narrative on the basis of their rich explorations of the personal, the social, the economic, and the political. They have entered into dialogues with each other over the meaning of women's history itself.
In this collection of seventeen original essays on women's lives from the colonial period to the present, contributors take the competing forces of race, gender, class, sexuality, religion, and region into account. They examine, for example, how conceptions of gender shaped immigration officials' attitudes towards East Asian immigrants; how race and gender inequality pervaded the welfare state; and how color and class shaped Mexican American women's mobilization for civil and labor rights. Reading the past with all of the messiness, contradictions, and excitement inherent in real life, this book is a provocative meditation on the state of the field.
Taking on the Big Boys, or Why Feminism is Good for Families. Business and the NationAuthor(s): Ellen Bravo Reviews: "Please, please, please. All working women must read this book! Ellen Bravo not only vividly exposes workplace inequities, she gives real-life solutions, picking up where my film 9 to 5 left off."-Jane Fonda
Enough about "breaking the glass ceiling." Here are blueprints for a redesign of the entire building, ground up, to benefit women and men-and even the bottom line.
The feisty humor of Molly Ivins and the journalistic flair of Barbara Ehrenreich meet when longtime labor activist Ellen Bravo relates stories from business and government and women's testimonies from offices, assembly lines, hospitals, and schools. Bravo unmasks the patronizing, trivializing, and minimizing tactics employed by "the big boys" and their surrogates: They portray feminism as women against men, and they dismiss as outrageous demands for pay equity, family leave, and flex time. Practical tips on everything from dealing with a sexual harasser to getting family members to share chores (and build equal relationships) enliven many chapters.
Bravo argues for feminism as a system of beliefs, laws, and practices that fully values women and work associated with women, while detailing activist strategies to achieve a society where everybody-women and men-reach their potential.
A former director of 9 to 5, National Association of Working Women, and a recipient of a Women of Vision Award from the Ms. Foundation, Ellen Bravo lectures nationwide and teaches women's studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She wrote The Job/Family Challenge: A 9to5 Guide (Not for Women Only) and is the co-authored The 9to5 Guide To Combating Sexual Harassment.
Sunday, April 15, 2007, San Francisco Chronicle
Rising women float all boats, Reviewed by Ruth Rosen
Library Journal, March 1, 2007
Emily Wilson, Alternet, June 1, 2007
Ms. Magazine June 2007 issue, "Great Books We Recommend"
Leslie Whittaker, syndicated column, August 21, 2007 (Boston Globe)
Your Money and Your Life: The High Stakes for Women Voters in '08 and BeyondAuthor(s): Martha Burk Reviews: Your Money and Your Life is a manifesto for this year's woman voter and for male voters who care about the women in their lives. Martha Burk empowers the reader to cut through the doubletalk, irrelevancies, and false promises, and focuses directly on what's at stake for women not only in the '08 election, but also in the years beyond. Where women stand, what women think, and what we need - with tough questions for candidates to hold their feet to the fire. Your Money and Your Life should be carried to every political rally, every press conference, every precinct meeting - and into the voting booth.
"Whether you-re a young woman worried about your future options, an employed woman fighting to break the glass ceiling, a mom out of the paid workforce, a retired woman struggling to make ends meet, or a feminist activist trying to change the world, this book has the information you need."
Eleanor Smeal, President, Feminist Majority Foundation.
DR. MARTHA BURK is a political psychologist and nationally recognized authority on women's issues. She is the former Chair of the National Council of Women's Organizations in Washington, D.C., where she led the fight to open the Augusta National Golf Club to women in 2003. She is a now Money Editor for Ms. magazine and a syndicated columnist, appearing regularly on national television and radio.
URL: http://www.msmagazine.com
Feminist Interventions in Early American Studies Author(s): Mary Carruth Reviews: Because feminist scholarship is thriving in the field of colonial American studies, this volume is timely. It showcases new feminist perspectives on the literature of the period, addressing the diverse experiences of European, African, Latin, and Native Americans. The essays synthesize feminist perspectives from a number of approaches, including cultural studies, gender studies, new historicism, and race theory. They treat a variety of literary genres, from sermons, travel narratives, letters, and diaries to poetry, drama, and early novels. Some of the essays recover little known texts, such as the travel records of women Quakers and colonial accounts of the Creek ?Indian princess? Mary Musgrove. Other essays consider the lesser-known texts of established writers, such as the unpublished essays of Crvecoeur and the letters of Judith Sargent Murray. Finally, other essays bring new perspectives to texts that are the subjects of ongoing scholarly debates, such as the poetry of Anne Bradstreet and Phillis Wheatley and the fiction of Tabitha Tenney and Lucy Brewer. Mary C. Carruth is Director of the Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies and Adjunct Assistant Professor of English at the University of Mississippi.
Review
"This is a terrific collection. The essays take up a range of topics that are at the center of current early American studies--Comparative and trans-American analysis, the formation of economic identities within developing capitalism, theatricality and the formation/manipulation of self, cross-dressing, and the anxieties of authorship. The topicality that characterizes this volume throughout will earn it significant attention in its home fields."--Dana D. Nelson, author of National Manhood: Capitalist Citizenship and the Imaginined Fraternity of White Men
Daughters of KeralaAuthor(s): Achamma Chandersekaran Reviews: Shashi Tharoor, Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information of the UN The quality of the writers and the accessible directness of the translations make this book a particular pleasure to read.
Book Description: Kerala, one of the smallest states in India, is located in the country's southwest corner. Known for its great beauty, religious diversity, and zero population growth, the region also boasts an exceptionally high literacy rate?reportedly above 91 percent?resulting in a large readership for books, journals, and newspapers. The quality of Kerala's literary production is very high, and this anthology represents some of its best short stories. Though educated and enterprising, women from this area face the same problems as women the world over. The stories in this collection explore their lives, giving readers everywhere a greater understanding of what it means to be a daughter of Kerala.
URL: http://www.achammachander.com
The Cult of True Victimhood: From the War on Welfare to the War on TerrorAuthor(s): Alyson Cole Reviews: Publisher's (Stanford University Press) webpage, which includes the first 10 pp of the book, reviews, and an author bio: http://www.sup.org/
American Reader Blog, which selected my book for discussion
http://americareads.blogspot.com
op-ed I published in the San Francisco Chronicle (11/06)
http://www.sfgate.com/
The first is to the publisher's (Stanford University Press) webpage, which includes the first 10 pp of the book, reviews, and an author bio. The second is for the American Reader Blog, which selected my book for discussion, and the third is to an op-ed I published in the San Francisco Chronicle (11/06).
Male Bodies, Women's Souls: Personal Narratives of Thailand's Transgendered YouthAuthor(s): LeeRay Costa, Andrew J. Matzner Reviews: Get a detailed look at the Thai sex/gender system--through analysis of the personal stories from transgendered youth in Thailand.
The Thai term sao braphet song (a "second type of woman") describes males who reject the gender of masculinity for femininity. Male Bodies, Women's Souls: Personal Narratives of Thailand's Transgendered Youth uses the narrative method, stories in the words of these "second type of women" to analyze these transgendered experiences. This previously ignored perspective of the Thai sex/gender system gained through this theoretical and methodological approach offers students and general readers a rich, more readily accessible foundation of knowledge about gendered subjectivity and sex/gender systems.
Male Bodies, Women's Souls: Personal Narratives of Thailand's Transgendered Youth features in-depth, autobiographical life histories from individual Thai transgendered youth. Life stories, told in the participants' own words, provides an engaging, at times touching, always insightful look at Thai culture's sex/gender system. The authors then expertly analyze the narratives to illuminate common themes and constructions within this group, allowing an opportunity for contrast and discussion on transgender experiences in other nations.
Male Bodies, Women's Souls: Personal Narratives of Thailand's Transgendered Youth analyzes the major themes in the stories, including: identities definitions and descriptive labels etiologies of sao braphet song-ness the notion of acceptance narrator motivations for participating in the project Male Bodies, Women's Souls: Personal Narratives of Thailand's Transgendered Youth is illuminating, reflective reading for educators, undergraduate students, graduate students, researchers, or anyone interested in discovering more about transgenderism in a specific cultural context.
The Philosopher Queen: Feminist Essays on War, Love, and KnowledgeAuthor(s): Chris Cuomo Reviews: The Philosopher Queen is a collection of essays and monologues addressing deep questions about gender, race, science, and post-9/11 global politics, ideal for both students and lay readers. Weaving together philosophical analysis and narrative, Cuomo develops positions that resonate in a world where all truths are partial, yet the search for truth is more important than ever. Scholarly, humorous, and brazenly feminist, these inviting essays encourage us to reinvestigate war, sex, justice, and wholeness. They acknowledge the complexity of reality while holding fast to the promise of common values, and in the face of cynicism and violence, they present a conception of ethics that aims toward flourishing.
The Feminist Philosophy ReaderAuthor(s): Chris Cuomo Reviews: The most comprehensive anthology of feminist philosophy available, this first edition reader brings together over 55 of the most influential and time-tested works to have been published in the field of feminist philosophy. Featuring perspectives from across the philosophical spectrum, and from an array of different cultural vantage points, it displays the incredible range, diversity, and depth of feminist writing on fundamental issues, from the early second wave to the present.
Understanding the Empowerment Phenomenon: Effects of a Pilot Women's Empowerment Program on Female College StudentsAuthor(s): Claudia Curry, Ed.D. Reviews: Although pilot programs and numerous structured non-formal education programs may have been successful in their short-term efforts to develop and empower women, in many cases, beneficiaries of these programs do not undergo follow-up or participate in a formal assessment of the program's effectiveness. Therefore, documented evidence of any enduring impact of these programs on the lives of participants is scarce.
This book examines the long-term effects of a Pilot Women's Empowerment Program through a follow-up evaluation with students enrolled at an urban community college. During the program, students engaged in empowerment training that assessed their understanding of the empowerment phenomenon and assisted in fostering a sense of empowerment that positively affected their personal and academic growth and development. Each student's empowerment experience is interwoven with contemporary personal stories to confirm that an individuals understanding of empowerment is enhanced over time and that women are empowered through connectivity. The analysis confirms that evaluating program effectiveness is key and that participant involvement in the evaluation process is valuable.
Singled Out: How Singles Are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever AfterAuthor(s): Bella DePaulo Reviews: Social psychologist Bella DePaulo’s book Singled Out: How Singles Are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After gave me one of those “click” moments—after reading these words, suddenly the world just looked different:
…the way coupling is envisioned in contemporary American society is not universal, it is not timeless, and it is not human nature. Instead, the reigning American worldview may well represent one of the narrowest construals of intimacy ever imagined. Where once the tendrils of love and affection reached out to family, friends, and community, reached back to ancestors, and reached up to the heavens, now they surround and squeeze just one other person—sometimes to the point of asphyxiation.
Besides being a beautiful writer and a thoroughly knowledgeable researcher, DePaulo is a totally original thinker.
--From Feministing, "Not Oprah's Book Club," Feb 7, 2008
Handbook on Service Learning in Women's Studies and the DisciplinesAuthor(s): Karen Dugger Reviews: The Handbook on Service Learning in Women's Studies and the Disciplines" brings together educators from several disciplines (English, Political Science, Economics, Sociology, Women's/Gender Studies) who teach a womenis studies service learning course, or a course with significant attention to gender and diversity.
This collection of service learning syllabi, assignments, and essays provides the reader with numerous methods and examples of how to incorporate service learning into a wide array of courses differentially situated within the curriculum of a college or university. For example, teaching a womenis studies course that is also a general education course requires a somewhat different logic and set of practices than an upper level womenis studies course within the major, or a course which serves as a culminating experience for the major.
Also addressed is how to transform spring break and internships into service leaning options and how to create a summer camp that serves the community. Guidelines, advice, and lessons learned provide the reader with the information and confidence necessary to initiate a service learning course.
URL: http://wwwnew.towson.edu/itrow/2%20-%20Major-Degree% 20Requirements/ITROWServiceLearningHandbook.asp
Baad Bitches & Sassy Supermamas: Black Power Action Films Author(s): Stephane Dunn Reviews: "With trenchant intellect and sassiness that is only matched by the larger-than-life characters she examines throughout "Baad Bitches" and Sassy Supermamas: Black Power Action Films, Stephane Dunn provides a fresh perspective on intersections of gender and sexuality within blaxploitation-era black film. This is a very important addition to scholarship in African American cultural studies, gender and sexuality studies, and American studies."--Mark Anthony Neal, author of New Black Man: Rethinking Black Masculinity
THE MATRIX READER: Examining the Dynamics of Oppression and PrivilegeAuthor(s): Abby Ferber, Christina Jimenez, Andrea O'Reilley Herrera, Dena Samuels Reviews: Written by four authors from different disciplinary backgrounds, this reader promotes a commitment to an intersectional approach to teaching race, class, gender and sexuality. Unlike most books of its kind, it highlights the duality of privilege and oppression and the effects that race, gender, and sexuality have on our lives.
Eve's Bible: A Woman's Guide to the Old TestamentAuthor(s): Sarah Forth Reviews: Sarah Forth presents a unique and rich interpretation of the Old Testament, paying particular attention to women in the Bible and in the Biblical era. Writing with deep insight and humor, Forth uses textual and archaeological evidence to give substance to women’s roles in the Bible and women’s lives in the ancient Near East. Her comparisons of the lives of women in the Near East and women among the Hebrews are intriguing and often profound.
----Miriam Robbins Dexter, Ph.D., UCLA
Author, Whence the Goddesses: A Source Book
Eve's Bible is a delightful and very helpful introduction to reading the Bible. It makes the Bible accessible to the lay reader, especially to women. It puts the Bible in its historical context, and also allows the reader to discern for themselves its meaning for their lives today.
----Rosemary Radford Ruether, Claremont Graduate University
Author, Sexism and God-Talk: Toward a Feminist Theology
Eve's Bible is a unique companion to the Scriptures, illuminating and provocative, full of wisdom, insight and good humor, and guaranteed to change the way both women and men read and think about the best-selling book in history.
----Jonathan Kirsch
Author, The Harlot by the Side of the Road
Gender's Place: Feminist Anthropologies of Latin AmericaAuthor(s): Lessie Frazier Reviews: Review
"...the result is an edited volume that successfully extends the importance of classrooms, homes, streets, factories, haciendas..."--K.S. Fine-Dare, Choice
"Gender's Place is a big rich collection that reminds us once again of how central gender is to a wide range of issues, and how important it is to look at gender in real times and places. Moving through many Latin American nations, and looking at everything from streets to states, from democratization to domestic violence, from borders to bodies, the book will be indispensable to feminist academics, activists, and audiences everywhere." --Sherry B. Ortner, Columbia University
"A daring and creative proposal that opens new conceptual horizons in gender studies and breaks with the universalizing assumptions (machismo-marianismo, public-private, indigenous culture-dominant culture) that have to this day pervaded gender studies in Latin America."--Norma Fuller, Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru
Salt in the Sand: Memory, Violence, and the Nation-State in Chile, 1890-PresentAuthor(s): Lessie Frazier Reviews: Salt in the Sand is a compelling historical ethnography of the interplay between memory and state violence in the formation of the Chilean nation-state. The historian and anthropologist Lessie Jo Frazier focuses on northern Chile, which figures prominently in the nation?s history as a site of military glory during the period of national conquest, of labor strikes and massacres in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth, and of state detention and violence during World War II and the Cold War. It was also the site of a mass-grave excavation that galvanized the national human rights movement in 1990, during Chile's transition from dictatorship to democracy. Frazier analyzes the creation of official and alternative memories of specific instances of state violence in northern Chile from 1890 to the present, tracing how the form and content of those memories changed over time. In so doing, she shows how memory works to create political subjectivities mobilized for specific political projects within what she argues is the always-ongoing process of nation-state formation. Frazier's broad historical perspective on political culture challenges the conventional periodization of modern Chilean history, particularly the idea that the 1973 military coup marked a radical break with the past.
Analyzing multiple memories of state violence, Frazier innovatively shapes social and cultural theory to interpret a range of sources, including local and national government archives, personal papers, popular literature and music, interviews, architectural and ceremonial commemorations, and her ethnographic observations of civic associations, women's and environmental groups, and human rights organizations. A masterful integration of extensive empirical research with sophisticated theoretical analysis, Salt in the Sand is a significant contribution to interdisciplinary scholarship on human rights, democratization, state formation, and national trauma and reconciliation.
The Single Woman's Guide to a Happy PregnancyAuthor(s): Mari Gallion Reviews: an absolute must read!, October 25, 2006
By BookReview.com (Madison, WI United States)
If there was a time when I needed a friend the very most in my life, it was during my pregnancy and after the birth of my first child. We can't all have Mari Gallion for a friend, but through her book "The Single Woman's Guide to a Happy Pregnancy," we can learn to feel better and to be our own best friends.
Mari shares her own story, as a single mother, right from the start. She doesn't hold back and lets the world know how it was and is. She shares what she did to get through some tough things, and like a great friend, puts herself in the position to understand what her readers are going through. Her most imperative message is to feel confident and do what you feel is right and not to worry about what friends, family, or society have to say about your decisions if they are not in agreement. Offering a plethora of information, on all topics from breast-feeding to diaper changing, organic foods to dark chocolate, bassinets to WIC, the book reads like letters from a gal-pal you can't live without. Her advice is down to earth, honest and well researched (as well as lived out by the author herself).
Not just a guide for Singles, or those boasting a baby on board sign, the advice holds true for all women in many aspects of life. Meditation, healthful eating, exercise, finding companionship or not, financial interests, and emotional well being are all topics we all can relate to. Buy this book for a friend, read a copy yourself, and pass it on. Mari may live in Alaska but she is right there in the peace of mind of every one of her readers.
Review by Heather Froeschl.
The book we've been waiting for!,
August 28, 2006
By IReadALot (New York, NY)
So many people don't understand the dilemma of single pregnant women who want to keep our babies and become parents. We're always being told that our choices are wrong. We can't find a pregnancy book that doesn't mention the role of a child's father when having a father for our child is beyond our control, and if we go to pregnancy centers for help, it seems that we just have to examine and re-examine our views on reproductive rights again and again, only to be led down a line of thinking that we aren't doing the "right thing" unless we give our children up for adoption! Even books that claim to be feminist often have a subtle message of pity and too much discussion about abortion and too much mention of adoption as a possibility. Abortion is not the issue when you've already decided to have a baby, and adoption is not everybody's path. But this book is like having your own personal support group right in your own home. This book focuses mostly on your own happiness, and gives you real down-to-earth ways to keep yourself happy. It also helps you to prepare for the baby, but this author knows that the most important piece of baby gear is your own happiness and stability. She doesn't go on much about what you should do, but what has worked for her, understanding that we're all different. She encourages us to make our own educated decisions about personal things: naming the baby, whether to opt for a hospital birth or home birth, to exercise caution while we follow our own hearts and instincts. She talks about God, but it's in a loving and inclusive way rather than an "I know God better than you do" way. Finally, some respect! I guess the wait is over.
Courting Equality: A Documentary History of America's First Legal Same-Sex MarriagesAuthor(s): Patricia Gozemba, Karen Kahn, and Marilyn Humphries Reviews: "Courting Equality" is a remarkable chronicle of exactly how social change happens. Marilyn Humphries's vivid photographic documentation of the fight for same-sex marriage hardly needs any elaboration, but Kahn and Gozemba's accompanying legal history is riveting. Words and pictures together create a moving, human portrait of representative democracy at work."
Alison Bechdel author of "Fun Home" and "Dykes to Watch Out For"
"Courting Equality is a very important book on several levels. First, it chronicles the events that led up to same-sex marriage in Massachusetts, a historic event in our country's move toward making the wonderful principles of the Constitution applicable to all of our citizens. Second, it shows how political support in the elected Legislature grew rapidly as the reality of allowing same-sex couples to love each other demolished the prejudices that previously prevented same-sex marriage. Finally, it reinforces the point--which was no surprise to those of us fighting for equal treatment for all people--that same-sex marriage has been an entirely positive thing for thousands of men and women in Massachusetts, and has had zero negative consequences at all. Too often, political literature focuses on the bad news; "Courting Equality" tells some very good news very well.
Congressman Barney Frank
Embodied Care: Jane Addams, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Feminist EthicsAuthor(s): Maurice Hamington Reviews: Until now, ethicists have said little about the body, limiting their comments on it to remarks made in passing or, at best, devoting a chapter to the subject. Embodied Care is the first work to argue for the body's centrality to care ethics, doing so by analyzing our corporeality at the phenomenological level. It develops the idea that our bodies are central to our morality, paying particular attention to the ways we come to care for one another.
Hamington's argues that human bodies are "built to care"; as a result, embodiment must be recognized as a central factor in moral consideration. He takes the reader on an exciting journey from modern care ethics to Merleau-Ponty's philosophy of the body and then to Jane Addams's social activism and philosophy. The ideas in Embodied Care do not lead to yet another competing theory of morality; rather, they progress through theory and case studies to suggest that no theory of morality can be complete without a full consideration of the body.
Socializing Care: Feminist Ethics and Public IssuesAuthor(s): Maurice Hamington, Dorothy Miller Reviews: Contributors to this volume demonstrate how the ethics of care factors into a variety of social policies and institutions, and can indeed be useful in thinking about a number of different social problems. Divided into two sections, the first looks at care as a model for an evaluative framework that rethinks social institutions, liberal society, and citizenship at a basic conceptual level. The second explores care values in the context of specific social practices or settings, as a framework that should guide thinking.
"STRONG MEDICINE" SPEAKS: A Native American Elder Has Her SayAuthor(s): Amy Hill Hearth Reviews: Amy Hill Hearth's first book, Having Our Say, told the true story of two century-old African-American sisters and went on to become an enduring bestseller and the subject of a three-time Tony Award-nominated play. In "Strong Medicine" Speaks, Hearth turns her talent for storytelling to a Native American matriarch presenting a powerful account of Indian life.
Born and raised in a nearly secret part of New Jersey that remains Native ancestral land, Marion "Strong Medicine" Gould is an eighty-five-year-old Elder in her Lenni-Lenape tribe and community. Taking turns with the author as the two women alternate voices throughout this moving book, Strong Medicine tells of her ancestry, tracing it back to the first Native peoples to encounter the Europeans in 1524, through the strife and bloodshed of America's early years, up to the twentieth century and her own lifetime, decades colored by oppression and terror yet still lifted up by the strength of an enduring collective spirit.
This genuine and delightful telling gives voice to a powerful female Elder whose dry wit and charming humor will provide wisdom and inspiration to readers from every background.
Kirkus
Booklist (American Library Association)
Posted on website -- www.amyhillhearth.com
URL: http://www.amyhillhearth.com
Not My Mother's Sister: Generational Conflict and Third-Wave FeminismAuthor(s): Astrid Henry Reviews: Reviews of Not My Mother’s Sister:
Feministing, October 4, 2007. http://feministing.com/archives/007858.html
Women’s Studies Quarterly 34.3-4 (2006): 245-248.
COLLOQUY text theory critique 11 (2006): 251-255.
New Political Science 27.2 (2005): 233-243.
Psychology of Women Quarterly 29.4 (2005): 449-450.
Reference & User Services Quarterly 44.3 (2005): 187-198.
Footpaths and Bridges: Voices from the Native American Women Playwrights ArchiveAuthor(s): Rebecca Howard Reviews: The first anthology to showcase the rich and diverse dramatic work of Native American women.
"Long overdue, this powerful collection allows Native American women to speak in their own voices---in a wide range of writing styles and covering a broad array of themes. Scholars and students of theatre, cultural studies, and women's studies will welcome this anthology."
---Kathy A. Perkins, University of Illinois
Footpaths and Bridges presents eleven unique dramatic works that celebrate the vitality and diversity of Native American women. The collection presents a wide array of plays by leading contemporary playwrights---including JudyLee Oliva, Diane Glancy, and Monique Mojica, among others---in forms ranging from realism to dramatic poetry, from a children's story to a musical, and from full-length plays to one-acts. Alongside contributions from these award-winning playwrights is critical commentary that broadens understanding of Native American women's theater practices and perspectives, highlighting the issues of heritage, identity, and changing lifestyles that the plays imaginatively tackle. The collection affords access to voices previously unheard---voices that reveal the possibilities for communicating the complexity and the diversity of the Native American experience.
Whether for use in the theater or in the classroom, Footpaths and Bridges affords the artist, educator, and scholar access to voices previously unheard---voices that reveal the endless possibilities for communicating the past and the present, the personal and the political, and the stunning kaleidoscope of Native American life and art.
Imagining Arab Womanhood: The Cultural Mythology of Veils, Harems, and Belly Dancers in the U.S.Author(s): Amira Jarmakani Reviews: Review
"This is an outstanding, truly innovative, and very timely project that explores predominant images of Arab women in U.S. popular culture."--Nadine Naber, Program in American Culture and Department of Women's Studies, University of Michigan
Imagining Arab Womanhood examines orientalist images of Arab womanhood in the United States since the turn of the twentieth century, exploring, in particular, representations of belly dancers, harem girls, and veiled women. Through semiotic analysis, Jarmakani demonstrates that these images have functioned as nostalgic placeholders for pressing, yet unarticulated concerns about shifting spatial and temporal realities within the contexts of expansionism/modernization and imperialism/late capitalism. Calling these representations cultural mythologies, Jarmakani maps them onto dominant American narratives of power and progress, insisting on an analysis that understands them to be artifacts shaped by the interests of the American contexts in which they circulate. Imagining Arab Womanhood is a vital addition to conversations about representation, race, and gender.
Third Wave Feminism and Television: Jane Puts It in a BoxAuthor(s): Merri Lisa Johnson Reviews: The sexual politics of television culture is the territory covered by this ground-breaking book ? the first to demonstrate the ways in which third wave feminist television studies approaches and illuminates mainstream TV. Leading voices in third wave feminism focus on innovative US television shows, including The Sopranos, Oz, Six Feet Under, The L Word and the reality-TV show The Bachelor to take a closer look at the contradictions and reciprocities between feminism and television, engaging as they go in theoretical and critical conversations about media culture, third wave feminism, feminist spectatorship, the sex wars, and the politics of visual pleasure.
The book offers an exuberant and accessible discussion of what television has to offer today's feminist fan. It also sets a new tone for future debate, turning away from a sober, near-pessimistic trend in much feminist media studies to reconnect with the roots of third wave feminism in riot girl culture, sex radical feminism, and black feminism, tracing too the narratives provided by queer theory in which pleasure has a less contested place.
Flesh for Fantasy: Producing and Consuming Exotic DanceAuthor(s): Merri Lisa Johnson, Katherine Frank and R. Danielle Egan. Reviews: "A remarkable job offering real-life pictures of an industry that is usually sensationalized, misunderstood or misrepresented" ~Publisher?s Weekly
With a recent burst of feature films, documentaries, and books on strippers, the business of exotic dancing is hotter than ever. Over the last decade there has been a steadily expanding interest in exotic dance, from its role as an "art form" to its benefits as a means of exercise. While the breadth of discussion generated on this topic has expanded, the fundamental debate remains the same: are female strippers empowering themselves or allowing themselves to be exploited?
With her follow-up to Jane Sexes It Up: True Confessions of Feminist Desire, M. Lisa Johnson moves beyond the old debates and gives the reader a glimpse of what exotic dancing is like through the eyes of the stripper. The essays in Flesh for Fantasy cover everything from workplace policies and conditions, legal restrictions, customer behavior, and the struggle to overcome the stereotypes associated with the profession.
Jane Sexes It Up: True Confessions of Feminist DesireAuthor(s): Merri Lisa Johnson Reviews: "It's not for the straitlaced, but sex-positive feminists will find this a provocative, important anthology that speaks honestly to the question of pleasure and how to get it." ~Publisher's Weekly
The feminist battles over pornography in the 1970s and '80s left Gen-X third-wave feminists with a complex set of questions, says Johnson. Why do women still settle for unsatisfying sex? What does a thoughtful feminist do about her politically incorrect fantasies? Is heterosexual romance incompatible with female self-determination? While some feminists might tackle these questions without mentioning any body parts, much less their own, the contributors to this racy volume make a great effort to speak honestly about their erotic experiences in intimate, jargon-free essays edited by Johnson, a former stripper with a Ph.D. in English. There are entries from women working as prostitutes and strippers, women into exhibitionism, self-mutilation, muscle-building, girl gang-banging even women working out the impulse toward heterosexual marriage. While no one claims to have definitive answers to the big questions, certain perspectives do emerge. Among them: desire is "both socially constructed and beyond social construction"; viewing sex as a performance a deliberate trying on of other roles can be empowering; anything that defies the traditional heterosexual rules of engagement be it wanting a spanking or masturbating to rape fantasies makes space for different sexualities; and, maybe most importantly, contradictions are okay even feminists don't have to make sense all the time. It's not for the straitlaced, but sex-positive feminists will find this a provocative, important anthology that speaks honestly to the question of pleasure and how to get it. (Mar. 15)Forecast: Jane should please readers of Nerve.com and forward-thinking Camille Paglia fans. Antipornography feminists may want to steer clear.
The Golden Mountain: Beyond the American DreamAuthor(s): Irene Kai Reviews: Shift Magazine, Institute of Noetic Sciences
by Tobias Bodine
The personal, the historical, and the transformative are brought together at one table in this exquisite autobiography of Chinese-American Irene Kai. Drawing on the stories of three generations of women in her family, and weaving them together with her own tale of personal growth, this extended coming-of-age story presents the case for the profound need for generational healing in all of our lives.
Raised by a mother and grandmother who silently accepted their fate as second-class citizens on both sides of the Pacific, Kai struggles with finding her own identity and voice. "Me Generation" interests in sex, drugs, and a high-flying Beverly Hills lifestyle do not prove to be the antidote to the pain of traditional subservience, and when she comes to the realization that she has begun to pass her forebear's wounds on to her own children, she decides to break the cycle of victimization once and for all. Through meditation, surrender to her own vulnerability, and decisive actions that allow her to confront her inner (and outer) demons, Kai creates a courageous new life for herself and her children.
The content of this book can be raw at times, but this reflects the passion Kai possesses for healing herself and her family. She is not afraid to share scenes of rage, sadness, ecstasy, and even disturbing violence in her writing, though it is not gratuitous. Rather, she has embarked on a mission of truth-telling so that others may accept their personal, familial, and cultural pasts, and consciously choose a new way of living.
Review
March-May 2005
by Tobias Bodine
Shift Magazine, Institute of Noetic Sciences
The personal, the historical, and the transformative are brought together at one table in this exquisite autobiography of Chinese-American Irene Kai. Drawing on the stories of three generations of women in her family, and weaving them together with her own tale of personal growth, this extended coming-of-age story presents the case for the profound need for generational healing in all of our lives.
Raised by a mother and grandmother who silently accepted their fate as second-class citizens on both sides of the Pacific, Kai struggles with finding her own identity and voice.
"Me Generation" interests in sex, drugs, and a high-flying Beverly Hills lifestyle do not prove to be the antidote to the pain of traditional subservience, and when she comes to the realization that she has begun to pass her forebear's wounds on to her own children, she decides to break the cycle of victimization once and for all. Through meditation, surrender to her own vulnerability, and decisive actions that allow her to confront her inner (and outer) demons, Kai creates a courageous new life for herself and her children.
The content of this book can be raw at times, but this reflects the passion Kai possesses for healing herself and her family. She is not afraid to share scenes of rage, sadness, ecstasy, and even disturbing violence in her writing, though it is not gratuitous. Rather, she has embarked on a mission of truth-telling so that others may accept their personal, familial, and cultural pasts, and consciously choose a new way of living.
Review
March-May 2005
by Tobias Bodine
Shift Magazine, Institute of Noetic Sciences
The personal, the historical, and the transformative are brought together at one table in this exquisite autobiography of Chinese-American Irene Kai. Drawing on the stories of three generations of women in her family, and weaving them together with her own tale of personal growth, this extended coming-of-age story presents the case for the profound need for generational healing in all of our lives.
Raised by a mother and grandmother who silently accepted their fate as second-class citizens on both sides of the Pacific, Kai struggles with finding her own identity and voice.
"Me Generation" interests in sex, drugs, and a high-flying Beverly Hills lifestyle do not prove to be the antidote to the pain of traditional subservience, and when she comes to the realization that she has begun to pass her forebear's wounds on to her own children, she decides to break the cycle of victimization once and for all. Through meditation, surrender to her own vulnerability, and decisive actions that allow her to confront her inner (and outer) demons, Kai creates a courageous new life for herself and her children.
The content of this book can be raw at times, but this reflects the passion Kai possesses for healing herself and her family. She is not afraid to share scenes of rage, sadness, ecstasy, and even disturbing violence in her writing, though it is not gratuitous. Rather, she has embarked on a mission of truth-telling so that others may accept their personal, familial, and cultural pasts, and consciously choose a new way of living.
What Do You See?Author(s): Irene Kai Reviews: What Do You See? is a stunning reminder of how easily we humans allow ourselves to be fooled by our assumptions. The implications of this realization are profound and broad reaching. Weighty events of world history sometimes hang upon such illusions. This book provides a needed lesson in humility, doubt and uncertainty. - Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, President, Intuition Network, Dean of Consciousness Studies, University of Philosophical Research
"It is a beautiful book to show the power of mindsets. It helps you to look deep inside yourself and to see the power of your limitations and how your own imagery is conditioned. And it is done beautifully with the great sense of humor." - Dr. Alexander Badkhen, Co-founder, HARMONY Institute of Psychotherapy & Counseling, Director, International School for Psychotherapy, St. Petersburg, Russia
Nature Ethics: An Ecofeminist PerspectiveAuthor(s): Marti Kheel Reviews: “Nature Ethics is a ground-breaking contribution to the literature and a must read for anyone concerned with the links between environmental ethics, animal liberation and feminist
critique of male cultural bias.”— Rosemary Radford Ruether, author of Gaia and God.
“A major figure in ecofeminism, Marti Kheel’s original thinking about nature ethics culminates in this sweeping volume. She offers vital insights into the destructive consequences of a detached masculine self-identity, and a path toward the development of a genuinely inclusive nature ethic that respects all living beings.”—Greta Gaard, University of Wisconsin, author of Ecofeminism: Women, Animals, Nature
“Nature Ethics” is a major contribution to ecofeminist philosophy, animal liberation, and environmental ethics. Marti Kheel provides an invaluable critique of the ecological position that accepts violence toward individual beings while professing love and respect for the larger natural world.”—Carol Adams, author, The Sexual Politics of Meat
“I would buy this book for the section on vegan practice alone. Hats off to Marti Kheel and this wonderful book!”—Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, author of The Pig Who Sang to the Moon
“Nature Ethics provides a comprehensive and fair-minded account of the contrasting positions, particularly with respect to animals, between ecofeminist nature ethics and the celebrated holistic views of Theodore Roosevelt, Aldo Leopold, Holmes Rolston III, and Warwick Fox. Anyone interested in women’s studies, animal advocacy, hunting, vegetarianism, or environmental ethics will find this impressive book helpful and challenging.”—Peter Wenz, University of Illinois, author of Environmental Ethics Today
Women and AutobiographyAuthor(s): Allison Kimmich Reviews:
Mothering in the Third WaveAuthor(s): Amber Kinser Reviews: In exploring how the institution of motherhood is shaped by today's political and social realities, Mothering in the Third Wave examines contemporary experiences of feminist mothering while connecting to earlier writing on the subject since the 1970s.
Recommended for readers of any generation interested in the complexities of feminist mothering in the twenty-first century." - Astrid Henry, author of Not My Mother's Sister: Generational Conflict and Third-Wave Feminism
True to the third wave claim, the essays in this volume celebrate the diversity of mothering experiences and embrace the contradictions inherent in mothering. - Lara Foley, University of Tulsa
This edited collection of essays addresses a broad spectrum of experiences and issues related to contemporary maternity, productively complicating our understanding of this important topic. - Sara Hayden, The University of Montana
URL: http://www.yorku.ca/arm/motheringinthethirdwave.html
John Fowles: Visionary and VoyeurAuthor(s): Brooke Lenz Reviews: Best known as the author of The French Lieutenant’s Woman and The Magus, John Fowles achieved both critical and popular success as a writer of profound and provocative fiction. In this innovative new study, Brooke Lenz reconsiders Fowles’ controversial contributions to feminist thought. Combining literary criticism and feminist standpoint theory, John Fowles: Visionary and Voyeur examines the problems that women readers and feminist critics encounter in Fowles’ frequently voyeuristic fiction.
Over the course of his career, this book argues, Fowles progressively created women characters who subvert voyeuristic exploitation and who author alternative narratives through which they can understand their experiences, cope with oppressive dominant systems, and envision more authentic and just communities. Especially in the later novels, Fowles’ women characters offer progressive alternative approaches to self-awareness, interpersonal relationships, and social reform – despite Fowles’ problematic idealization of women and even his self-professed “cruelty” to the women in his own life. This volume will be of interest to critics and readers of contemporary fiction, but most of all, to men and women who seek a progressive, inclusive feminism.
Killing for Life: The Apocalyptic Narrative of Pro-life PoliticsAuthor(s): Carol Mason Reviews: Book Description
How can those who seek to protect the "right to life" defend assassination in the name of saving lives? Carol Mason investigates this seeming paradox by examining pro-life literature-both archival material and writings from the front lines of the conflict. Her analysis reveals the apocalyptic thread that is the ideological link between established anti-abortion organizations and the more shadowy pro-life terrorists who subject clinic workers to anthrax scares, bombs, and bullets.
The portrayal of abortion as "America's Armageddon" began in the 1960s. In the 1970s, Mason says, Christian politics and the post-Vietnam paramilitary culture popularized the idea that legal abortion is a harbinger of apocalypse. By the 1990s, Mason asserts, even the movement's mainstream had taken up the call, narrating abortion as an apocalyptic battle between so-called Christian and anti-Christian forces. "Pro-life violence of the 1990s signaled a move away from protest and toward retribution," she writes. "Pro-life retribution is seen as a way to restore the order of God. In this light, the phenomenon of killing for 'life' is revealed not as an oxymoron, but as a logical consistency and a political manifestation of religious retribution."
Mason's scrutiny of primary sources (direct mail, internal memoranda, personal letters, underground manuals, and pro-life films, magazines, and novels) draws attention to elements of pro-life millennialism. Killing for Life is a powerful indictment of pro-life ideology as a coherent, mass-produced narrative that does not merely condone violence, but anticipates it as part of "God's plan."
Anna Julia Cooper, Visionary Black Feminist: A Critical IntroductionAuthor(s): Vivian May Reviews: May has written the first book to really situate Cooper as a radical intellectual. She elucidates not only Cooper's brilliant critique of racism and sexism, but her cross-disciplinary analysis of literature, education, religion, law and American culture. Most importantly, May establishes Cooper's philosophy of liberation--one that is global, historically grounded, passionate, and lived. From now on, anyone teaching 20th century intellectual history must come to terms with Anna Julia Cooper. --Robin D. G. Kelley, Columbia University, author of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination
"May persuasively argues that Cooper's philosophical ideas are much more revolutionary--radical even--and subversive of dominant ideology than previously judged. This book will become central to the scholarship on 19th and early 20th century African American women writers." --Trudier Harris, UNC Chapel Hill, author of Saints, Sinners, Saviors: Strong Black Women in African American Literature
"May places Cooper in a rich political, philosophical and literary context in which her prescient work can at long last be fully appreciated. She enables readers to understand just how and why Cooper might have been misunderstood, and links such misunderstanding with some of the very political constraints under which Cooper labored. This promises to be the kind of book about which people will say, `Wow! How can we have missed out on all this?'" --Elizabeth V. Spelman, Smith College, author of Fruits of Sorrow: Framing Our Attention to Suffering.
Margaret Fuller, Wandering PilgrimAuthor(s): Meg McGavran Murray Reviews: "How is it that I seem to be this Margaret Fuller," the pioneering feminist, journalist, and political revolutionary asked herself as a child. "What does it mean?" Filled with new insights into the causes and consequences of Fuller's lifelong psychic conflict, this biography chronicles the journey of an American Romantic pilgrim as she wanders from New England into the larger world and then back home under circumstances that Fuller herself likened to those of both the prodigal child of the Bible and Oedipus of Greek mythology.
Meg McGavran Murray discusses Fuller's Puritan ancestry, her life as the precocious child of a preoccupied, grieving mother and of a tyrannical father, who took over her upbringing, her escape from her loveless home into books, and the unorthodox - and influential - male and female role models to which her reading exposed her. Murray also covers Fuller's authorship of Woman in the Nineteenth Century, her career as a New-York Tribune journalist first in New York and later in Rome, her pregnancy out of wedlock, her witness of the fall of Rome in 1849 during the Roman Revolution, and her return to the land of her birth, where she knew she would be received as an outcast.
Other biographies call Fuller a Romantic. Margaret Fuller, Wandering Pilgrim illustrates how Fuller internalized the lives of the heroes and heroines in the ancient and modern Romantic literature that she had read as a child and adolescent, as well as how she used her Romantic imagination to broaden women's roles in Woman in the Nineteenth Century, even as she wandered the earth in search of a home.
Meg McGavran Murray, until her recent retirement, taught English at Mississippi State University and, before that, at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. She is the editor of the essay collection Face to Face.
Reviews of Meg McGavran Murray's "Margaret Fuller, Wandering Pilgrim"
'"Margaret Fuller: Wandering Pilgrim has the potential to be one of the most controversial books published on Fuller, in the best sense of the term. Murray has done her research, and her ability to contextualize Fuller in her time and among her contemporaries is outstanding. Among the book's strengths are Murray's psychological probings of Fuller, sophisticated readings of Fuller's relations with Emerson, Nathan, and Ossoli, and her relating of Fuller's reading not just to her intellectual life, but to her emotional life as well. This will be an important work."
- Joel Myerson, author of Contemporary Authors: Biography
"This impressive, scholarly biography brings to life the joyless, anxiety-ridden child, the unattractive adolescent, and the verbally brilliant young woman in her twenties, who can support herself, through her twenties and into her thirties, teaching, conversing, and writing. Amazing that this protected prodigy should spend her last few years not only in poverty, but in the midst of a raging Italian revolution, with a baby she could not acknowledge or care for, and in service to an emergency hospital for wounded and dying militia. Even when we know the story, this retelling keeps us glued to her pages. In these pages, perhaps or the first time from a feminist point of view, we see the intellectual Margaret Fuller, the writer of the U.S.'s first feminist manifesto warts and all as a passionate, strong woman, fully human. One realizes, as the tragic ending closes in, how great a loss was Fuller s needless death."
-Florence Howe, Emerita Professor of English at the City University of New York Graduate Center and founder of the Feminist Press.
Reading Adoption: Family and Difference in Fiction and DramaAuthor(s): Marianne Novy Reviews: "Weaving together perceptive literary analyses, skillful expositions of cultural history, and thoughtful discussions of her own experiences as an adoptee, Marianne Novy illuminates texts ranging from Shakespeare's plays to the novels of Barbara Kingsolver. This book will interest not only students of literature but the many people involved with the process of adoption." ?Heather Dubrow, University of Wisconsin-Madison
"In Reading Adoption Marianne Novy takes us back to Oedipus, that quintessential adoptee, and to Shakespeare's romance with parent-child reunions, as well as to orphans lost and found in modern English and American literature. And all the while she gives us insights into living adoption as she weaves her own story of reuniting with her birth mother, which is as absorbing as any of the fictional narratives she has guided us through." ?Betty Jean Lifton, author of Journey of the Adopted Self: A Quest for Wholeness
"Art imitates life, and vice versa in Marianne Novy's thought provoking, even-handed analysis of the classic plot device, the abandoned child. Drawing on her own experiences as a person adopted in the 1940s, and as a mother, along with her probing insite as an academic, Novy explores the evolving definitions of 'parent' thoroughout literature and history with sensitivity wisdom and fairness." ?Sarah Saffian, author of Ithaka; A Daughter's Journal of Being Found
URL: http://www.press.umich.edu/special/novy.html
Oakland Out Loud: Poetry and Prose in Celebration of "There"Author(s): Maria Ochoa Reviews: "With far more flavors than an ice-cream shoppe, and far more colors, too, Oakland Out Loud is a reminder of what poetry should be: original, audacious, and beautiful." Gerald Haslam
"Soak up their powerful prose and poems about the internal and external world, far and near." William Wong
URL: http://www.penoakland.org/special-thanks.html
Shout Out: Women of Color Respond to ViolenceAuthor(s): Maria Ochoa, Barbara K. Ige Reviews: Bettina Aptheker, Feminist Studies Department, University of California, Santa Cruz
"This is a superb book. Each piece is a jewel. In a range of genres from poetry, to spoken word, to scholarly voice, women of color write about violence against themselves and their communities. With attention to issues that include domestic violence, rape, sexual slavery, and war hard truths are told, and the hope of resistance, healing, and empowerment flowers. Multi-cultural, multi-racial, anti-colonialist this collection is an example of transnational feminist work at its very best. It should be widely read by all of us, and will be of great benefit in many Women's Studies, Feminist Studies, and Ethnic Studies courses."
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“Publisher’s Weekly” review
This distressing anthology—equal parts manifesto, testimony and manual—gathers over 40 scholarly essays, spoken word pieces, poems and short memoirs about “war, rape, murder, atrocities, slavery, sex trade, domestic violence, poverty, and other forms of oppression” faced by women of color around the globe. The first section of this neatly structured collection addresses domestic violence in the United States; the second shifts to the international sphere, while the third focuses on state-sanctioned and military violence against women. The heavily personal fourth section segues to an action-oriented concluding chapter. Particularly noteworthy is the original research of Hosai Ehsan’s “The Prevalence of Domestic Violence in Afghan Households” and of Nandini Gunewardena’s “Hidden Transcripts: Women’s Suicide as Resistance in Sri Lanka.” Sharmila Lodhia offers a fresh perspective in “Selective Storytelling: A Critique of U.S. Media Coverage Regarding Violence Against Indian Women,” as does Dai Sil Kim-Gibson in “'Comfort Women Want Justice, Not Comfort.” Activists provide useful, practical advice (e.g., Nalini Shekar and Mukta Sharangpani’s “Culture and Truth: Learning from a Transatlantic Trafficking Case.” feminists in particular.
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Girlistic Magazine (Winter 2008)
This complete collection of poetry, scientific studies, and creative nonfiction provides a thorough collection of information and responses by women of color to violence perpetrated on women of color. Divided into five chapters, the collection addresses, in a variety of angles, issues including domestic violence in the US, international perspectives on sex trafficking, war and its impact on institutionalized rape, and visions of a better world, to name a few. The contributions come from a diverse pool, from established writers like Aya de Leon and Chrystos, to social scientists like Venita Kelley, Ph.D., to activists like Jackie Joice. While acknowledging that this collection only scratches the surface of what is written, thought and understood about violence against women of color, it feels thorough in the forms through which the information comes, as well as the topics addressed. This thoroughness leads readers to a more clear understanding of why violence as a human ailment has the deepest impact on women of color, and how women of color respond both in negative and positive ways. A heartening side to this collection is that while it expands one’s understanding of a dark and oppressive reality, it also lends hope not only through the beauty of the works included, but in the overall voice of the collection; these works are brought together to show that change is palpable, it is there on our ink- and bloodstained fingertips. Understanding the impact of violence is vital to changing our cultures, and critical to that understanding is listening to the women upon whom the violence is perpetrated. With this collection, those women have a voice, and they are shouting.
Courting Kathleen HanniganAuthor(s): Mary Reed Reviews: "Courting Kathleen Hanigan gives the reader a chilling but empowering sense of what might have happened to the author's fellow Yale alumna Hilary Clinton had she followed her classmates into a high-powered law firm--and what is still happening to smart, ambitious women today as they navigate the difficult line between being professionally strong and being labeled unfeminine. A must-read for any woman who has ever tried, aspries to, or is curious about breaking into a male-dominated field." Anne Mini, PhD, A Family Darkly
'I'm so glad that someone has chosen to tell this story because so many women professionals who entered the work place in the '70s andn '80s will recognize it. I could not resist loving Kitty, but reading about her dilemmas and choices was almost too personal. She made me want to call my women friends at major law firms to make sure they have the support they deserve and that they know that they are not "the crazy ones!"' Jane DiRenzo Pigott, Lawyer and First Female Member of the Executive Committee, Winston & Strawn
"Mary tells it like it was--and still is. This is a brilliant and funny re-telling of life in the big law firm swamp rom the perspective of a youn female laywer who started her career in the '70s. It is a must-read for any young woman contemplating or embarking upon a career in law or business." Deborah Bornstein, Law Firm Partner and Litigator
Where to Publish Articles on Women's Studies, Feminist Religious Studies, and Feminist/Womanist Topics: Listings and Submissions Guidelines for Scholars and Writers (2008)Author(s): Marguerite Rigoglioso Reviews: Available through mail order only (see ordering info below).
Get those thesis and dissertation excerpts, course papers, book chapters, essays, and half-formed musings out of your hard drive and into the hands of journal editors. Where to Publish Articles . . . is a handbook containing lists of hundreds of U.S. and international journal (and some magazine) titles as well as specific submissions guidelines for more than 60 journals. While the focus is on women’s studies, women and religion, and feminist/womanist thought, selected lists of professional and commercial publications in religion and other areas are also included. With this one handy resource you'll know what publications are out there (no more time-consuming Internet searches and doubts you've found them all) and you'll be well-positioned to strategize how to get your articles and papers in print. Let your writings collect dust no more. These places are looking for your work!
How to order:
Where to Publish Articles . . . is available exclusively through Mother Mystery Press via U.S. mail. It is not sold in stores or online.
To order, send an email first to Marguerite Rigoglioso, at mothermystery@comcast.net. U.S. orders will be requested to make out a check for $23, which includes U.S. postage, to Marguerite Rigoglioso; mail to 38 Rosebank Avenue, Kentfield, CA 94904–1609. Overseas orders must send an email first to inquire about postal rates; payment required by cashier’s check in U.S. dollars. Be sure to include your address in your order, and allow several weeks for delivery.
Praise for Where to Publish Articles . . .
• “A world of resources for how not to ‘perish’ –– all in one volume.”
• "Inspired me to angle an old course paper for ten journals I didn’t know even existed.”
• “Reminds me that I have something to say in my field –– and that I need to get it out there.”
Published by Mother Mystery Press
6X9; 103 pages
The Dream of the Perfect ChildAuthor(s): Joan Rothschild Reviews: Others have addressed the societal implications of contemplating "the perfect child" but no one
has written about it so poignantly, so compellingly, and so beautifully. . . . The best discussion of
bioethics and reproductive practices I've seen.
Carole Browner, University of California, Los Angeles
Gender Quake: Poems Author(s): Joelle Ruby Ryan Reviews: Gender Quake is a book of revolutionary poems that explores what it means to be a transgendered individual in America. Joelle Ruby Ryan, a self-styled 6'6" transgender warrior, bares her soul in this collection of poems which is at turns humorous, poignant, searing and deeply passionate. From the ashes of loneliness, rage, and despair, Ryan charts an emotional trajectory which jolts readers into confronting their own shared humanity with differently-gendered people. Ryan covers topics as diverse as feminism, porn, passing, violence, activism and the urgent need for solidarity across lines of identity and difference. While the book explores the darkest corners of a life marred by pain, discrimination and self-hatred, it also repeatedly calls upon hope, love and justice as the primary correctives for imagining a better world. Gender Quake will shock you, educate you and most of all move you to join the fight for a gender revolution. "So World, take note: the Gender Quake is ready to activate, and the whirl is gonna be blissful, and divine, and unstoppable."
Methodology of the OppressedAuthor(s): Che Sandoval Reviews: American Studies Journal
Signs
Native American Autobiography Redefined: A HandbookAuthor(s): Stephanie Sellers Reviews: Autobiographical stories, widely popular since their creation, are still one of the primary ethnographic and historic sources on Native North American individuals. Many books in this genre, including the famous Black Elk Speaks, have been translated into numerous languages. Native American Autobiography Redefined: A Handbook interrogates critical discussions about Native American autobiographies and challenges their often Eurocentric perspectives: it offers a new rubric for studying the genre, dismantles misperceptions about indigenous peoples, and analyzes in detail a non-biased, Native-centered example of writing about Native American autobiography. This book asks readers to move away from the western cultural notion of "autobiography" to a Native American cultural perspective of "communal narrative." Special emphasis is given to issues of gender bias and to the great disparity between Eastern Woodlands and western culture's perceptions of women.
About the Author: Stephanie A. Sellers, a culturally identified woman of Native ancestry (Eastern Woodlands), received her Ph.D. in Native American studies with an emphasis on women of the Eastern Woodlands from Union Institute & University in Cincinnati. She teaches in the English Department at Gettysburg College and has published numerous scholarly articles, fiction, and poetry. Her area of research also includes Native American women's studies.
God Speaks to Us, Too: Southern Baptist Women on Church, Home, and SocietyAuthor(s): Susan Shaw Reviews: If anyone ever thought Southern Baptist women were meek, mild, and uniformly submissive, this book assures them that they have another thing coming. Susan Shaw found that while some of the women she interviewed believed they should submit to their husbands in theory, most believed strongly in their ability and responsibility to think and act for themselves.Susan Willhauck, Wesley Theological Seminary.
Book Description How can women find strength, courage, and motivation in a religious denomination that believes in the necessity of a wife?s submission to her husband? In God Speaks to Us, Too, Susan M. Shaw shows that Southern Baptist women are surprisingly more complex and rebellious than outside observers might think they are. She presents the views of more than 150 women, often using their own words, and finds in them an unshakable belief that God speaks as directly to them as to any pastor or denominational leader. Although these women respect their leaders and are influenced by them, ultimately they recognize that their beliefs and practices are determined by their own choices, and with God?s guidance.
Sisterhood, Interrupted: From Radical Women to Grrls Gone WildAuthor(s): Deborah Siegel Reviews: Chronicling the battles that have shaped modern conceptions of feminism across two generations, Sisterhood, Interrupted illuminates how younger women are reliving - often without realizing it - the battles of the past. Contrary to clichs about the end of feminism, Deborah Siegel argues that younger women are not abandoning the movement but reinventing it. After forty years, is feminism today a culture, or a cause? A movement for personal empowerment, or broad-scale social change? Have women achieved equality, or do we still have a long way to go?
Library Journal
New York Observer
Bitch
Bookslut
Edges, O Israel, O PalestineAuthor(s): Leora Smith Reviews: Third Edition
"Edited and Selected by Gace Paley for her imprint at Glad Day Books, EDGES is an elegant and moving novel. Leora Skolkin-Smith has that rare gift of the writer who can convey the sensibility -- the essence of a place and its people -- with precision and clarity. A provocative debut."
--Katharine Weber, book critic, author of TRIANGLE
"EDGES" is a novel told with restraint and poetic precision memorable (for the) the sense of place that Ms. Skolkin-Smith has achieved -- the sunny and scary Jerusalem and countryside -- and the hope, love, hate and fatalism of the groups, Palestinian and Israeli, living amongst and apart from each other"
-- Robert Whitcomb , "The Providence Journal".
"A feverish, sensual, remarkable book."
--Meredith Sue Willis
"Edges" is a dark and penetrating look at pre-1967 Israel and Palestine through the eyes of a 14 year old Liana Bialik. After her American father's suicide, Liana's Jerusalem-born mother decides to take Liana and her sister back to her homeland, where her family had lived for four generations. Once they get to Israel Liana, who feels overwhelmed and suffocated by her mother, begins to detach herself from her. She embarks on a mission of self-discovery to learn why her mother does not speak about her father and why he took his own life. Edges is well-written, powerful in both imagery and subject matter"
--Jewish Book World, Spring 2006
Vol. 24, Number 1
"Where, and how and to whom do we really belong Skolkin's brilliant debut novel is a hypnotic meditation on the ever-changing boundaries of love and need. A coming of age story of the bond between a young American and her powerful mother, etched in a wartime Mideast as shifting and dangerous and mysterious as the Israeli desert."
--Caroline Leavitt, columnist, Reviewer,Boston Globe, PEOPLE MAGAZINE, author of GIRLS IN TROUBLE
"With EDGES, Leora Skolkin-Smith earns her place among the most gifted of contemporary American authors. The novel is a reminder that works of fiction can offer the depth, color, texture, passion of a fine painting and a great symphony. This is more than a coming-of-age story; it is a powerful and beautifully wrought account of passion and hopefor a girl and for a country."
--Victoria Zackheim, Author, "The Boneweaver" Editor, Anthology "THE OTHER WOMAN", "FOR KEEPS"
"In Edges Leora Smith skillfully tells the story of a girl of fourteen in the wake of her father's suicide, brought abruptly by her distraught mother from a comfortable suburban We