Best of
Feminism

2004

Caliban and the Witch


Silvia Federici - 2004
    Moving from the peasant revolts of the late Middle Ages to the witch-hunts and the rise of mechanical philosophy, Federici investigates the capitalist rationalization of social reproduction. She shows how the battle against the rebel body and the conflict between body and mind are essential conditions for the development of labor power and self-ownership, two central principles of modern social organization."It is both a passionate work of memory recovered and a hammer of humanity's agenda." Peter Linebaugh, author of The London Hanged"

Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender, and the New Racism


Patricia Hill Collins - 2004
    In Black Sexual Politics, one of America's most influential writers on race and gender explores how images of Black sexuality have been used to maintain the color line and how they threaten to spread a new brand of racism around the world today.

America's Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines


Gail Collins - 2004
    It features a stunning array of personalities, from the women peering worriedly over the side of the Mayflower to feminists having a grand old time protesting beauty pageants and bridal fairs. Courageous, silly, funny, and heartbreaking, these women shaped the nation and our vision of what it means to be female in America. By culling the most fascinating characters — the average as well as the celebrated — Gail Collins, the editorial page editor at the New York Times, charts a journey that shows how women lived, what they cared about, and how they felt about marriage, sex, and work. She begins with the lost colony of Roanoke and the early southern "tobacco brides" who came looking for a husband and sometimes — thanks to the stupendously high mortality rate — wound up marrying their way through three or four. Spanning wars, the pioneering days, the fight for suffrage, the Depression, the era of Rosie the Riveter, the civil rights movement, and the feminist rebellion of the 1970s, America's Women describes the way women's lives were altered by dress fashions, medical advances, rules of hygiene, social theories about sex and courtship, and the ever-changing attitudes toward education, work, and politics. While keeping her eye on the big picture, Collins still notes that corsets and uncomfortable shoes mattered a lot, too. "The history of American women is about the fight for freedom," Collins writes in her introduction, "but it's less a war against oppressive men than a struggle to straighten out the perpetually mixed message about women's roles that was accepted by almost everybody of both genders." Told chronologically through the compelling stories of individual lives that, linked together, provide a complete picture of the American woman's experience, America's Women is both a great read and a landmark work of history.

The Cultural Politics of Emotion


Sara Ahmed - 2004
    Of interest to readers in gender studies and cultural studies, the psychology and sociology of emotions, and phenomenology and psychoanalysis, The Cultural Politics of the Emotions offers new ways of thinking about our inner and our outer lives.

Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence


Judith Butler - 2004
    In her most impassioned and personal book to date, Judith Butler responds in this profound appraisal of post-9/11 America to the current US policies to wage perpetual war, and calls for a deeper understanding of how mourning and violence might instead inspire solidarity and a quest for global justice.

Undoing Gender


Judith Butler - 2004
    In terms that draw from feminist and queer theory, Butler considers the norms that govern and fail to govern gender and sexuality as they relate to the constraints on recognizable personhood. The book constitutes a reconsideration of her earlier view on gender performativity from Gender Trouble. In this work, the critique of gender norms is clearly situated within the framework of human persistence and survival. And to "do" one's gender in certain ways sometimes implies "undoing" dominant notions of personhood. She writes about the "New Gender Politics" that has emerged in recent years, a combination of movements concerned with transgender, transsexuality, intersex, and their complex relations to feminist and queer theory.

Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde


Alexis De Veaux - 2004
    Drawing from the private archives of the poet's estate and numerous interviews, Alexis De Veaux demystifies Lorde's iconic status, charting her conservative childhood in Harlem; her early marriage to a white, gay man with whom she had two children; her emergence as an outspoken black feminist lesbian; and her canonization as a seminal poet of American literature.

Without a Net: The Female Experience of Growing Up Working Class


Michelle TeaLis Goldschmidt - 2004
    It was these concerns that prompted indie icon Michelle Tea--whose memoir The Chelsea Whistle details her own working-class roots in gritty Chelsea, Massachusetts--to collect these fierce, honest, tender essays written by women who can’t go home to the suburbs when their assignment is over. These wide-ranging essays cover everything from stealing and selling blood to make ends meet, to "jumping" class, how if time equals money then being poor means waiting, surviving and returning to the ghetto and how feminine identity is shaped by poverty. Contributors include Dorothy Allison, Diane Di Prima, Terri Griffith, Daisy Hernández, Frances Varian, Tara Hardy, Shawna Kenney, Siobhan Brooks, Terri Ryan, and more.

Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject


Saba Mahmood - 2004
    Unlike those organized Islamist activities that seek to seize or transform the state, this is a moral reform movement whose orthodox practices are commonly viewed as inconsequential to Egypt's political landscape. Saba Mahmood's compelling exposition of these practices challenges this assumption by showing how the ethical and the political are indelibly linked within the context of such movements.Not only is this book a sensitive ethnography of a critical but largely ignored dimension of the Islamic revival, it is also an unflinching critique of the secular-liberal principles by which some people hold such movements to account. The book addresses three central questions: How do movements of moral reform help us rethink the normative liberal account of politics? How does the adherence of women to the patriarchal norms at the core of such movements parochialize key assumptions within feminist theory about freedom, agency, authority, and the human subject? How does a consideration of debates about embodied religious rituals among Islamists and their secular critics help us understand the conceptual relationship between bodily form and political imaginaries? Politics of Piety is essential reading for anyone interested in issues at the nexus of ethics and politics, embodiment and gender, and liberalism and postcolonialism.

Every Day Is a Good Day: Reflections by Contemporary Indigenous Women


Wilma Mankiller - 2004
    Coming together as one, 19 strong and successful women provide a rare glimpse into their lives with the hope that their voices will be heard and their message understood: bear witness to the unforgivable acts that their people have survived and take a step forward in mending old wrongs and forgiving past and present hurts. Brings to light the insight of women artists, lawyers, ranchers, doctors, and educators Discussions range from the land to government, love to family life. Conversational style of writing presents a genuine Native American perspective.

Belonging: A Culture of Place


bell hooks - 2004
    Traversing past and present, Belonging charts a cyclical journey in which hooks moves from place to place, from country to city and back again, only to end where she began--her old Kentucky home. hooks has written provocatively about race, gender, and class; and in this book she turns her attention to focus on issues of land and land ownership. Reflecting on the fact that 90% of all black people lived in the agrarian South before mass migration to northern cities in the early 1900s, she writes about black farmers, about black folks who have been committed both in the past and in the present to local food production, to being organic, and to finding solace in nature. Naturally, it would be impossible to contemplate these issues without thinking about the politics of race and class. Reflecting on the racism that continues to find expression in the world of real estate, she writes about segregation in housing and economic racialized zoning. In these critical essays, hooks finds surprising connections that link the environment and sustainability to the politics of race and class that reach far beyond Kentucky.With characteristic insight and honesty, Belonging offers a remarkable vision of a world where all people--wherever they may call home--can live fully and well, where everyone can belong.

Hope in the Dark


Rebecca Solnit - 2004
    Drawing on her decades of activism and a wide reading of environmental, cultural, and political history, Solnit argues that radicals have a long, neglected history of transformative victories, that the positive consequences of our acts are not always immediately seen, directly knowable, or even measurable, and that pessimism and despair rest on an unwarranted confidence about what is going to happen next.Originally published in 2004, now with a new foreword and afterword, Solnit’s influential book shines a light into the darkness of our time in an unforgettable new edition.

Undivided Rights: Women of Color Organizing for Reproductive Justice


Loretta J. Ross - 2004
    But, if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, let us work together.”—Lila Watson, Aboriginal ActivistVibrant. Strong. Fierce. Undivided Rights captures the evolving and largely unknown activist history of women of color organizing for reproductive justice—on their own behalf.Undivided Rights presents a fresh and textured understanding of the reproductive rights movement by placing the experiences, priorities, and activism of women of color in the foreground. Using historical research, original organizational case studies, and personal interviews, the authors illuminate how women of color have led the fight to control their own bodies and reproductive destinies. Undivided Rights shows how women of color—-starting within their own Latina, African American, Native American, and Asian American communities—have resisted coercion of their reproductive abilities. Projected against the backdrop of the mainstream pro-choice movement and radical right agendas, these dynamic case studies feature the groundbreaking work being done by health and reproductive rights organizations led by women-of-color.The book details how and why these women have defined and implemented expansive reproductive health agendas that reject legalistic remedies and seek instead to address the wider needs of their communities. It stresses the urgency for innovative strategies that push beyond the traditional base and goals of the mainstream pro-choice movement—strategies that are broadly inclusive while being specific, strategies that speak to all women by speaking to each woman. While the authors raise tough questions about inclusion, identity politics, and the future of women’s organizing, they also offer a way out of the limiting focus on “choice.”Undivided Rights articulates a holistic vision for reproductive freedom. It refuses to allow our human rights to be divvied up and parceled out into isolated boxes that people are then forced to pick and choose among.

Our Mothers' War: American Women at Home and at the Front During World War II


Emily Yellin - 2004
    Never before has the vast range of women's experiences during this pivotal era been brought together in one book. Now, Our Mothers' War re-creates what American women from all walks of life were doing and thinking, on the home front and abroad. These heartwarming and sometimes heartbreaking accounts of the women we have known as mothers, aunts, and grandmothers reveal facets of their lives that have usually remained unmentioned and unappreciated. Our Mothers' War gives center stage to one of WWII's most essential fighting forces: the women of America, whose extraordinary bravery, strength, and humanity shine through on every page.

Alice Walker: A Life


Evelyn C. White - 2004
    Drawing on extensive interviews and exhaustive research, Evelyn C. White brings this life to light.

Global Lockdown: Race, Gender, and the Prison-Industrial Complex


Julia Sudbury - 2004
    The distinguished contributors to this collection offer a variety of perspectives, from former prisoners to advocates to scholars from around the world. The book is a must-read for anyone concerned by mass incarceration and the growth of the prison-industrial complex within and beyond U.S. borders, as well as those interested in globalization and resistance.

Women's Wisdom from the Heart of Africa


Sobonfu E. Somé - 2004
    They are valued as dreamers, as diviners, as the backbone of the community; the core of human survival. But what can the teachings of this indigenous culture show us that will transform the way we live? On Women's Wisdom from the Heart of Africa, Sobonfu Som�, author, teacher, and the first woman empowered by the Dagara elders to impart their teachings to the West, invites you to peer into a world where people remain closely connected to nature, their ancestors, and spirit, and to learn how to use powerful rituals to restore balance within yourself and with those around you.Secrets of the Dagara StorytellersSobonfu Som�, whose name means "keeper of the rituals," was raised in her small village and sent by her elders to continue her education in the United States. With Women's Wisdom from the Heart of Africa, Som� shares authentic spiritual teachings of her tribe that were formerly handed down only within the circle of Dagara village life. These teachings are founded on a worldview that honors animals, plants, and trees as our elders, and human beings as the newcomers. From this revered relationship with the natural world, we learn how to live in unity with our environment, and create a deeper connection with spirit.Discover Your True Gifts and Offer Them to the World Through Ritual and CelebrationHow do we find this connection to spirit? For the Dagara, ritual is the gateway. Distilling the essential practices of her people, Sobonfu Som� shows you how to check in with spirit to receive guidance, observe the sacred spaces of your home, harness the energy of the elements, strengthen your relationships, create balance in your professional life, and much more. What are your unique gifts? What were you born to contribute? What can your community do to assist you? These questions are asked of every unborn Dagara child while still in the womb. Now, you have the chance to explore these and other questions, and to discover your inimitable gift as a woman with Women's Wisdom from the Heart of Africa.Highlights: Use ritual to discover power places in nature and in your body Form a council of women to initiate growth and change in your community How to relate to your life cycles and honor them as times of grace, beauty, and immense energy Leadership as seen through the eyes of Dagara women--a different way of using your power How to create a shrine in your home to call in the divine Your unfiltered intuition--a guide you can always trust Call in the spirits of the elements to create balance and harmony Reclaim your ancestral lineage to learn who you are and what are your greatest strengths Visible and invisible power--tapping into your own sacred energy How to use grief and mourning to restore, renew, and regenerate your spirit Draw upon your dreams to guide, support, and encourage yourself and others Ritual--the key to connecting with spirit and with the people you care about Seven hours of rituals, reflection, and stories to immerse yourself in the traditions of the Dagara tribe and expand any spiritual practice

The Curious Feminist: Searching for Women in a New Age of Empire


Cynthia Enloe - 2004
    She proposes a distinctively feminist curiosity that begins with taking women seriously, especially during this era of unprecedented American influence. This means listening carefully, digging deep, challenging assumptions, and welcoming surprises. Listening to women in Asian sneaker factories, Enloe reveals, enables us to bring down to earth the often abstract discussions of the global economy. Paying close attention to Iraqi women's organizing efforts under military occupation exposes the false global promises made by officials. Enloe also turns the beam of her inquiry inward. In a series of four candid interviews and a new set of autobiographical pieces, she reflects on the gradual development of her own feminist curiosity. Describing her wartime suburban girlhood and her years at Berkeley, she maps the everyday obstacles placed on the path to feminist consciousness—and suggests how those obstacles can be identified and overcome. The Curious Feminist shows how taking women seriously also challenges the common assumption that masculinities are trivial factors in today's international affairs. Enloe explores the workings of masculinity inside organizations as diverse as the American military, a Serbian militia, the UN, and Oxfam. A feminist curiosity finds all women worth thinking about, Enloe claims. She suggests that we pay thoughtful attention to women who appear complicit in violence or in the oppression of others, or too cozily wrapped up in their relative privilege to inspire praise or compassion. Enloe's vitality, passion, and incisive wit illuminate each essay. The Curious Feminist is an original and timely invitation to look at global politics in an entirely different way.

Lucy Parsons: Freedom, Equality & Solidarity - Writings & Speeches, 1878-1937


Lucy Parsons - 2004
    "More dangerous than a thousand rioters!" That's what the Chicago police called Lucy Parsons--America's most defiant and persistent anarchist agitator, whose cross-country speaking tours inspired hundreds of thousands of working people. Her friends and admirers included William Morris, Peter Kropotkin, "Big Bill" Haywood, Ben Reitman, and Sam Dolgoff. And the groups in which she was active were just as varied: the Knights of Labor, IWW, Dil Pickle Club, International Labor Defense, and others. Here for the first time is a hefty selection of her powerful writings and speeches: on anarchism, women, race matters, class war, the IWW, and the U.S. injustice system. "Lucy Parsons's writings are among the best and strongest in the history of U.S. anarchism"--Gale Ahrens.

The War on Choice: The Right-Wing Attack on Women's Rights and How to Fight Back


Gloria Feldt - 2004
    The War on Choice chronicles the actions being taken at the highest levels of government to turn back the clock on women's rights. With the White House acting in anti-choice lockstep with the majorities in both House and Senate, religious extremists are now in key decision-making posts, our federal judiciary is filled with recent appointees whose values are drastically out of step with the pro-choice sentiments of the majority of the American people, abstinence-only sex education is now the rule, ideology has trumped science in domestic and global health policy, and the Supreme Court balance in favor of reproductive freedoms is perilously close to toppling. But while many of the individual facts are known, no one until now has connected all the dots and drawn the Big Picture that shows exactly how radical and how successful this quiet revolution has been.Judge by judge, law by law, and appointee by appointee, The War on Choice speaks the truth about what is happening, and also tells the stories of some of the women whose lives have been affected by these court decisions and federal policies. A keen analysis of current events, combined with a hands-on plan of action for those who want to raise their voices in protest, this book will be riveting reading.And there is no one better equipped to write about the insidious, step-by step chipping away of rights, or about what we can do to fight back, than Gloria Feldt, President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Her thirty years of work with the organization combined with her personal experience - as a woman who came out of the same West Texas political landscape as did George W. Bush but faced a very different economic and social reality as the mother of three children by the age of 20 make her the ideal spokeswoman for those who are alarmed by the current political climate.?This book will be a wake-up call, describing in jaw-dropping detail the story of what the anti-choice movement is doing to the rights to birth control, abortion and privacy.?

Conversations with Audre Lorde


Joan Wylie Hall - 2004
    The interviews in this collection portray the many additional sides of the Harlem-born author and activist. She was also a rebellious child of Caribbean parents, a mastectomy patient, a blue-collar worker, a college professor, a student of African mythology, an experimental autobiographer in her book titled Zami, a critic of imperialism, and a charismatic orator.Despite her intense engagement with the major social movements of her time, Lorde told interviewers that she was always an outsider, a position of weakness and of strength.Most of her schoolmates were white. She married a white legal-aid attorney, and after their divorce she was the partner of a white psychologist for many years. These intimate alliances with whites caused some African Americans of both genders to question the depth of her solidarity. Lorde expressed distrust of some white feminists and charged that they lacked real understanding of African American struggles.Writing proved to be her powerful weapon against injustice. Painfully aware that differences could provoke prejudice and violence, she promoted the bridging of barriers. These interviews reveal the sense of displacement that made Lorde a champion of the outcast and the forgotten--whether in New York, Mississippi, Berlin, or Soweto.

The Rosa Luxemburg Reader


Rosa Luxemburg - 2004
    Her legacy grows in relevance as the global character of the capitalist market becomes more apparent and the critique of bureaucratic power is more widely accepted within the movement for human liberation.The Rosa Luxemburg Reader is the definitive one-volume collection of Luxemburg's writings in English translation. Unlike previous publications of her work from the early 1970s, this volume includes substantial extracts from her major economic writingsabove all, The Accumulation of Capital (1913)and from her political writings, including Reform or Revolution (1898), the Junius Pamphlet (1916), and The Russian Revolution (1918).The Reader also includes a number of important texts that have never before been published in English translation, including substantial extracts from her Introduction to Political Economy (1916), and a recently-discovered piece on slavery. With a substantial introduction assessing Luxemburg's work in the light of recent research, The Rosa Luxemburg Reader is an indispensable resource for scholarship and an inspiration for a new generation of activists."

Space Invaders: Race, Gender and Bodies Out of Place


Nirmal Puwar - 2004
    The spaces they come to occupy are not empty or neutral, but are imbued with history and meaning. This groundbreaking book interrogates the pernicious, subtle but nonetheless widely held view that certain bodies are naturally entitled to certain spaces, while others are not. How are positions of authority racialized and gendered? How do people manage their femininity and/or blackness while in a predominantly white male context? How do spaces become naturalized or normalized, and what does it mean when they are disrupted? Engaging with a range of material from a variety of institutions, Space Invaders is a timely contribution to wide-reaching debates on race, gender and space. It is the first book to articulate the full complexity of diversity in organizations.

Women's Rites, Women's Mysteries: Intuitive Ritual Creation


Ruth Barrett - 2004
    Instead of providing shortcuts, scripts, or rote rituals, she teaches women how to think like a ritualist. Step by step, readers learn the ritual-making process: developing a purpose and theme, building an altar, preparing emotionally and mentally (energetics), spellcasting, and more. For beginners or experienced ritualists, solitaries or groups, this thorough, engaging guide to the art of ritual-making can help women commemorate every sacred milestone-from menstruation to marriage to menopause-that touches their lives.Praise: "Ruth Barrett brings her many years of experience in teaching and priestessing in the Dianic tradition to this book. Her thoughtfulness, intelligence and depth of understanding make it a valuable resource and will open a new perspective for many Pagans."—Starhawk, best-selling author of The Spiral Dance and The Fifth Sacred Thing

Passing It On


Yuri Kochiyama - 2004
    and internationally for over half a century. A prolific writer and speaker on human rights, Kochiyama has spoken at over 100 colleges and universities and high schools in the U.S. and Canada.

Creating Their Own Image: The History of African-American Women Artists


Lisa E. Farrington - 2004
    Using an analysis of stereotypes of Africans and African-Americans in western art and culture as a springboard, Lisa E. Farrington here richly details hundreds of important works--many of which deliberately challenge these same identity myths, of the carnal Jezebel, the asexual Mammy, the imperious Matriarch--in crafting a portrait of artistic creativity unprecedented in its scope and ambition. In these lavishly illustrated pages, some of which feature images never before published, we learn of the efforts of Elizabeth Keckley, fashion designer to Mary Todd Lincoln; the acclaimed sculptor Edmonia Lewis, internationally renowned for her neoclassical works in marble; and the artist Nancy Elizabeth Prophet and her innovative teaching techniques. We meet Laura Wheeler Waring who portrayed women of color as members of a socially elite class in stark contrast to the prevalent images of compliant maids, impoverished malcontents, and exotics others that proliferated in the inter-war period. We read of the painter Barbara Jones-Hogu's collaboration on the famed Wall of Respect, even as we view a rare photograph of Hogu in the process of painting the mural. Farrington expertly guides us through the fertile period of the Harlem Renaissance and the New Negro Movement, which produced an entirely new crop of artists who consciously imbued their work with a social and political agenda, and through the tumultuous, explosive years of the civil rights movement. Drawing on revealing interviews with numerous contemporary artists, such as Betye Saar, Faith Ringgold, Nanette Carter, Camille Billops, Xenobia Bailey, and many others, the second half of Creating Their Own Image probes more recent stylistic developments, such as abstraction, conceptualism, and post-modernism, never losing sight of the struggles and challenges that have consistently influenced this body of work. Weaving together an expansive collection of artists, styles, and periods, Farrington argues that for centuries African-American women artists have created an alternative vision of how women of color can, are, and might be represented in American culture. From utilitarian objects such as quilts and baskets to a wide array of fine arts, Creating Their Own Image serves up compelling evidence of the fundamental human need to convey one's life, one's emotions, one's experiences, on a canvas of one's own making.

I Am a Red Dress: Incantations on a Grandmother, a Mother, and a Daughter


Anna Camilleri - 2004
    Part memoir, part storytelling, Anna writes with passion and conviction about family and identity, and how the wounds of personal history can be healed through the imagination. Like a flashing red light, these eloquent stories and narratives speak to the heart of three generations of women — Anna, her mother, and her grandmother — as they deal with a cycle of family abuse; in them, the red dress appears as a symbol of defiance and empowerment. Throughout the book, Anna unravels memory that is inextricably tied to culture, class, and tradition, in a strong and beautiful voice that bravely asserts its right to be heard.Combining the political with the intensely personal, Camilleri’s intimate writings are premised on a search for selfhood—strong, queer, female—within and outside of her bonds to other women in her family. She says, “My work is motivated by a deep desire to understand, and in the words of Dorothy Allison, to ‘remake the world.’”Despite the perception that we live in a progressive society, Camilleri is not convinced that we live in a world that is necessarily better for women, indigenous people and people of color, queer people, or the poor and the working class. But she recognizes that the imagination is a powerful force that can lead to better lives, and a better world.Her voice is the sound the status quo makes as it crashes to the ground.Anna Camilleri is a Toronto-based writer and performance poet. She was co-editor of Brazen Femme, shortlisted for a Lambda Award, and co-founded Taste This, with whom she collaborated to publish Boys Like Her, winner of a ForeWord Magazine Literary Award.

A Call to Power: The Grandmothers Speak


Sharon McErlane - 2004
    These wise women-who represent all cultures and races of humanity-revealed to her their mission: "Earth has suffered too long from an excess of yang and insufficient yin. We have come to correct this."Desperate times call for something new. As humans stand at the edge of the precipice, the winds of change blasting our backs, the universe throws us a lifeline. Help has appeared in the form of wise old women, the Great Council of the Grandmothers. "The present imbalance of energy on Earth has placed all life in danger," the Grandmothers declare. "It is time to return to balance, and for this, women must lead. Women must be empowered. This is why we have come."The Grandmothers have come at this crucial time to awaken the presence of the deep feminine, to bring men and women and all life back into harmony.A Call to Power is the story of the author's encounters with these wise women and the powerful and important message that they bring.

Two Novellas and a Story


Ambai - 2004
    It explores the issue of fertility and the female body; suppression and oppression, in the guise of love and the assurance of security; so also the attempt to understand the complexities of male-female relationships, striving to look at life not only from the perspective of what one knows, but also from that of what one does not know or has not attempted to know.

Mustang Sallies: Success Secrets of Women Who Refuse to Run With the Herd


Fawn Germer - 2004
     Mustang Sallies offers words of wisdom from extraordinary women who succeeded on their own terms, by their own rules, and in their own way. Based on interviews with more than 50 world-famous trailblazers-such as Eve Ensler, Carly Fiorina, Susan Sarandon, Erin Brockovich, Hillary Clinton, Mary Higgins Clark, Ann Richards, and Martina Navratilova-Mustang Sallies shows every spirited woman how to compromise without selling out and succeed by being her true self.

Whethering


Rusty Morrison - 2004
    Winner of the 2004 Colorado Prize for PoetryPublished by the Center for Literary Publishing at Colorado State Universit

Understanding Patriarchy


bell hooks - 2004
    Yet most men do not use the word “patriarchy” in everyday life. Most men never think about patriarchy—what it means, how it is created and sustained. Many men in our nation would not be able to spell the word or pronounce it correctly. The word “patriarchy” just is not a part of their normal everyday thought or speech. Men who have heard and know the word usually associate it with women’s liberation, with feminism, and therefore dismiss it as irrelevant to their own experiences. I have been standing at podiums talking about patriarchy for more than thirty years. It is a word I use daily, and men who hear me use it often ask me what I mean by it. Nothing discounts the old antifeminist projection of men as all-powerful more than their basic ignorance of a major facet of the political system that shapes and informs male identity and sense of self from birth until death."Published as Chapter 2 of "The Will to Change" by bell hooks 2004

TechnoFeminism


Judy Wajcman - 2004
    However, it is feminist politics rather than the technologies themselves that make the difference. TechnoFeminism fuses the visionary insights of cyberfeminism with a materialist analysis of the sexual politics of technology.

The Myth of the Military-Nation: Militarism, Gender, and Education in Turkey


Ayşe Gül Altınay - 2004
    Altinay examines how the myth that the military is central to Turkey's national identity was created, perpetuated, and acts to shape politics. This historical and anthropological investigation probes the genesis of the myth that the Turkish nation is a military nation, traces how the ideology of militarism has been actualized through education and conscription, and reveals the implications for ethnic and gender relations. Altinay sheds light both on the process of how national identities are constructed and on the deep roots of the challenges facing Turkey as it potentially moves from being a plural to a pluralistic society.

Why Men Earn More: The Startling Truth Behind the Pay Gap--And What Women Can Do about It


Warren Farrell - 2004
    Farrell clearly defines the 25 different workplace choices that affect women's and men's incomes -- including putting in more hours at work, taking riskier jobs or more hazardous assignments, being willing to change location, and training for technical jobs that involve less people contact -- and provides readers with specific, research-supported ways for women to earn higher pay.Why Men Earn More, with its brashness in the face of political correctness, is sure to ignite a storm of media controversy that will help to make this thoroughly pragmatic expose Warren Farrell's next bestseller."

Inez: The Life and Times of Inez Milholland


Linda J. Lumsden - 2004
    Moving in radical circles, she agitated for social change in the prewar years, and she epitomized the independent New Woman of the time. Her death at age 30 while stumping for suffrage in California in 1916 made her the sole martyr of the American suffrage movement. Her death helped inspire two years of militant protests by the National Woman's Party, including the picketing of the White House, which led in 1920 to ratification of the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote. Lumsden's study of this colorful and influential figure restores to history an important link between the homebound women of the 19th century and the iconoclastic feminists of the 1970s.

Paternal Tyranny


Arcangela Tarabotti - 2004
    But instead, at sixteen, her father forced her into a Benedictine convent. To protest her confinement, Tarabotti composed polemical works exposing the many injustices perpetrated against women of her day.Paternal Tyranny, the first of these works, is a fiery but carefully argued manifesto against the oppression of women by the Venetian patriarchy. Denouncing key misogynist texts of the era, Tarabotti shows how despicable it was for Venice, a republic that prided itself on its political liberties, to deprive its women of rights accorded even to foreigners. She accuses parents of treating convents as dumping grounds for disabled, illegitimate, or otherwise unwanted daughters. Finally, through compelling feminist readings of the Bible and other religious works, Tarabotti demonstrates that women are clearly men's equals in God's eyes.An avenging angel who dared to speak out for the rights of women nearly four centuries ago, Arcangela Tarabotti can now finally be heard.

We Also Made History: Women in the Ambedkarite Movement


Urmila Pawar - 2004
    B. R. Ambedkar’s Dalit movement for the first time. Focusing on the involvement of women in various Dalit struggles since the early twentieth century, the book goes on to consider the social conditions of Dalit women’s lives, daily religious practices and marital rules, the practice of ritual prostitution, and women’s issues. Drawing on diverse sources including periodicals, records of meetings, and personal correspondence, the latter half of the book is composed of interviews with Dalit women activists from the 1930s. These first-hand accounts from more than forty Dalit women make the book an invaluable resource for students of caste, gender, and politics in India. A rich store of material for historians of the Dalit movement and gender studies in India, We Also Made History remains a fundamental text of the modern women’s movement.

Prostitution, Trafficking, and Traumatic Stress


Melissa Farley - 2004
    Even in academia, law, and public health, prostitution is often misunderstood as "sex work." The book's 32 contributors offer clinical examples, analysis, and original research that counteract common myths about the harmlessness of prostitution.Prostitution, Trafficking, and Traumatic Stress extensively documents the violence that runs like a constant thread throughout all types of prostitution, including escort, brothel, trafficking, strip club, pornography, and street prostitution. Prostitutes are always subjected to verbal sexual harassment and often have a lengthy history of trauma, including childhood sexual abuse and emotional neglect, racism, economic discrimination, rape, and other physical and sexual violence.International in scope, the book contains cutting-edge contributions from clinical experts in traumatic stress, from attorneys and advocates who work with trafficked women, adolescents, and children and also prostituted women and men. A number of chapters address the complexity of treating the psychological symptoms resulting from prostitution and trafficking. Others address the survivor's need for social supports, substance abuse treatment, peer support, and culturally relevant services. To stay up-to-date on this powerful subject, visit the "Traffick Jamming" blog at http: //www.prostitutionresearch.com/blog.Prostitution, Trafficking, and Traumatic Stress examines:The connections between prostitution, incest, sexual harassment, rape, and domestic violenceClinical symptoms common among those in prostitution, including dissociation, posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, and substance abusePeer support programs for women escaping prostitutionCulturally relevant services for women escaping prostitutionThe connection between prostitution and trafficking, including trafficking from Mexico to the United States, and prostitution of adolescents in Cambodian brothelsOnline prostitutionHow gay male pornography harms gay menAccessing public assistance funds for survivors of prostitutionArguments against legalizing or decriminalizing prostitutionFrom the editor's Preface: Prostitution is to the community what incest is to the family.Slavery, at its height, was normalized in the United States as unpleasant but inevitable, yet it is now considered to be an institution that violated human rights. Perhaps we will at some point in the future look back on prostitution/trafficking with a similar historical perspective. It is my hope that this book will assist the reader in understanding prostitution and trafficking and in how to help women and children escape it.

Ithaca


Francisca Aguirre - 2004
    Upon its original Spanish publication, Ithaca earned the 1971 Leopoldo Panero poetry award.Francisca Aguirre was born in Alicante, Spain in 1930. She began publishing late in life, garnering many awards, including the prestigious Esquio Award. She lives in Spain with poet Felix Grande, a member of the second generation of post-civil war poets.Translator Ana Osan was born in Morocco. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. She specializes in translating poetry by women, particularly the translation of long poems such as Ithaca. She lives in Valparaiso, IN.

Feminist Theory: A Philosophical Anthology


Robin O. Andreasen - 2004
     Topics include the nature of sexist oppression, the sex/gender distinction, how gender-based norms influence conceptions of rationality, knowledge, and scientific objectivity, feminist ethics, feminst perspectives on self and autonomy, whether there exist distinct feminine moral perspectives, and what would comprise true liberation. Features an introductory overview illustrating the development of feminism as a philosophical movement Contains both classic and contemporary sources of feminist thought, including selections by Mary Wollstonecraft, John Stuart Mill, Simone de Beauvior, Kate Millett, bell hooks, Marilyn Frye, Martha Nussbaum, Louise Antony, Sally Haslanger, Helen Longino, Marilyn Friedman, Catharine MacKinnon, and Drucilla Cornell.

From Feminist Theology to Indecent Theology


Marcella Althaus-Reid - 2004
    The author uses Queer theory and Post Colonial analysis to show more clearly how this shift, especially from gender to sexuality, has occurred. The book also looks towards the future possiblities of a theology done in times of globalisation.To help to clarify this theoretical subject, the book is broken down into three areas. The first section deals with the genesis of Indecent theology, and includes material that is foundational, but not widely available until now. The second section looks more closely at just what Indecent Theology is, and the third section considers the future of Indecent Theologies, and ties up the questions raised in the earlier sections.

Girls Will Be Boys Will Be Girls: A Coloring Book


Jacinta Bunnell - 2004
    32 original illustrations with captions like "Calvin, baking is fun and all, but we can make a rad drum set out of these pots and bowls" and "Don't let gender box you in" offer light-hearted, fun ways to deconstruct gender for both children and adults. The coloring book form is a subversive and playful way to examine how perversive stereotypes about gender are in every aspect of our lives, especially the ones that are so ingrained we don't even notice. Girls Will be Boys Will be Girls pokes fun at the tired constraints of gender normativity, and makes it okay to step outside the lines.

Word.: On Being a [Woman] Writer


Jocelyn Burrell - 2004
    Here, writers from all over the world explore, defy and embrace “the woman writer”: an indispensable muse to some, a troublesome burden to others; a defiant, even life-threatening identity to others still. Taking nothing as given, these writers explore the varied pleasures and dangers of writing as woman in the contemporary world.The choice to write is rarely considered free of consequences. For some of the writers in this collection, it has meant prison or exile; for others, it has required a defiance of traditions and expectations and a re-creation of identities and communities. For most, it demands a balancing act among family, practical needs and the undeniable will to create.In essays that are deeply personal and fiercely political, these writers topple all fixed ideas of “the woman writer,” revealing themselves as utterly individual and powerfully interconnected authors of the written word, of the human heart, of what we dare to imagine as possible.Contributors include: Diana Abu-Jaber, Isabel Allende, Meena Alexander, Dorothy Allison, Gioconda Bellí, Pat Califia, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Shashi Deshpande, Assia Djebar, Jessica Hagedorn, Joy Harjo, Barbara Kingsolver, Maxine Hong Kingston, Taslima Nasrin, Erica Jong, Rita Dove, Alia Mamdouh, Toni Morrison, Daphne Patai, Nawal el Saadawi, Patti Smith, Wislawa Szymborska, Yvonne Vera, Alice Walker and Rebecca Walker.Jocelyn Burrell is an editor at the Feminist Press at CUNY, as well as a writer and performance poet.

Expanding the Palace of Torah: Orthodoxy and Feminism


Tamar Ross - 2004
    Surprisingly, very little work has been done in this area, beyond exploring the leeway for ad hoc solutions to practical problems as they arise on the halakhic plane. Most Jewish feminist critiques addressing broader theological concerns are conducted by non-Orthodox, Anglo-educated women. Their works attempt to locate in Judaism the root causes for what is allegedly wrong with the past and current state of women and offer suggestions for more fundamental reform. In relying on an avowedly selective range of sources and ignoring the full stock of Judaism's rich interpretive tradition, such studies bypass internal tools and concepts of the existing halakhic establishment and fail to engage the unique religious assumptions of the living community most totally committed to its tenets. Ross believes that this approach--in many ways extrinsic to the reality it purports to affect--has little chance of gaining the type of halakhic or theological credibility crucial for wholehearted acceptance by the Orthodox mainstream. Writing as an insider (herself an Orthodox Jew), Ross confronts the radical feminist critique of Judaism as a religion deeply entrenched in patriarchy. In exposing the largely androcentric thrust of the rabbinic tradition and its biblical grounding, she sees this critique as posing a potential threat to the theological heart of traditional Judaism--the belief in divine revelation. Ross seeks to develop a theological response that fully acknowledges the male bias of Judaism's sanctified texts, yet nevertheless provides a rationale for transforming the relative import and significance of that bias in today's world without undermining their authority. Uncovering aspects of Jewish tradition that support this response, Ross proposes an approach to divine revelation which she calls "cumulativism." Building upon some interesting points of contact between postmodernist thinking and traditional Jewish ideas with regard to the meaning and function of religious language and the significance of context, this approach is based on a conflating of strict boundaries between text and its interpretation, or divine intent and the evolution of human understanding. Ross believes that the greater fluidity afforded by cumulativism in understanding the mechanics of revelation and halakhic deliberation is necessary for legitimizing the insights of feminism and fully absorbing women's changed status within the religious rubric of Jewish tradition. Emphasizing that continuity with tradition can be maintained only when the halakhic system is understood as a living and dynamic organism that grows via affirmation of its historical legacy and respect for its constraints, her book shows that the feminist revolution in Orthodox Judaism reaches beyond its practical effect upon individual lives to teach us something more profound about the nature of religious practice in general.

Recovering Subversion: Feminist Politics Beyond the Law


Nivedita Menon - 2004
    She argues that the intersection of feminist politics, law, and the state often paradoxically and severely distorts important ethical and emancipatory impulses of feminism. Menon reviews historical challenges to the liberal notion of rights from Marxist, feminist, postcolonial, and critical legal scholars, and analyzes current Indian debates on topics including abortion, sexual violence, and Parliamentary quotas for women. Far from being a call to withdraw from the arena of law, Recovering Subversion instead urges feminists everywhere to recognize the limits of rights discourse and pleads for a politics that goes beyond its boundaries.

Check it While I Wreck It: Black Womanhood, Hip-Hop Culture, and the Public Sphere


Gwendolyn D. Pough - 2004
    But although hip-hop has been assimilated and exploited in the mainstream, young black women who came of age during the hip-hop era are still fighting for equality.In this provocative study, Gwendolyn D. Pough explores the complex relationship between black women, hip-hop, and feminism. Examining a wide range of genres, including rap music, novels, spoken word poetry, hip-hop cinema, and hip-hop soul music, she traces the rhetoric of black women "bringing wreck." Pough demonstrates how influential women rappers such as Queen Latifah, Missy Elliot, and Lil' Kim are building on the legacy of earlier generations of women -- from Sojourner Truth to sisters of the black power and civil rights movements -- to disrupt and break into the dominant patriarchal public sphere. She discusses the ways in which today's young black women struggle against the stereotypical language of the past ("castrating black mother," "mammy," "sapphire") and the present ("bitch," "ho," "chickenhead"), and shows how rap provides an avenue to tell their own life stories, to construct their identities, and to dismantle historical and contemporary negative representations of black womanhood. Pough also looks at the ongoing public dialogue between male and female rappers about love and relationships, explaining how the denigrating rhetoric used by men has been appropriated by black women rappers as a means to empowerment in their own lyrics. The author concludes with a discussion of the pedagogical implications of rap music as well as of third wave and black feminism.This fresh and thought-provoking perspective on the complexities of hip-hop urges young black women to harness the energy, vitality, and activist roots of hip-hop culture and rap music to claim a public voice for themselves and to "bring wreck" on sexism and misogyny in mainstream society.

Praying Like a Woman


Nicola Slee - 2004
    It is both intensely personal, and also appealing and relevant to all women. 'My hope is that whoever picks up this book may be encouraged -- to pray as and who they are, towards who they may yet become.' -Nicola Slee The collection contains prayers, poems, songs, psalms, canticles, litanies, laments and creeds, as well as personal reflections. The areas covered include traditional areas for prayer, but also diverge into more specific themes, particularly relevant for women - such as the body and health. Praying Like A Woman is ideal for women who want to explore and develop their faith. The author hopes it will help other women to live into the experience of being a woman, in the particular time and place in which they find themselves, in the eyes of others and of God. "[The] poems and prayers bear witness to a faith of considerable depth and raw honesty, as she holds her God to account for her own sufferings and those of women throughout the world and across time. And then comes joy -- exuberant as the spring, and as unexpected as the resurrection." -Janet Morley (author of All Desires Known)

Ho'oulu: Our Time of Becoming: Collected Early Writings Of Manulani Meyer


Meleanna Meyer - 2004
    Manu Meyer, a Harvard educated, University of Hawai'i at Hilo professor of Education. With the publication of this book, Manu leaves Western construct behind and embraces Native Hawaiian and indigenous education and life models. Ho'oulu gathers her writings and ruminations on transforming information to knowledge, facts to metaphor, and sensation to contemplation. Her collected writings culminate in an unedited version of her doctoral thesis Native Hawaiian Epistemology: Contemporary Narratives.

Success Never Smelled So Sweet: How I Followed My Nose and Found My Passion


Lisa Price - 2004
    Intoxicated by fragrance and scent even as a child, Lisa was famous among her friends for always smelling good. She never imagined that the oils she enjoyed mixing up for her own pleasure would give way to the hugely popular “Carol’s Daughter,” a luxurious, all-natural line of bath and beauty products. How did a young black woman in financial straits, unable to get a business loan and deeply in debt, churn out a multi-million dollar enterprise? With $100 in cash, her own kitchen, and the simple notion that people should follow their hearts (which Lisa did by following her nose!) But first Lisa had to face down her demons—her fears about money, low self-esteem, and a history of failed relationships. But as she tackled each problem, her confidence soared and her business was unstoppable. She met her husband and business partner, began a family, and bought a large, beautiful space in her Brooklyn neighborhood to sell her products—favorites like Honey Pudding, Mango Body Butter, and Jamaican Punch that stars such as Halle Berry, Erykah Badu, Maya Angelou, Jada Pinkett-Smith, and Rosie Perez buy religiously. In Success Never Smelled So Sweet, Lisa Price charts her amazing journey in lively, down-to-earth stories about her childhood growing up in Brooklyn and the often unexpected “accidents” in the kitchen that led to her bestselling scents. From the early cultivation of her sensory gift through cooking with her Trinidadian grandmother to her painful years in a rigid school system where she was berated by teachers and bullied by kids, Lisa speaks tenderly and wisely about the subtle ways in which life can guide us to our inner truth—even as it throws out difficult obstacles along the way. For any woman who has ever longed to leave the nine-to-five grind and work successfully from home, Lisa Price’s story is a must-read. Filled with inspiring anecdotes, life advice from her own mother, Carol, and the recipes for some of her best-loved products, Success Never Smelled So Sweet is a book to read by candlelight while soaking in a silky rose-milk bath.

Luce Irigaray: Key Writings


Luce Irigaray - 2004
    From her early ground-breaking work on linguistics to her later revolutionary work on the ethics of sexual difference, Irigaray has positioned herself as one of the essential thinkers of our time. This collection of key writings, selected by Luce Irigaray herself, presents a complete picture of her work to date across the fields of Philosophy, Linguistics, Spirituality, Art and Politics. An indispensable work for students of philosophy, literary theory, feminist theory, linguistics and cultural studies.

Necessary Dreams: Ambition in Women's Changing Lives


Anna Fels - 2004
    Parents, teachers, bosses, and institutions all give less encouragement to women than men, and women still grow up believing that they must defer to men in order be seen as feminine. If their ambition does survive into adulthood, too often those ambitions must be downsized or abandoned to accommodate "wifely" duties of household chores and child care. As a result, women--unlike men-continually have to re-shape their goals and expectations.Yet expressing ambition, pursuing it, and getting recognition for one's accomplishments is critical to identity and happiness. In this groundbreaking work, Anna Fels draws on extensive research and years of her psychiatriac practice to offer an original and deeply useful examination of ambition in women's lives. In the process, she illuminates just what is necessary for women to articulate--and fulfill--their dreams.

Beads and Strands: Reflections of an African Woman on Christianity in Africa (Theology in Africa)


Mercy Amba Oduyoye - 2004
    Mercy Oduyoye's latest book gathers a wealth of insights under three headings—"Africa and Redemption"; "Global Issues in African Perspective"; and "Women, Tradition, and the Gospel in Africa." She brings Akan and other African traditions into correlation with biblical stories to show the reader how African wisdom from a woman's perspective offers deep insights into biblical episodes and themes.

105 Ways to Celebrate Menstruation


Kami McBride - 2004
    My favorite part of the book is Kami's suggestions for how to celebrate menstruation, 105 ways to be exact! This would be the perfect book for a young woman just entering her moon time, for a woman who is experiencing difficulty during menstruation or for any woman wishing to feel more empowered and creative during her monthly cycle. -ROSEMARY GLADSTARAuthor of Herbal Healing for Women and the Family HerbalMenstruation is not usually thought of as a time of honor or celebration. It is commonly called the curse, 'that dreaded time of the month', 'a bloody mess', 'on the rag' and other derogatory names. These names are a reflection of our thoughts and feelings about menstruation. When we reject a body function as something negative, dirty or insignificant, there is an energetic and psychological separation from that part of the body. The negative thought patterns associated with menstruation are indeed part of the reason why so many women experience unique combinations of over one hundred different symptoms and ailments categorized under PMS.We can develop a new way of thinking about menstruation. A way that creates positive thoughts and images in relation to this important body cycle. A way that allows us to truly love and accept our body just the way it is. We can learn to appreciate menstruation as something normal and healthy. When women don't feel like they have to 'do' something to hide or control this natural body function, they experience a greater sense of self esteem, well being and peace of mind.

The Grief of Strangers


Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - 2004
    

New Perspectives on Environmental Justice: Gender, Sexuality, and Activism


Rachel Stein - 2004
    New Perspectives on Environmental Justice is the first collection of essays that pays tribute to the enormous contributions women have made in these endeavors.The writers offer varied examples of environmental justice issues such as children's environmental health campaigns, cancer research, AIDS/HIV activism, the Environmental Genome Project, and popular culture, among many others. Each one focuses on gender and sexuality as crucial factors in women's or gay men's activism and applies environmental justice principles to related struggles for sexual justice. The contributors represent a wide variety of activist and scholarly perspectives including law, environmental studies, sociology, political science, history, medical anthropology, American studies, English, African and African American studies, women's studies, and gay and lesbian studies, offering multiple vantage points on gender, sexuality, and activism.Feminist/womanist impulses shape and sustain environmental justice movements around the world, making an understanding of gender roles and differences crucial for the success of these efforts.

The Voltairine de Cleyre Reader


Voltairine de Cleyre - 2004
    Combined into a fully annotated volume are her classic works and writings that have not been widely available since her death in 1912. She reveals the scope and depth of her activism and study through her prose. Her poetry speaks powerfully of the issues closest to her heart.“The most gifted and brilliant anarchist woman America ever produced.”—Emma Goldman

The Essential Hip Mama: Writing from the Cutting Edge of Parenting


Ariel Gore - 2004
    The zine that’s been called "fun and irreverent" by USA Today, "delightful" by Glamour, and "cutting-edge" by the Chicago Tribune has grown up alongside Gore’s daughter, covering subjects from weaning to home schooling with a political edge and a puckish sense of humor. The Essential Hip Mama captures the heart of a decade’s worth of earthy, honest, soulful parenting—and topics from circumcision to dating, abortion to the belief that "mothers don’t fart." Gore has gathered in one volume the whispers and conversations heard in homes, on playgrounds, and in coffeehouses around the country. Reassuring and hopeful, The Essential Hip Mama is a brilliant testament that one becomes an "expert" simply through the act of mothering, echoing Gore’s own words, "Whenever I’ve needed parenting advice, I’ve put out a call for submissions."

Why Do I Scream at God for the Rape of Babies?


Claudia Ford - 2004
    However, the story's heart is one of healing and courage, of immediate connection and growing love that Vyanna's adoptive mother, author Claudia Ford, experiences from the moment she sees her new daughter at Johannesburg General Hospital a week after the transgression.

Woman Awake: Women Practicing Buddhism


Christina Feldman - 2004
    In Woman Awake, Christina Feldman suggests that it is possible for women to break out of their negative patterns and accept themselves as they really are. With a growing awarenss of the dignity of all life and its connection with them, women can overcome the social conditioning and myth-making that overwhelm and oppress them.For those women new to Buddhist meditation, Christina Feldman offers sensitive and valuable guidelines on breathing and relaxation, stressing, above all, that learning to understand, appreciate, and value themselves is the first step towards women's creative and joyful integration with the world.

The Family Silver: A Memoir of Depression and Inheritance


Sharon O'Brien - 2004
    Her quest for her inheritance took her straight into the pressures and possibilities of American culture, and then to the heart of her family—the generations who shaped and were shaped by one another and their moment in history. In The Family Silver, as O'Brien travels into her family's past, she goes beyond depression to discover courage, poetry, and grace.A compassionate and engaging writer, O'Brien uses the biographer's methods to understand her family history, weaving the scattered pieces of the past—her mother's memo books, her father's reading journal, family photographs, tombstones, dance cards, hospital records, the family silver—into a compelling narrative. In the lives of her Irish-American relatives she finds that the American values of upward mobility, progress, and the pressure to achieve sparked both desire and depression, following her family through generations, across the sea, from the Irish famine of the 1840s to Harvard Yard in the late 1960s."Many people who write stories of depression or other chronic illnesses tell tales of recovery in the upward-mobility sense, the 'once I was ill, but now I am well' formula that we may find appealing, but doesn't match the messiness of our lives," she writes. "Mine is not such a tale. But it is a recovery tale in another sense—a story of salvage, of rescuing stories from silence." Told with humor and honesty, O'Brien's story will captivate all readers who want to know how they, and their families, have been shaped by the past.

Chronicle of a Working Life (One Pair of Hands / One Pair of Feet / My Turn to Make the Tea)


Monica Dickens - 2004
    Amusing, revealing and witty One Pair of Hands, One Pair of Feet, and My Turn to Make the Tea give a wonderful evocation of the post-war years of the twenties and thirties. 'Surely,' I thought, 'there's something more to life than just going to parties that one doesn't enjoy, with people one doesn't even like?' So begins Monica Dickens's first career move as, bored of being a debutante, she is let loose on series of unsuspecting upper-class employers as a cook-general in One Pair of Hands. Cooking, cleaning and telling all in this deliciously funny memoir, written at the age of twenty-two, this was her first book. One Pair of Feet continues her adventures when she recounts her first, and only, year of training to be a nurse, and My Turn to Make the Tea completes the trilogy by telling of her time as a very junior, very enthusiastic reporter on a local newspaper.

Dangerous Memories: A Mosaic of Mary in Scripture


Elizabeth A. Johnson - 2004
    Dangerous Memories is taken from her acclaimed Truly Our Sister: A Theology of Mary in the Communion of Saints (0-8264-1473-7), with the addition of a new introduction and a short annotated bibliography.

The Hungry Heart


Zoe Nicholson - 2004
    Joining with 7 women, traveling to Springfield, Illinois, living on water only; Zoe sat in the eye of the political storm and searched for spiritual insight. She wrote about it all from Phyllis Shlafly to Governor James Thompson, Mahatma Gandhi to Dick Gregory. Historical and inspiring, she writes from the heart with intimacy and humor.

Men, Militarism, and Un Peacekeeping: A Gendered Analysis. Sandra Whitworth


Sandra Whitworth - 2004
    This work contends that there is a fundamental contradiction between portrayals of peacekeeping as altruistic and benign and the militarized masculinity that underpins the group identity of soldiers.

Often Capital


Jennifer Moxley - 2004
    First published as two separate chapbooks in 1995 and 1996, Often Capital explores the tensions between political commitment and personal desire. Moxley draws in part on the love letters of the Polish radical Rosa Luxemburg in searching out a habitable space for resistance. Moxley employs techniques of collage and juxtaposition as well as narration to sound her subject. Yet the lean, sonorous lines that result leap out of any categorical dichotomies.

Working Feminism


Geraldine Pratt - 2004
    It draws to the fore the metaphorical and concrete geographies that lie implicit and underdeveloped within much feminist theory and suggests that a geographical imagination offers a means of reframing debates beyond polarized theoretical and political positions. Alternating between theoretical and empirical chapters, substantial and wide-ranging discussions of human rights, multiculturalism, and feminist politics are brought down to earth and -- by putting them into the context of individual predicaments -- to life. The empirical chapters situate and describe a decade-long collaboration by an activist group -- the Philippine Women Centre -- and demonstrate the fruits of a close and innovative engagement between poststructuralist feminist theory and a participatory action project.

The Cost of Choice: Women Evaluate the Impact of Abortion


Erika Bachiochi - 2004
    Wade, the conflict over abortion has not abated. While "pro-choice" forces increasingly concede the central "pro-life" claim - that abortion is a morally portentous act - they still insist that the well-being of women depends absolutely on a legal right to abortion. The twelve essays in The Cost of Choice all by women active in the public square, argue that legal abortion has in fact harmed women - socially, medically, psychologically and culturally.Law professor Elizabeth Schiltz describes the unsettling reactions she faced for "choosing" to give birth to a child with Down Syndrome. Dr. Angel Lanfranchi, co-founder of the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute, offers evidence supporting a link between induced abortion and increased risk of breast cancer. Psychiatrist Joanne Angelo tells how abortion has affected women she has treated.With essays by imminent women such as Mary Ann Glendon, Learned Hand Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, and Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Eleonore Raoul Professor of the Humanities at Emory University, The Cost of Choice shows another side of feminism and captures the complexity of a divisive social issue.

Surmounting the Barricades: Women in the Paris Commune


Carolyn J. Eichner - 2004
    It demonstrates the breadth, depth, and impact of communard feminist socialisms far beyond the 1871 insurrection. Examining the period from the early 1860s through that century's end, Carolyn J. Eichner investigates how radical women developed critiques of gender, class, and religious hierarchies in the immediate pre-Commune era, how these ideologies emerged as a plurality of feminist socialisms within the revolution, and how these varied politics subsequently affected fin-de-siecle gender and class relations. She focuses on three distinctly dissimilar revolutionary women leaders who exemplify multiple competing and complementary feminist socialisms: Andre Leo, Elisabeth Dmitrieff, and Paule Mink. Leo theorized and educated through journalism and fiction, Dmitrieff organized institutional power for working-class women, and Mink agitated crowds to create an egalitarian socialist world. Each woman forged her own path to gender equality and social justice.

Emma Goldman: A Documentary History of the American Years: Volume 2: Making Speech Free, 1902-1909


Emma Goldman - 2004
    This definitive multivolume work, which differs significantly from Goldman's autobiography, presents original texts—a significant group of which are published or translated into English for the first time—anchored by rigorous contextual annotations. The distillation of years of scholarly research, these volumes include personal correspondence, newspaper articles, government surveillance reports from America and Europe, dramatic court transcripts, lecture notes, and previously unpublished documents retrieved from obscurity. Biographical, newspaper, and organizational appendices are complemented by in-depth chronologies that underscore the complexity of Goldman's political and social milieu.Making Speech Free, 1902–1909, the second volume in the series, chronicles Goldman's pivotal role in the early battle for free expression. It highlights the relationship between the development of the right of free speech and turn-of-the-century anarchist ideas. The enactment of anti-anarchist laws and the organization of groups in protest occupy center stage among the primary documents. Within this frame, the volume presents Goldman's evolving attitudes toward violence in both its European and American contexts, the emergent revolution in Russia, and the beginnings of the Modern School education movement in America, the social significance of European modern drama, and the right of labor to organize against unfair working conditions in the United States. The volume features the early evolution of Goldman's magazine, Mother Earth, launched in 1906, which promoted a blending of modern literary and cultural ideas into her radical and social political agenda and became a platform for the articulation of her feminist critique, an expression of her international reach, and a marker of her desire to spread anarchist ideas outside the immigrant left. Making Speech Free also tracks Goldman's emergence as a writer and orator whose scathing critique of hypocrisy in all realms of life and politics would eventually capture the attention and imagination of America.

Breaking the Rule of Cool: Interviewing and Reading Women Beat Writers


Nancy McCampbell Grace - 2004
    Although they have often been eclipsed by the men of the Beat Generation, the women's contributions to Beat literature are considerable.Covering writers from the beginning of the movement in the 1950s and extending to the present, this book features interviews with nine of the best-known women Beat writers, including Diane di Prima, ruth weiss, Joyce Johnson, Hettie Jones, Joanne Kyger, Brenda Frazer (Bonnie Bremser), Janine Pommy Vega, Anne Waldman, and the critic Ann Charters. Each is presented by a biographical essay that details her literary or scholarly accomplishments.In these recent interviews the nine writers recall their lives in Beat bohemia and discuss their artistic practices. Nancy M. Grace outlines the goals and revelations of the interviews, and introduces the community of female Beat writers created in their conversations with the authors.Although they have not received attention equal to the men, women Beat writers rebelled against mainstream roles for young women and were exuberant participants in creating the Beat scene. Mapping their unique identities in the Beat movement, Ronna C. Johnson shows how their poetry, fiction, and memoirs broke the male rule that defined Beat women as silent bohemian "chicks" rather than artistic peers.Breaking the Rule of Cool combines the interviews with literary criticism and biography to illustrate the vivacity and intensity of women Beat writers, and argues that American literature was revitalized as much by the women's work as by that of their male counterparts.Nancy M. Grace, a professor of English at the College of Wooster, is the author of The Feminized Male Character in Twentieth-Century Literature. Her work has appeared in Contemporary Literature, the Beat Scene, and the Artful Dodge.Ronna C. Johnson, a lecturer in English and American Studies at Tufts University, has been published in College Literature, the Review of Contemporary Fiction, and the Poetry Project Newsletter. Johnson and Grace are the editors of and contributors to Girls Who Wore Black: Women Writing the Beat Generation.

Gates of Freedom: Voltairine de Cleyre and the Revolution of the Mind


Eugenia C. Delamotte - 2004
    A contemporary of Emma Goldman---who called her "the most gifted and brilliant anarchist woman America ever produced"---de Cleyre was a significant force in a major social movement that sought to transform American society and culture at its root. But she belongs to a group of late-nineteenth-century freethinkers, anarchists, and sex-radicals whose writing continues to be excluded from the U.S. literary and historical canon. Gates of Freedom considers de Cleyre's speeches, letters, and essays, including her most well known essay, "Sex Slavery." Part I brings current critical concerns to bear on de Cleyre's writings, exploring her contributions to the anarchist movement, her analyses of justice and violence, and her views on women, sexuality, and the body. Eugenia DeLamotte demonstrates both de Cleyre's literary significance and the importance of her work to feminist theory, women's studies, literary and cultural studies, U.S. history, and contemporary social and cultural analysis. Part II presents a thematically organized selection of de Cleyre's stirring writings, making Gates of Freedom appealing to scholars, students, and anyone interested in Voltairine de Cleyre's fascinating life and rousing work.Eugenia C. DeLamotte is Associate Professor of English, Arizona State University.

Fraulein Rabbiner Jonas: The Story of the First Woman Rabbi


Elisa Klapheck - 2004
    Biographer Elisa Klapheck shows how Jonas overcame formidable resistance and obstacles from conventional orthodox Jewish institutions to become the first female rabbi. The book includes the text of Jonas's definitive treatise on why women can indeed become rabbis, which is based on sound scripture from the Hebrew Bible, the Talmud, and other precedents in Jewish halachic law, rabbinic commentary, and Jewish practice. After her ordination in 1935, Jonas spent the remaining years of her life ministering to the abused and terrified German Jewish community as the Nazis rapidly restricted and robbed it of property, identity, and social privilege, forcing the Jews into hard labor, poverty, and ultimately death camps. This moving portrayal of her life reveals Regina Jonas as a humorous and passionate woman who was deeply beloved by all she served during the terminal crisis of their lives.

Uprootings/Regroundings: Questions of Home and Migration


Sara Ahmed - 2004
    They reflect on the different experiences of being at home, leaving home, and going home. They also explore ways in which attachment to place and locality can be secured--as well as challenged--through the movements that make up our dwelling places.

Convent Chronicles: Women Writing about Women and Reform in the Late Middle Ages


Anne Winston-Allen - 2004
    Within monastic orders, the Observant movement was one such effort to reform religious houses, sparked by the widespread fear that these houses had strayed too far from their original calling. In Convent Chronicles, Anne Winston-Allen offers a rare inside look at the Observant reform movement from the women's point of view.Although we know a great deal about the men who inhabited Observant religious houses, we know very little about their female counterparts--even though women outnumbered men in many places. Often what we do know about women comes to us through the filter of men's accounts. Recovering long-overlooked writings by women in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, Winston-Allen surveys the extraordinary literary and scribal activities in German- and Dutch-speaking religious communities in Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and the Low Countries. While previous studies have relied on records left by male activists, these women's narratives offer an alternative perspective that challenges traditional views of women's role and agency. Women were, in fact, active participants in the religious conversations that dominated the day.With its rich depiction of women as transmitters of culture, Convent Chronicles will be invaluable to scholars as well as to graduate and undergraduate students interested in the history of women's monasticism and religious writing.

Saving the Appearances


Liz Waldner - 2004
    SAVING THE APPEARANCES recounts a quest for wholeness, the Truth thatabides in and reveals the heart. Seeking to discover the true form ofthe edifice of the world, a building both containing and accounting for--saving--the appearances encountered on the way, these poems evince the mystery of the act of seeing, beauty of the natural world, an power of the longing that engenders its contemplation. Rarely does one findsuch vulnerability and sadness so luxuriantly, inventively dressed out, so playful, so cured--John Reider, TINFISH

Stein: Edith Stein


Sarah R. Borden - 2004
    She provides an example of a Christian thinker deeply engaged in the debates of her own day, and her work offers models and insights for addressing the questions of the twenty-first century.Sarah Borden presents an overview of St Edith Stein's life and thought, beginning with her biography. She then covers her early work in phenomenology, her political writings, her studies on women and women's education, as well her later turn to medieval metaphysics, and spiritual and religious texts. The final chapter covers the controversies surrounding Stein's beatification and canonization.Arranged by topic and proceeding largely in chronological order, the book is accessible and aimed at a general audience, although the material is presented in such a way as to be useful to specialists.

Louder: We Can't Hear You (Yet!): The Political Poems of Marge Piercy


Marge Piercy - 2004
    Recited in speeches by Gloria Steinem and Howard Zinn, and in rallies from coast to coast, Piercy’s political poems have become anthems for social change. But to locate these poems, Piercy fans have had to hunt through 16 different volumes. Louder, We Can’t Hear You, is an audio CD collection of 30 of her most popular political poems with an accompanying eight panel fold-out.In favorites such as "To Be of Use," written during the Vietnam War; "For Strong Women," and "The Low Road," during the women’s movement; "No One Came Home," an elegy for 9-11; and "Choices," written in reaction to Laura Bush’s White House invitation and included in the Poets Against the War anthology, Piercy confronts the social issues of our times for a new generation of activists, in words that have become "catchphrases," according to Erica Jong. "Poem after poem has that kind of authority, power, and verbal brilliance.""For anyone interested in what’s been happening on the cutting edge during the past two decades," says The New York Times, "she’s clearly essential reading." Louder, We Can’t Hear You is not only the first collection of Marge Piercy’s political poems, but her first audio collection in twenty years; truly an historical document.Marge Piercy is the author of 17 novels including the national best-sellers Gone to Soldiers, The Longings of Women and the modern classics, Woman on the Edge of Time and He, She and It. She is the author of 16 books of poetry, including the latest Colors Passing Through Us (Knopf ) and The Moon is Always Female, which has sold 100,000 copies.

Women and Law in India: An Omnibus Comprising Law and Gender Inequality, Enslaved Daughters, Hindu Women and Marriage Law


Monmayee Basu - 2004
    The omnibus forms a comprehensive and significant study for understanding why progressive laws, once passed, continue to be implemented in such a limited manner. It highlights that legislation even in the past fifty years have not brought equality.