Best of
Womens-Studies

2007

Coercive Control: How Men Entrap Women in Personal Life


Evan Stark - 2007
    Stark traces this failure to a startling paradox, that the singular focus on violence against women masks an even more devastating reality. In millions of abusive relationships, men use a largely unidentified form of subjugation that more closely resembles kidnapping or indentured servitude than assault. He calls this pattern coercive control. Drawing on sources that range from FBI statistics and film to dozens of actual cases from his thirty years of experience as an award-winning researcher, advocate, and forensic expert, Stark shows in terrifying detail how men can use coercive control to extend their dominance over time and through social space in ways that subvert women's autonomy, isolate them, and infiltrate the most intimate corners of their lives. Against this backdrop, Stark analyzes the cases of three women tried for crimes committed in the context of abuse, showing that their reactions are only intelligible when they are reframed as victims of coercive control rather than as battered wives.The story of physical and sexual violence against women has been told often. But this is the first book to show that most abused women who seek help do so because their rights and liberties have been jeopardized, not because they have been injured. The coercive control model Stark develops resolves three of the most perplexing challenges posed by abuse: why these relationships endure, why abused women develop a profile of problems seen among no other group of assault victims, and why the legal system has failed to win them justice.Elevating coercive control from a second-class misdemeanor to a human rights violation, Stark explains why law, policy, and advocacy must shift its focus to emphasize how coercive control jeopardizes women's freedom in everyday life.Fiercely argued and eminently readable, Stark's work is certain to breathe new life into the domestic violence revolution.

The Lost Gospel of Mary: The Mother of Jesus in Three Ancient Texts


Frederica Mathewes-Green - 2007
    A remarkable volume features three ancient texts--a brief prayer to Mary found on a scrap of papyrus in Egypt about a hundred years ago, The Gospel of Mary, and The Annunciation Hymn of Rejoicing--that open up the life of Mary, and her role in the church, in new and sometimes startling ways.

The Torah: A Women's Commentary


Tamara Cohn Eskenazi - 2007
    Each Torah portion in The Torah: A Women’s Commentary features:* A central commentary written by a biblical scholar.* A second, shorter commentary from another biblical scholar that compliments, supplements, or challenges the primary interpretation.* A compendium of post-biblical interpretations highlighting issues related to women.* A contemporary commentary reflecting social, philosophical, and theological concerns that link the Torah portion to current issues.* Creative responses in the form of poems, prose, or modern midrash.Free study guides for each parashah can be found in the sidebar.-from http://www.wrj.org/torah-womens-comme...

Shamanic Reiki: Expanded Ways of Working with Universal Life Force Energy


Robert Levy - 2007
    Shamanism and Reiki are, by themselves, powerful ways to heal. Together, their power multiplies, and healing methods become available that aren't accessible if they're used separately. The purpose of "Shamanic Reiki" is to introduce you to concepts in both and provide you with detailed proven methods to enhance your own healing practices, or to work on yourselves. "Shamanic Reiki" empowers the healer / Reiki practitioner to trust their instincts, recognizing that healing is an evolving and dynamic art; to facilitate change requires the healer to trust in spirit and work creatively with the universal life force energy. Now it's your turn to discover the combined power of Reiki and shamanism.

Healing Rage: Women Making Inner Peace Possible


Ruth King - 2007
    Rage is fuel, the source of our empowerment. When we embrace this brilliance respectfully, rage teaches us how to live, love, and heal. Self-help authors rarely distinguish between anger and rage, but Ruth King has devoted her career to exploring the subtle varieties of rage, while challenging the notion that rage is an “evil” emotion that must be eradicated. In Healing Rage, she gives all readers access to her pioneering, breakthrough program, which has already changed thousands of lives through workshops nationwide. Rage, King explains, sits at the crossroads of personal transformation. Those of us seeking more self-awareness will inevitably stumble upon personal rage on the path. Rage is not to be understood as a useless emotion, empty of story or knowledge, but as clarity and untapped fuel. Embraced with compassion, the energy trapped in rage becomes an intimate and empathic teacher offering balance, integrity, and inner peace to your healing journey, relationships, and service. King identifies six common disguises of rage (dominance, defiance, devotion, distraction, depression, and dependence) and provides healing exercises including: * Discover your rage inheritance and how to transform your legacy. * Learn how to Look Within before Acting Out. * Learn how to break habitual pain patterns in relationships. * Learn how to center yourself again and again in difficult situations. * Learn how to stay true to yourself when others are raging. * And learn how to stop contributing to your own suffering. Many of us go through our lives maintaining a good front. We may have all of the trappings—good job, higher education, and material gain--yet we have an inherent discontent with our lives that won’t go away. Written for every woman—ranging from counselors and their patients to those who may not realize that rage is at the root of their unhappiness and have just begun to seek new paths of hope—Healing Rage is a unique invitation for transformation.

Women's Power to Heal: Through Inner Medicine


Maya Tiwari - 2007
    Through this sacred energy, what you love becomes part of your vital tissues, your immunity, and your destiny. In this extraordinary book, women will learn to realign their natural biorhythms in accord with their ongoing relationship to the Earth, sun, moon, sky, water, forest, animals, and children, living in perennial initiation within the Mother Consciousness and evoking their Inner Medicine healing potential.

Home Girls Make Some Noise!: Hip-Hop Feminism Anthology


Gwendolyn D. PoughMaya Freelon - 2007
    The anthology explores Hip-Hop as a worldview, as an epistemology grounded in the experiences of communities of color under advanced capitalism, as a cultural site for rearticulating identity and sexual politics. With critical essays, cultural critiques, interviews, personal narratives, fiction, poetry, and artwork. The contributors are varied, from women working within the Hip-Hop sphere, Hip-Hop feminists and activists "on the ground," as well as scholars, writers, and journalists.

Women Behind Bars: The Crisis of Women in the U.S. Prison System


Silja J.A. Talvi - 2007
    Many of them are facing the prospect of years, decades, even lifetimes behind bars. Oddly, there's been little public discussion about the dramatic increase of women in the prison system. What exactly is happening here, and why? The answers are in Women Behind Bars, in which investigative journalist Silja Talvi sheds light on why American girls and women are being locked up at such unprecedented rates. Talvi travels across the country to weave together interviews with inmates, correctional officers, and administrators, providing readers with a glance at the impact incarceration has on our society. With a combination of compassion and critical analysis, Talvi delivers a timely, in-depth analysis of a growing and extremely complicated issue.

The Sound the Stars Make Rushing Through the Sky: The Writings of Jane Johnston Schoolcraft


Jane Johnston Schoolcraft - 2007
    Beginning as early as 1815, Schoolcraft wrote poems and traditional stories while also translating songs and other Ojibwe texts into English. Her stories were published in adapted, unattributed versions by her husband, Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, a founding figure in American anthropology and folklore, and they became a key source for Longfellow's sensationally popular The Song of Hiawatha.As this volume shows, what little has been known about Schoolcraft's writing and life only scratches the surface of her legacy. Most of the works have been edited from manuscripts and appear in print here for the first time. The Sound the Stars Make Rushing Through the Sky presents a collection of all Schoolcraft's extant writings along with a cultural and biographical history. Robert Dale Parker's deeply researched account places her writings in relation to American Indian and American literary history and the history of anthropology, offering the story of Schoolcraft, her world, and her fascinating family as reinterpreted through her newly uncovered writing. This book makes available a startling new episode in the history of American culture and literature.

Barbara Jordan: Speaking the Truth with Eloquent Thunder


Barbara Jordan - 2007
    Throughout her career as a Texas senator, U.S. congresswoman, and distinguished professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, Barbara Jordan lived by a simple creed: "Ethical behavior means being honest, telling the truth, and doing what you said you were going to do." Her strong stand for ethics in government, civil liberties, and democratic values still provides a standard around which the nation can unite in the twenty-first century.This volume brings together several major political speeches that articulate Barbara Jordan's most deeply held values. They include:"Erosion of Civil Liberties," a commencement address delivered at Howard University on May 12, 1974, in which Jordan warned that "tyranny in America is possible""The Constitutional Basis for Impeachment," Jordan's ringing defense of the U.S. Constitution before the House Judiciary Committee investigating the Watergate break-inKeynote addresses to the Democratic National Conventions of 1976 and 1992, in which Jordan set forth her vision of the Democratic Party as an advocate for the common good and a catalyst of changeTestimony in the U.S. Congress on the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork and on immigration reformMeditations on faith and politics from two National Prayer BreakfastsAcceptance speech for the 1995 Sylvanus Thayer Award presented by the Association of Graduates of the United States Military Academy, in which Jordan challenged the military to uphold the values of "duty, honor, country"Accompanying the speeches are context-setting introductions by volume editor Max Sherman. The book concludes with the eloquent eulogy that Bill Moyers delivered at Barbara Jordan's memorial service in 1996, in which he summed up Jordan's remarkable life and career by saying, "Just when we despaired of finding a hero, she showed up, to give the sign of democracy.... This is no small thing. This, my friends, this is grace. And for it we are thankful."

Bella Abzug: How One Tough Broad from the Bronx Fought Jim Crow and Joe McCarthy, Pissed Off Jimmy Carter, Battled for the Rights of Women and Workers, Rallied Against War and for the Planet, and Shook Up Politics Along the Way


Suzanne Braun Levine - 2007
    They call me Battling Bella, Mother Courage, and a Jewish mother with more complaints than Portnoy. There are those who say I'm impatient, impetuous, uppity, rude, profane, brash, and overbearing. Whether I'm any of those things, or all of them, you can decide for yourself. But whatever I am--and this ought to made very clear--I am a very serious woman." For more than fifty years, Bella Abzug championed the powerless and disenfranchised, as an activist, congresswoman, and leader in every major social initiative of her time--from Zionism and labor in the 40s to the ban-the-bomb efforts in the 50s, to civil rights and the anti-Vietnam War movements of the 60s, to the women's movement in the 70s and 80s, to enviromnemtal awareness and economic equality in the 90s. Her political idealism never waning, Abzug gave her final public speech before the U.N. in March 1998, just a few weeks before her death. Presented in the voices of both friends and foes, of those who knew, fought with, revered, and struggled alongside her, this oral biography will be the first comprehensive account of a woman who was one of our most influential leaders. Suzanne Braun Levine and Mary Thom are both nationally recognized authorities on women's issues. Most recently, Levine is the author of "Inventing the Rest of Lives" and Thom is the author of "Inside Ms." Bella Azbug said, "I've been described as a tough and noisy woman, a prize fighter, a man-hater, you name it. They call me Battling Bella, Mother Courage, and a Jewish mother with more complaints than Portnoy. There are those who say I'm impatient, impetuous, uppity, rude, profane, brash, and overbearing. Whether I'm any of those things, or all of them, you can decide for yourself. But whatever I am--and this ought to made very clear--I am a very serious woman." For more than fifty years, Bella Abzug championed the powerless and disenfranchised, as an activist, congresswoman, and leader in every major social initiative of her time--from Zionism and labor in the 40s to the ban-the-bomb efforts in the 50s, to civil rights and the anti-Vietnam War movements of the 60s, to the women's movement in the 70s and 80s, to environmental awareness and economic equality in the 90s. Her political idealism never waning, Abzug gave her final public speech before the U.N. in March 1998, just a few weeks before her death. Presented in the voices of both friends and foes, of those who knew, fought with, revered, and struggled alongside her, this oral biography will be the first comprehensive account of a woman who was one of our most influential leaders. "Abzug was certainly a major player in our change in attitudes in the second part of the past century [and] Suzanne Braun Levine and Mary Thom give us a fascinating glimpse into [an] inspirational but undeniably peculiar period that is receding, all too quickly, into the past."--Carolyn See, "The Washington Post " "A fabulous read about a breed of politician now largely extinct . . . Levine and Thom have crafted a history that brings to life one of the great political personalities of the twentieth century."--Alice Echols, "Bookforum " "Abzug was certainly a major player in our change in attitudes in the second part of the past century [and] Suzanne Braun Levine and Mary Thom give us a fascinating glimpse into [an] inspirational but undeniably peculiar period that is receding, all too quickly, into the past."--Carolyn See, "The Washington Post " "[A] fluid, sharply edited book . . . Abzug was a force of nature, and the stories about her are consistently feisty."--Jon Dolan, "Time Out New York" "During this 'historic' election year, let me just say what so many of us are thinking: I miss Bella Abzug. And Barbara Jordan. What I would give to see Bella toss one of her signature striped, oversized hats into the presidential ring. Or to hear Barbara Jordan debate an comer, to hear her intone the preamble of the constitution as she reminds us of the true meanings of 'equality' and 'justice.' If only big, bold Bella or big, bold Barbara were here to run . . . and win. So far my only solace has been the recently published oral history of Bella . . . The book is edited by Suzanne Braun Levine and Mary Thom, women with long histories of activism and scholarship in and about the women's movement in America."--Susan Davis, "The News & Observer" (Raleigh) "This is like being a fly on the wall for some of the most important moments in political history over the past fifty years. Being a part of this conversation makes you not just appreciate Bella's fierceness, but want to emulate it."--Amy Richards, co-author of "Manifesta" and former colleague of Bella "Bella was a radical, patriotic and passionate about transforming the system--with the courage to work from outside and the patience to work from inside. Like her life, this book radiates drama, humor, tactical brilliance--and heart. Bella mattered. So does this book."--Jane Fonda "Stumped about what to do in this messed up world? Just get to know Bella Abzug, one of the most important activists of the twentieth century. By gathering the reminiscences of people who lived their personal and political lives right along with her--and sometimes had the courage to break the rules alongside her too--the authors have created a memoir in many voices that captures the suspense, humor, and contradictions of this great woman. Read this book and then ask yourself, "What would Bella do?""--Gloria Steinem "Bella Abzug didn't vet her opinions through consultants and polls. She wasn't a highly orchestrated pre-fab candidate sprung from a well-oiled multi-million dollar corporate machine. She was the real deal. Pro-peace, pro-worker, pro-women. Angry, authentic, grassroots, alienating and alive. And, she actually got elected. This book is a call to all of us, but particularly those in government to run and lead through their own moral steam rather than blowing more hot air."--Eve Ensler ""Bella Abzug" is an important, inspiring piece of history. There's nothing we need more right now than this kind of cogent reminder of what it takes to make change in the halls of power--and what's at stake if we don't."--Lisa Jervis, co-founder of "Bitch" magazine

Honor Betrayed: Sexual Abuse in America's Military


Mic Hunter - 2007
    Presenting first-person accounts, the author of Hope and Recovery probes beyond the headlines to reveal the reality of sexual abuse in the military.

Body Consciousness: A Philosophy of Mindfulness and Somaesthetics


Richard M. Shusterman - 2007
    This book argues that improved body consciousness can relieve these problems and enhance one's knowledge, performance, and pleasure. The body is our basic medium of perception and action, but focused attention to its feelings and movements has long been criticized as a damaging distraction that also ethically corrupts through self-absorption. In Body Consciousness, Richard Shusterman refutes such charges by engaging the most influential twentieth-century somatic philosophers and incorporating insights from both Western and Asian disciplines of body-mind awareness.

Teaching Transformation: Transcultural Classroom Dialogues


AnaLouise Keating - 2007
    She offers a holistic approach to theory and practice.

Writer Mama: How to Raise a Writing Career Alongside Your Kids


Christina Katz - 2007
    It covers everything from getting started and finding ideas to actually finding time to do the work.

Mutha Is Half a Word: Intersections of Folklore, Vernacular, Myth, and Queerness in Black Female Culture


L.H. Stallings - 2007
     L. H. Stallings offers distinct close readings of understudied African American women’s texts through a critical engagement with folklore and queer theory. To date, most studies on the trickster figure have rarely reflected the boldness and daring of the figure itself. Emblematic of change and transgression, the trickster has inappropriately become the methodological tool for conservative cultural studies analysis. Mutha’ is Half a Word strives to break that convention. This book provides a much-needed analysis of trickster tradition in regard to gender, sexuality, and Black female sexual desire. It is the only study to focus specifically on trickster figures and African American female culture. In addition, it contributes to conversations regarding the cultural representation of Black female desire in ways that are not strategically invested in heteronormative binaries of male/female and heterosexual/homosexual. The study is distinctly different because it explores folklore, vernacular, and trickster strategies of queerness alongside theories of queer studies to create new readings of desire in literary texts, hip-hop and neo-soul music, and comedic performances by Black females.

Bellissima: Feminine Beauty and the Idea of Italy


Stephen Gundle - 2007
    From the time of Dante and Petrarch, ideals of beauty have informed artists’ work. This intriguing and gloriously illustrated book investigates the many debates this topic has provoked in modern Italy.Radicals and monarchists, Catholics, Fascists, and Communists have all championed specific ideas about female beauty. First theater and the press, then, later, cinema and television inherited from literature and art the task of articulating ideals. Gundle examines Fascism's failure to mold the ideal modern Italian woman, the rise of beauty pageants after World War Two, the professional and public roles of television actresses, the election of the first non-white Miss Italy in 1996, and the careers and images of beautiful women who have been seen to embody the country—Queen Margherita of Savoy, the opera singer Lina Cavalieri, and movie icons Gina Lollobrigida, Claudia Cardinale, Monica Bellucci, and Sophia Loren, who remains the living symbol of Italy and one of the most beautiful women in the world.

The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History


Bonnie G. Smith - 2007
    Although there has been extensive research on women in history by region, no text or reference work has comprehensively covered the role women have played throughout world history.The past thirty years have seen an explosion of research and effort to present the experiences and contributions of women not only in the Western world but across the globe. Historians have investigated womens daily lives in virtually every region and have researched the leadership roles women have filled across time and region. They have found and demonstrated that there is virtually no historical, social, or demographic change in which women have not been involved and by which their lives have not been affected. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History benefits greatly from these efforts and experiences, and illuminates how women worldwide have influenced and been influenced by these historical, social, and demographic changes.The Encyclopedia contains over 1,250 signed articles arranged in an A-Z format for ease of use. The entries cover six main areas: biographies; geography and history; comparative culture and society, including adoption, abortion, performing arts; organizations and movements, such as the Egyptian Uprising, and the Paris Commune; womens and gender studies; and topics in world history that include slave trade, globalization, and disease. With its rich and insightful entries by leading scholars and experts, this reference work is sure to be a valued, go-to resource for scholars, college and high school students, and general readers alike.

The Endocrine System: Basic Science and Clinical Conditions


Joy Hinson - 2007
    An integrated textbook on the endocrine system, covering the anatomy, physiology and biochemistry of the system, together with enough clinical material for the first two years of the course.

Black Women’s Intellectual Traditions: Speaking Their Minds


Kristin Waters - 2007
    In Kristin Waters’s and Carol B. Conaway’s landmark edited collection, Black Women’s Intellectual Traditions: Speaking Their Minds, sophisticated commentary on this rich body of work chronicles a powerful and interwoven legacy of activism based in social and political theories that helped shape the history of North America. The book meticulously reclaims this American legacy, providing a collection of critical analyses of the primary sources and their vital traditions. Written by leading scholars, Black Women’s Intellectual Traditions is particularly powerful in its exploration of the pioneering thought and action of the nineteenth-century black woman lecturer and essayist Maria W. Stewart, abolitionist Sojourner Truth, novelist and poet Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, educator Anna Julia Cooper, newspaper editor Mary Ann Shadd Cary, and activist Ida B. Wells. The distinguished contributors are Hazel V. Carby, Patricia Hill Collins, Karen Baker-Fletcher, Kristin Waters, R. Dianne Bartlow, Carol B. Conaway, Olga Idriss Davis, Vanessa Holford Diana, Evelyn Simien, Janice W. Fernheimer, Michelle N. Garfield, Joy James, Valerie Palmer-Mehta, Carla L. Peterson, Marilyn Richardson, Evelyn M. Simien, Ebony A. Utley, Mary Helen Washington, Melina Abdullah, and Lena Ampadu. The volume will interest scholars and readers of African-American and women’s studies, history, rhetoric, literature, poetry, sociology, political science, and philosophy.

Goddess Embroideries of the Northlands


Mary B. Kelly - 2007
    Folk beliefs and the symbols that represented them were carried on ritual textiles from Siberia to their new homes to the west, first, along the Silk Road, then up the Volga and finally into north Russia, the Baltics and Scandinavia. The author highlights the textiles and ceremonial folk dress as well as the customs that accompanied their making and use and shows the symbols and motifs in more than 200 illustrations and photographs.

The Power of a Woman's Words Workbook and Study Guide


Sharon Jaynes - 2007
    This Bible study takes a closer look at what God has to say about our words. It spends time with several women in the Bible to discover the lasting impact their words had on those around them, and how those words have lingering effects even today.

Jeannette Rankin: Political Pioneer


Gretchen Woelfle - 2007
    Congress. Born on the Montana frontier in 1880, Rankin lived long enough to speak her mind on television in the 1970s. As a child, she learned early how to take charge. She spoke up in the 1910s to persuade men to give women the vote. In 1916 she was elected to Congress. She said yes to peace when most people wanted war. She said yes to social justice for workers, families, and children when most lawmakers said no. When she left Congress in 1943, people forgot about her, but she continued to work for what she believed. "Rediscovered" in the 1960s, Rankin became a role model for feminists and Vietnam peace activists. Photographs, newspaper clippings, campaign materials, and even hate mail tell the story of a remarkable woman in this captivating Booklist Top Ten Biographies for Youth book.

Midwives and Medical Men: A History of the Struggle for the Control of Childbirth


Jean Donnison - 2007
    A history of the struggle for the control of childbirth.

The Bluestockings Of Japan: New Women Essays And Fiction From Seito, 1911-16 (Michigan Monograph Series In Japanese Studies)


Jan Bardsley - 2007
    Launched in 1911 as a venue for women’s literary expression and replete with poetry, essays, plays, and stories, Seitô soon earned the disapproval of civic leaders, educators, and even prominent women’s rights advocates. Journalists joined these leaders in ridiculing the Bluestockings as self-indulgent, literature-loving, sake-drinking, cigarette-smoking tarts who toyed with men. Yet many young women and men delighted in the Bluestockings’ rebellious stance and paid serious attention to their exploration of the Woman Question, their calls for women’s independence, and their debates on women’s work, sexuality, and identity. Hundreds read the journal and many women felt inspired to contribute their own essays and stories. The seventeen Seitô pieces collected here represent some of the journal’s most controversial writing; four of these publications provoked either a strong reprimand or an outright ban on an entire issue by government censors. All consider topics important in debates on feminism to this day such as sexual harassment, abortion, romantic love and sexuality, motherhood, and the meaning of gender equality. The Bluestockings of Japan shows that as much as these writers longed to be New Women immersed in the world of art and philosophy, they were also real women who had to negotiate careers, motherhood, romantic relationships, and an unexpected notoriety. Their stories, essays, and poetry document that journey, highlighting the diversity among these New Women and displaying the vitality of feminist thinking in Japan in the 1910s

Invisible Activists: Women of the Louisiana NAACP and the Struggle for Civil Rights, 1915--1945


Lee Sartain - 2007
    In Invisible Activists, Lee Sartain examines attitudes toward gender, class, and citizenship of African American activists in Louisiana and women's roles in the campaign for civil rights in the state. In the end, he argues, it was women working behind the scenes in Louisiana's branches of the NAACP who were the most crucial factor in the organization's efficiency and survival. During the first half of the twentieth century -- especially in the darkest days of the Great Depression, when membership waned and funds were scarce -- a core group of women maintained Louisiana's NAACP. Fighting on the front line, Sartain explains, women acted as grassroots organizers, running public relations campaigns and membership drives, mobilizing youth groups, and promoting general community involvement. Using case studies of several prominent female NAACP members in Louisiana, Sartain demonstrates how women combined their fundraising skills with an extensive network of community and family ties to fund the NAACP and, increasingly, to undertake the day-to-day operations of the local organizations themselves. Still, these women also struggled against the double obstacles of racism and sexism that prevented them from attaining the highest positions within NAACP branch leadership. Sartain illustrates how the differences between the sexes were ultimately woven into the political battle for racial justice, where women were viewed as having inherent moral superiority and, hence, the potential to lift the black population as a whole. Sartain concludes that despite the societal traditions that kept women out of leadership positions, in the early stages of the civil rights movement, their skills and their contributions as community matriarchs provided the keys to the organization's progress. Highly original and essential to a comprehensive study of the NAACP, Invisible Activists gives voice to the many individual women who sustained the influential civil rights organization during a time of severe racial oppression in Louisiana. Without such dedication, Sartain asserts, the organization would have had no substantial presence in the state.

Carnal Commerce in Counter-Reformation Rome


Tessa Storey - 2007
    Tessa Storey uses a range of archival sources, including criminal records, letters, courtroom testimonies, images and popular and elite literature, to reveal issues of especial concern to contemporaries. In particular, she explores how and why women became prostitutes, the relationships between prostitutes and clients, and the wealth which potentially could be accumulated. Notarial documents provide a unique perspective on the economics and material culture of prostitution, showing what could be earned and how prostitutes dressed and furnished their homes. The book challenges traditional assumptions about the success of post-Tridentine reforms on Roman prostitution, revealing that despite energetic attempts at social disciplining by the Counter-Reformation Popes, prostitution continued to flourish, and to provide a lucrative living for many women.

Warnings to the Kings and Advice on Restoring Spain: A Bilingual Edition


María de Guevara - 2007
    “Treaty” gave Philip IV practical suggestions for fighting the war against Portugal and “Disenchantments” counseled the king-to-be, Charles II, on strategies to raise the country’s status in Europe. This annotated bilingual edition, featuring Nieves Romero-Díaz’s adroit translation, reproduces Guevara’s polemics for the first time.Guevara’s provocative writings call on Spanish women to bear the responsibility equally with men for restoring Spain’s power in Europe and elsewhere. The collection also includes examples of Guevara’s shorter writings that exemplify her ability to speak on matters of state, network with dignitaries, and govern family affairs.  Witty, ironic, and rhetorically sophisticated, Guevara’s essays provide a fresh perspective on the possibilities for women in the public sphere in seventeenth-century Spain.