Focusing on the “orientation” aspect of “sexual orientation” and the “orient” in “orientalism,” Ahmed examines what it means for bodies to be situated in space and time. Bodies take shape as they move through the world directing themselves toward or away from objects and others. Being “orientated” means feeling at home, knowing where one stands, or having certain objects within reach. Orientations affect what is proximate to the body or what can be reached. A queer phenomenology, Ahmed contends, reveals how social relations are arranged spatially, how queerness disrupts and reorders these relations by not following the accepted paths, and how a politics of disorientation puts other objects within reach, those that might, at first glance, seem awry.Ahmed proposes that a queer phenomenology might investigate not only how the concept of orientation is informed by phenomenology but also the orientation of phenomenology itself. Thus she reflects on the significance of the objects that appear—and those that do not—as signs of orientation in classic phenomenological texts such as Husserl’s Ideas. In developing a queer model of orientations, she combines readings of phenomenological texts—by Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Fanon—with insights drawn from queer studies, feminist theory, critical race theory, Marxism, and psychoanalysis. Queer Phenomenology points queer theory in bold new directions.

    Serano shares her experiences and observations—both pre- and post-transition—to reveal the ways in which fear, suspicion, and dismissiveness toward femininity shape our societal attitudes toward trans women, as well as gender and sexuality as a whole.Serano's well-honed arguments stem from her ability to bridge the gap between the often-disparate biological and social perspectives on gender. She exposes how deep-rooted the cultural belief is that femininity is frivolous, weak, and passive, and how this “feminine” weakness exists only to attract and appease male desire.In addition to debunking popular misconceptions about transsexuality, Serano makes the case that today's feminists and transgender activist must work to embrace and empower femininity—in all of its wondrous forms.

    She was married with children and a good career. So why did she feel miserable? And why did it seem that other Generation X women were miserable, too?Calhoun decided to find some answers. She looked into housing costs, HR trends, credit card debt averages, and divorce data. At every turn, she saw a pattern: sandwiched between the Boomers and the Millennials, Gen X women were facing new problems as they entered middle age, problems that were being largely overlooked.Speaking with women across America about their experiences as the generation raised to “have it all,” Calhoun found that most were exhausted, terrified about money, under-employed, and overwhelmed. Instead of being heard, they were told instead to lean in, take “me-time,” or make a chore chart to get their lives and homes in order.In Why We Can’t Sleep, Calhoun opens up the cultural and political contexts of Gen X’s predicament and offers solutions for how to pull oneself out of the abyss—and keep the next generation of women from falling in. The result is reassuring, empowering, and essential reading for all middle-aged women, and anyone who hopes to understand them.

    John Snow. It's the summer of 1854, and London is just emerging as one of the first modern cities in the world. But lacking the infrastructure—garbage removal, clean water, sewers—necessary to support its rapidly expanding population, the city has become the perfect breeding ground for a terrifying disease no one knows how to cure. As the cholera outbreak takes hold, a physician and a local curate are spurred to action—and ultimately solve the most pressing medical riddle of their time. In a triumph of multidisciplinary thinking, Johnson illuminates the intertwined histories and inter-connectedness of the spread of disease, contagion theory, the rise of cities, and the nature of scientific inquiry, offering both a riveting history and a powerful explanation of how it has shaped the world we live in.

    From sticking up for yourself, improving body image, deciding whether to have children, finding a mentor, getting dumped, feeling like an imposter, being unattractive, and dealing with gossip, we can learn a lot by reading motivational stories of heroic women who, living in much tougher times through history, took control of their own destinies and made life work for them.Here are Cleopatra’s thoughts on sibling rivalry, Mae West on positive body image, Frida Kahlo on finding your style, Catherine the Great on dealing with gossip, Agatha Christie on getting dumped, Hedy Lamarr on being underestimated—to list only a few—as well as others who address dilemmas including career-planning, female friendship, loneliness, financial management, and political engagement.Featuring whimsical illustrations by L.A.-based artist Bijou Karman, What Would Cleopatra Do? is a distinctive, witty, and gift-worthy tribute to history’s outstanding women.

    She conjures up early operating theaters--no place for the squeamish--and surgeons, working before anesthesia, who were lauded for their speed and brute strength. These medical pioneers knew that the aftermath of surgery was often more dangerous than their patients' afflictions, and they were baffled by the persistent infections that kept mortality rates stubbornly high. At a time when surgery couldn't have been more hazardous, an unlikely figure stepped forward: a young, melancholy Quaker surgeon named Joseph Lister, who would solve the deadly riddle and change the course of history.Fitzharris dramatically recounts Lister's discoveries in gripping detail, culminating in his audacious claim that germs were the source of all infection--and could be countered by antiseptics. Focusing on the tumultuous period from 1850 to 1875, she introduces us to Lister and his contemporaries--some of them brilliant, some outright criminal--and takes us through the grimy medical schools and dreary hospitals where they learned their art, the deadhouses where they studied anatomy, and the graveyards they occasionally ransacked for cadavers.Eerie and illuminating, The Butchering Art celebrates the triumph of a visionary surgeon whose quest to unite science and medicine delivered us into the modern world.

    Harnessing an immense amount of data, they call attention to discrepancies between national laws protecting women and the enforcement of those laws, and they note the adverse effects on state security of abnormal sex ratios favoring males, the practice of polygamy, and inequitable realities in family law, among other gendered aggressions.The authors find that the treatment of women informs human interaction at all levels of society. Their research challenges conventional definitions of security and democracy and shows that the treatment of gender, played out on the world stage, informs the true clash of civilizations. In terms of resolving these injustices, the authors examine top-down and bottom-up approaches to healing wounds of violence against women, as well as ways to rectify inequalities in family law and the lack of parity in decision-making councils. Emphasizing the importance of an R2PW, or state responsibility to protect women, they mount a solid campaign against women's systemic insecurity, which effectively unravels the security of all.

     Stretching between these figures is a cast of artists, writers, and scientists--mostly women, mostly queer--whose public contribution has risen out of their unclassifiable and often heartbreaking private relationships to change the way we understand, experience, and appreciate the universe. Among them are the astronomer Maria Mitchell, who paved the way for women in science; the sculptor Harriet Hosmer, who did the same in art; the journalist and literary critic Margaret Fuller, who sparked the feminist movement; and the poet Emily Dickinson.Emanating from these lives are larger questions about the measure of a good life and what it means to leave a lasting mark of betterment on an imperfect world: Are achievement and acclaim enough for happiness? Is genius? Is love? Weaving through the narrative is a set of peripheral figures--Ralph Waldo Emerson, Charles Darwin, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Herman Melville, Frederick Douglass, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Walt Whitman--and a tapestry of themes spanning music, feminism, the history of science, the rise and decline of religion, and how the intersection of astronomy, poetry, and Transcendentalist philosophy fomented the environmental movement.

    A Chinese American woman tells of the Chinese myths, family stories and events of her California childhood that have shaped her identity.

    While progressive political movements, including the Marxist and feminist movements, have fought for equal pay, better work conditions, and the recognition of unpaid work as a valued form of labor, even they have tended to accept work as a naturalized or inevitable activity. Weeks argues that in taking work as a given, we have “depoliticized” it, or removed it from the realm of political critique. Employment is now largely privatized, and work-based activism in the United States has atrophied. We have accepted waged work as the primary mechanism for income distribution, as an ethical obligation, and as a means of defining ourselves and others as social and political subjects. Taking up Marxist and feminist critiques, Weeks proposes a postwork society that would allow people to be productive and creative rather than relentlessly bound to the employment relation. Work, she contends, is a legitimate, even crucial, subject for political theory.

    Only a small fraction of those affected have been properly diagnosed, leaving many others to suffer in silence or pursue ill-advised conventional treatment methods that fail to address the cause of this painful condition. Tara Grant, a twenty-year sufferer of HS, has become an underground legend to her Internet community of HS victims by presenting a methodical, self-tested action plan to heal naturally. The centerpiece of her holistic approach rests on the understanding that HS is an autoimmune disorder caused by leaky gut syndrome. With a few simple dietary changes that eliminate certain “trigger” foods, you can heal your gut, restore your skin, reclaim your health, and rid yourself of HS symptoms forever. That’s it—no antibiotics, no experimental surgeries, and no more pain, suffering, or confusion.Q&A with Tara1. What was it about the subject you chose to write about in your book that made you feel so passionate about spreading the word and getting your book published? My motivation for writing this book was the overwhelming response I received from people on the Internet when I originally posted about it in March of 2012. It turns out it’s a pretty common condition, but many people (and doctors) don’t know what it is. It’s pretty standard to visit various doctors, and be told that you have “acne,” or to be subjected to butchering surgeries. There is no treatment for HS, according to the doctors. People with it suffer immensely—in fact, HS is acknowledged to be one of most painful conditions in the world. I’ve even received letters from doctors and nurses who suffer from HS, thanking me for telling them what it is that they have—and for offering them hope. The primary motivating factor for writing this book, however, was an email I received from a 12-year old girl, who said she was going to kill herself because of the pain she was in. I immediately wrote her back, but I never heard back from her. I am desperate to know that she’s okay. I don’t want anyone else to go through what I did as a teenager—I myself thought about suicide on more than one occasion. I’ve had many letters from people who say they want to kill themselves since.2. HS is hard to diagnose, and many doctors aren’t even aware of its existence. How did you get a diagnosis? I’ve had HS since I was thirteen years old, but wasn’t diagnosed until I was in my mid-30s. Up until then, I saw over forty doctors from four different countries - none of whom could tell me what was wrong with me. I eventually found the name “Hidradenitis suppurativa” in a book about PCOS (also known as polycystic ovarian syndrome, which I also had) and could finally put a name to the horrible condition I had suffered from for so long. I took that information to a dermatologist. That’s when I finally got a diagnosis—over twenty years later. At that time, I had already changed to a Primal diet and my HS was drastically better, so I declined the antibiotics and Accutane the doctor prescribed. I also refused to believe what she said: “You have to live with this for the rest of your life.” I knew, as a longtime sufferer of HS, that the doctors I had seen had no clue what they were talking about. My journey was extremely frustrating, and I went through it completely alone. Over the years, I was told I had “adult acne,” and also told that they didn’t know what was wrong with me. I was also told that I was overreacting, not keeping clean enough, and told to lose weight. Not a single doctor showed any compassion, or was willing to look into the matter further. I eventually stopped going to the doctors, and didn’t return until I had already made changes and knew I was on the right track. I knew that if I wanted answers, I had to do the research and experimentation myself. I wasn't interested in how I reacted to different drug, I was interested in healing myself naturally.  I knew that I was on the right track with diet, so I started investigating Robb Wolf’s Autoimmune Paleo Protocol, and made specific tweaks for skin conditions. Results I had seen from others (Dr. Terry Wahls, for example) who had healed themselves from crippling autoimmune conditions were the only motivation I needed. When I started treating HS like an autoimmune condition, it went into remission. There are literally thousands of cases of this happening with different autoimmune conditions all over the world. I was also able to induce flare-ups with specific experimentation. This completely checks with autoimmunity. There isn’t a cure—you will always have the predisposition for autoimmunity—but you CAN go into remission. 3. Do you have any relatives or close friends that became diagnosed after you?  There is no one else in my family with this condition. There is a mistaken belief that HS is hereditary. It is not. However, some families have more than one member affected by it. The reason for this is that HS is autoimmune. In order to get an autoimmune condition, you need to have the gene for autoimmunity. The fact that the autoimmune gene manifests as HS in more than one family member is complete coincidence. If you’re suffering from HS, you more than likely have other autoimmune conditions - and so does your family. Family trees littered with Crohn’s, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, restless legs syndrome, diabetes, Lupus, endometriosis, eczema, psoriasis, HS, and more—all of which are autoimmune—are very common. If you have HS, you have the autoimmune gene, which you did inherit. If your gut becomes leaky, then you will eventually develop an autoimmune condition.4. Do you have advice for anyone seeking medical help for this condition? Read my book first. The Western medical community is still under the mistaken belief that HS is caused by bacteria, hence the prescriptions for antibiotics. They will not be able to help you, and will suggest butchering surgeries and heavy hitting drugs, which often make matters worse. You can’t “cut HS out,” like you do with a cancerous tumor. When you remove an organ or tissue that is being ravaged by an autoimmune response, you open up all your other organs and tissues to attack. That’s why there’s over an 80% chance of reoccurrence of HS after surgery, and people will often start flaring-up in areas that had been clear before. Sometimes, they even develop brand new autoimmune conditions. Luckily, you actually hold the key to healing in your hands. You can heal yourself. If you can avoid infection, then you don’t need doctors—or drugs— to help you go into remission.5. What is the one thing you would stress most to anyone unable to get a copy of your book at this time? Many people with HS are on disability and don’t have a lot of disposable income, or they have been taken advantage of in the past. If this is you, go to your local library and ask them to carry the book. Then, you can borrow it for free. How much does a 1-oz jar of EmuAid cost? Turmeric capsules? Surgery? Doctor visits and prescriptions? We’ve all fallen for so much. I bet if you sat down and tallied up how much you’ve spent on Band-Aids alone for your HS over the years, $26 would be a drop in the bucket. The great thing about this book is that if you are not satisfied, you can request your money back. If you get this 300-page manual and find that there is nothing in it that is of any help, you can ask for a refund from the publisher. Try asking for a refund for EmuAid when it doesn’t work. That being said, I would challenge anyone with HS to read this book and find nothing in it that’s helpful.6. Your book is a very important first step in making the public aware of this illness. Besides the book, how do you plan to raise awareness of HS?My goal is to get on the Dr. Oz show. I figure that will give us the biggest bang for the buck. Many people have HS, but are unaware of what it’s called. They’re too embarrassed to go to the doctor about it. I would encourage all of you to write to the Dr. Oz show and ask them to feature me, and ask your local library to carry the book. The only way we’re going to raise awareness is to GO BIG.

    They had a blond Clairol wave in their hair. They wore girdles and waist-pinchers. . . . In recent years good girls join the army. They climb the corporate ladder. They go to the gym. . . . They wear painful pointy shoes. They don’t eat too much. They . . . don’t eat at all. They stay perfect. They stay thin. I could never be good.”The Good Body starts with Eve’s tortured relationship with her own “post-forties” stomach and her skirmishes with everything from Ab Rollers to fad diets and fascistic trainers in an attempt get the “flabby badness” out. As Eve hungrily seeks self-acceptance, she is joined by the voices of women from L.A. to Kabul, whose obsessions are also laid bare: A young Latina candidly critiques her humiliating “spread,” a stubborn layer of fat that she calls “a second pair of thighs.” The wife of a plastic surgeon recounts being systematically reconstructed–inch by inch–by her “perfectionist” husband. An aging magazine executive, still haunted by her mother’s long-ago criticism, describes her desperate pursuit of youth as she relentlessly does sit-ups.Along the way, Eve also introduces us to women who have found a hard-won peace with their bodies: an African mother who celebrates each individual body as signs of nature’s diversity; an Indian woman who transcends “treadmill mania” and delights in her plump cheeks and curves; and a veiled Afghani woman who is willing to risk imprisonment for a taste of ice cream. These are just a few of the inspiring stories woven through Eve’s global journey from obsession to enlightenment. Ultimately, these monologues become a personal wake-up call from Eve to love the “good bodies” we inhabit.From the Hardcover edition.

    Haraway offers provocative new ways to reconfigure our relations to the earth and all its inhabitants. She eschews referring to our current epoch as the Anthropocene, preferring to conceptualize it as what she calls the Chthulucene, as it more aptly and fully describes our epoch as one in which the human and nonhuman are inextricably linked in tentacular practices. The Chthulucene, Haraway explains, requires sym-poiesis, or making-with, rather than auto-poiesis, or self-making. Learning to stay with the trouble of living and dying together on a damaged earth will prove more conducive to the kind of thinking that would provide the means to building more livable futures. Theoretically and methodologically driven by the signifier SF—string figures, science fact, science fiction, speculative feminism, speculative fabulation, so far—Staying with the Trouble further cements Haraway's reputation as one of the most daring and original thinkers of our time.

    From feminist blogging to the popularity of the WNBA, girl culture is on the rise. A lively and compelling look back at the framing of one of the most contentious social movements of our time, Sisterhood, Interrupted exposes the key issues still at stake, outlining how a twenty-first century feminist can reconcile the personal with the political and combat long-standing inequalities that continue today.

    The Lady and Her Monsters by Roseanne Motillo brings to life the fascinating times, startling science, and real-life horrors behind Mary Shelley’s gothic masterpiece, Frankenstein.Montillo recounts how—at the intersection of the Romantic Age and the Industrial Revolution—Shelley’s Victor Frankenstein was inspired by actual scientists of the period: curious and daring iconoclasts who were obsessed with the inner workings of the human body and how it might be reanimated after death.With true-life tales of grave robbers, ghoulish experiments, and the ultimate in macabre research—human reanimation—The Lady and Her Monsters is a brilliant exploration of the creation of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley’s horror classic.