May, 2003
| Press button 
for Title Rating System |
May, 2003
| Press button
for Title Rating System |
Subject List Academic
Books from Women's Presses Humanity Books, Imprint of
Prometheus Note: Many
titles have more than one subject classification. However, in the interest
of space, only the primary subject category for each title is listed here.
Additional subject areas can be found in the detailed description of the
individual titles. African-American Aging Anthropology Arts: Art, Photography Autobiography/Memoir Biography Culture/Cultural Studies Ecology & Environment Education Fiction Fiction: Anthologies Fiction: Lesbian Fiction: Short Stories Gay/Lesbian
Studies Gender
Studies Health &
Medicine History International International: Africa International: Asia
International: Caribbean International: Latin
& Central America
International: Middle East International: Russia & Slavic International: Western Europe Jewish Women Language / Linguistics
Latinas
Law Lesbian Studies Literary Criticism Literature
Native-American Periodicals Philosophy Poetry
Politics Psychology
Race Theory Reference/Directories Regional: Midwest Regional: South Regional: West Reproductive Rights
Science/Technology Sexuality Social Sciences Spirituality/Religion Violence and Abuse Sports & Outdoors War/Peace/Anti-Militarism Women's Studies Work & Labor
Black
Women in the Field Gretchen Givens Generett
and Rhonda Baynes Jeffries, editors
Ghosts of Slavery Jenny Sharpe
The Making of "Mammy Pleasant"
Lynn M. Hudson
Skin Deep, Spirit Strong Kimberly Wallace-Sanders, editor
Witnessing and Testifying Rosetta E. Ross
Mothers and Their Daughters
Karen L. Fingerman
Circle of Goods Tressa
Berman
Gender's Place Rosario Montoya, Lessie
Jo Frazier and Janise Hurtig, editors
Many Faces of Gender Lisa Frink, Rita S. Shepard and Gregory A.
Reinhardt, editors
Christina
Rossetti and Illustration Lorraine Janzen
Kooistra
Living with His Camera Jane Gallop and
Dick Blau [photographer]
Nampeyo and Her Pottery Barbara Kramer
Wild by Design Janet Catherine Berlo and Patricia Cox Crews
Arts: Film, Video
Vanishing Women Karen Beckman
Asian American
Empire of
Care Catherine Ceniza Choy
Imagine Otherwise Kandice Chuh
Hold the Roses Rose Marie
Letters to Henrietta Isabella Bird and
Kay Chubbuck [editor]
Naked in the Promised Land Lillian Faderman
Pieces from Life"s Crazy Quilt Marvin V. Arnett
Sojourning Sisters Jean Barman
View from the Fazenda Ellen Bromfield Geld
Anna Madgigine Jai Kingsley Daniel L. Schafer
Doves of War Paul Preston
I'll Tell You What annibel Jenkins
Jane Austen's "Outlandish Cousin" deirdre Le Faye
The Mysteries of Elizabeth I Kirby Farrell
and Kathleen Swaim, editors
Writing for Her Life Ripley Hugo
Zarathustra's Sisters Susan Ingram
Making Avonlea Irene
Gammel, editor
Finding Higher Ground
Catharine Savage Brosman
Reinventing Eden Carolyn Merchant
Contradictions in Women's Education Barbara
J. Bank and with Harriet M. Yelon
Those Who Give Rosemary Cania Maio
All Night Movie Alicia Borinsky, Translated
with the author from the Spanish by Cola Franzen and Forward by Luisa
Valenzuela
Blood Sisters Valerie Miner
The Coffin Tree Wendy Law-Yone
The Crux Charlotte Perkins Gilmore and edited
with an introduction by Jennifer S. Tuttle
Gone Elisabeth Sheffield
Hot Chocolate at Hanselmann's Rosetta Loy and Translated by Gregory
Conti Irrawaddy Tango Wendy Law-Yone
The Power and the Glory Grace MacGowan Cooke and Introduction by
Elizabeth S.D. Engelhardt
Treasures in Heaven Kahleen Alcal·
White Poplar, Black Locust Louise Wagenknecht
Bayou Folk Kate
Chopin
Black Cherries Grace stone Coates
Stories Susanne Opfermann and Yvonee Roth,
editors
Everyday Activism Michael R. Stevenson and
Jeanine C. Cogan, editors
Gender Nonconformity, Race, and Sexuality Toni
Lester, editor
Homosexual Rites of Passage Marie Mohler
Common Ground or Mutual Exclusion Marianne
Braig and Sonia W–lte, editors
Gender and Difference in the Middle Ages
Sharon Farmer and Carol Braun Pasternack, editors
Gender Studies Anne Cranny-Francis, Wendy Waring, Pam Stavropoulos
and Joan Kirby
The Manly Masquerade Valeria Finucci
Red Flower Dena Taylor
When Dieting Becomes Dangerous Deborah M.
Michel and Susan G. Willard
When the Bough Breaks Winifred J. Ellenchild Pinch
Burning Women Pompa Banerjee
The Century of Women Front-Page Women
Journalists, 1920-1950 Kathleen A. Cairns
A History of Household Government in America Carole Shammas
Letters from the Dust Bowl Caroline Henderson and Alvin O. Turner
[editor]
New Year in Cuba Karen Robert, editor
The Other Enlightenment Carla Hesse
The Progressive Housewife Sylvie Murray
Restoring Women's History through Historic Preservation
Gail Lee Dubrow and Jennifer B. Goodman, editors
Selling Mrs. Consumer Janice Williams Rutherford
Women's Oral History Susan H. Armitage, editor,
with Patricia Hart and Karen Weathermoon
Writing Women's History Since the Renaissance Mary Spongberg
Women Gender, and Transitional
Lives Donna R. Gabaccia and Franca Iacovetta,
editors
In Praise of Black Women, Vol.
3 Simone Schwarz-Bart and with AndrÈ Schwarz-Bart
Stepping Forward Catherine Higgs, Barbara A. Moss and Earline Rae
Ferguson, editors
The New Japanese Woman
Barbara Sato
The Scandal of the State Rajeswari Sunder Rajan
Working Out in Japan Laura Spielvogel
Contentious Lives Javier
Auyero
With All Our Strength
Anne E. Brodsky
Nine of Russia's
Foremost Women Writers Joanne Turnbull [translator]
Working Differences Šva
Fodor
The Power to Name Hope
A. Olsen
Black-Brown Relations and Stereotypes
Tatcho Mindiola Jr., Yolanda Flores Niemann and Nestor
Rodriguez
Reading U.S. Latina Writers Alvina E. Quintana, editor
Velvet Barrios Alicia Gaspar de Alba, editor and Tom·s Ybarra Frausto
[forward by]
Domestic Violence and the Politics
of Privacy Kristin A. Kelly
Privatization, Law, and the Challenge to Feminism
Brenda Cossman and Judy Fudge, editors
An Archive of Feelings
Ann Cvetkovich
A Donor insemination Guide Marie Mohler and Lacy Frazer
Identity Poetics Linda Garber
Making Girls into Women Kathryn R. Kent
Unpacking Queer Politics Sheila Jeffreys
Braveheart and Broomsticks
Elycia Arendt
The Feminist Avant-Garde in American Poetry Elisabeth A. Frost
Fictional Females Eleanor Hochman
Lewd & Notorious Katherine Kittredge, editor
Marianne Moore, Elizabeth Bishop, and May Swenson Kirstin Hotelling
Zona
Of Women, Poetry, and Power Zofia Burr
Persephone Unbound Catherine Perry
Sexual Antipodes Pamela Cheek
Winter Love Jacob Korg
Approaches to Teaching Gilman's
"The Yellow Wall-Paper" and Herland Denise
D. Knight and Cynthia J. Davis, editors
Chaucer's Queer Nation Glenn
Burger
The Church of Solitude Grazia Deledda and
Translated by E. Ann Matter
Delia's Doctors Hannah Gardner
Creamer and Introduction by Nina Bym
Poets in the Public Sphere Paula Bernat Bennett
What Answer? Anna E. Dickinson and with introduction by J. Matthew
Gallman
Women's Experience
of Modernity, 1875-1945 Ann L. Ardis and Leslie W. Lewis, editors
Indigenous American Women
Devon Abbott Mihesuah
The Life and Writings of Betsey Chamberlain Judith A. Ranta
Singing the Songs of My ancestors Linda J.
Goodman and Helma Swan
Women's
Studies Review Vivienne Batt, Jane Conroy,
Sheila Dickinson, Ann Lyons, and Lorna Shaughnessy, editors
A Defense of Abortion
David Boonin
Imagine There's No Woman Joan
Copjec
Women in western Intellectual Culture, 600-1500 Patricia Ranft
Women Philosophers of the Seventeenth Century Jacqueline Broad
Alphabet Theater Meredith
Stricker Poetry
Are You Experienced? Pamela Gemin, editor Poetry
E-Mails from Scheherazad Mohja Kahf Poetry
I Will Say Beauty Carol Frost Poetry
Marlene Dietrich, Rita Hayworth, and My Mother Rita Maria Magdaleno
Poetry
Milestones Marina Tsvetaeva and Translated
and introduced by Robin Kemball Poetry
Naked Wanting Margo Tamex Poetry
The Promised Folly Judith Hall
Madam President
Eleanor Clift and Tom Brazaitis
Women Transforming Congress Cindy Simon Rosenthal, editor
Cultures of the Death Drive
Esther S·nchez-Pardo
Dark Continents Ranjana Khanna
Prozac on the Couch Jonathan
Michel Metzl
Entry Denied Eithne
LuibhÈid
Race, Nature, and the Politics of Difference Donald S. Moore, Jake
Kosek and Anand Pandian, editors
The Penguin Atlas of Women in the World Joni
Seager
Women in Higher Education Ana M. MartÌnez Alem·n and Kristen A.
Renn, editors
Seeing with Their Hearts Maureen
A. Flanagan
Making Waves Jack E. Davis
and Kari Frederickson, editors
A Wide-Awake Woman Elinor
McGinn
Behind Every Choice Is a Story
Gloria Feldt and with Carol Trickett Jennings
The Pivot of Civilization Margaret
Sanger and with and introduction by H.G. Wells
Sexual Borderlands
Kathleen Kennedy and Sharon Ullman, editors
America's
Childcare Problem Suzanne W. Helburn and
Barbara R. Bergman
Stir It Up Rinku Sen
Trauma at Home Judith Greenberg, editor
Union Women Mary Margaret Fonow
The Goddess Shahrukh Husain
Athletic Intruders Anne
Bolin and Jane Granskog, editors
War Talk Arundhati Roy
Women on War Daniela Gioseffi, editor
The
American Woman 2003-2004 Cynthia B. Costello, Vanessa R. Wright
and Anne J. Stone, editors
Beyond French Feminisms Roger CÈlestin, Eliane
DalMolin and Isabelle de Courtivron, editors
Catching the Wave Rory Dicker, Alison Piepmeier, editors and Afterword
by Katha Pollit and Jennifer Baumgardner
Feminism without Borders Chandra Talpade Mohanty Feminist
Futures Kum-Kum Bhavnani, John Foran and Priya Kurian, editors
Right Women Women Paola Bacchetta and Margaret
Power, editors
This Bridge We Call Home Gloria E. Anzald™a
and AnaLouise Keating, editors
Women, Power, and AT&T
Lois Kathryn Herr
|
**** -
suited for general audience and/or intro courses |
Women's
Studies Review: Vol. 8: Making a Difference: Women and the Creative Arts,
Vivienne Batt, Jane Conroy, Sheila Dickinson, Ann Lyons, and Lorna Shaughnessy,
editors, Womenís Studies Centre / National University of Ireland, $contact
publisher for rates pb, 0-9519466-7-6 (ISSN: 1393-726X), 2003.
Women's Studies Review is the first serial women's studies publication from
Ireland. This particular issue celebrates the journal's tenth anniversary and
does so in an exultant manner through the featuring of women's creativity --
in art, poetry, theatre, literature, and theory. Gathered around the themes
of "transforming icons," transgressing conventions," and translating experience,"
this volume touches on various aspects of Irish women's Studies. It also includes
some beautifully reproduced full-color plates art-work. It also includes several
book reviews. For a table of contents, see: http://www.nuigalway.ie/wsc/volume8.htm
Women's Studies Centre, National University of Ireland, Galway, Galway, Ireland.
Phone: +353 (0)91 750455, Fax: +353 (0) 91 750549, E-mail: wsc@nuigalway.ie
(****) Periodicals: Feminist Theory / Culture; Womenís Studies
Academic Books from Women's Presses
Red
Flower: Rethinking Menstruation, Dena Taylor, Blackburn
Press, $19.95 pb, 1-930665-64-4, 2003.
First published in 1998, Red Flower has been one of the important books to women
and scholars interested in the powerful and spiritual dimensions of women's
bloods. "An integral part of every woman's life, menstruation has typically
been characterized as a curse. Red Flower debunks the myths and prejudices surrounding
this natural process through carefully documented research, cross-cultural perspectives,
and much more." Poetry, reflective creative writing, drawings and informative
essays make this book both a resource for self-refection and academic background
as it spans he time from pre-menarche to post-menopausal ages. (****) Health
& Medicine; Womenís Studies ** Recommended
Women
on War: An International Anthology of Writings from Antiquity to the Present,
Daniela Gioseffi, editor, The Feminist
Press at CUNY, $19.95 pb, 1-55861-409-5, or $55.00 cl, 1-55861-408-7,
2003.
This timely volume includes poetry, prose, and short essays by more than 150
women including the range of recognized writers to everyday first-hand witnesses
of armed conflict. The updated edition contains more than 40% new materials,
including reflections on 9-11. There are reflections spanning the globe from
ancient to modern times from refugees, rape victims, survivors of armed conflicts,
nurses, soldiers and others. (****) War/Peace/Anti-Militarism; Literature **
Recommended
Miscellaneous Self-Published Books
Braveheart
and Broomsticks: Essays on Movies, Myths, and Magic, Elycia Arendt,
Infinity Publishing.com, $11.95 pb, 0-7414-1233-0, 2002.
To order: http://www.buybooksontheweb.com/description.asp?ISBN=0-7414-1233-0
The author writes... "Braveheart and Broomsticks is a collection of
scholarly essays on movies, myths, and magic. It covers a wide variety of topics
including: movie ad campaigns, the evolution of the Braveheart legend, Scottish
poetry, Jim Henson's movie Labyrinth, internet fan sites, Wicca and the witchcraft
movement, the great Harry Potter debate, fairy tales, and the novels of Willa
Cather." For more information about the author see http://www.elycia.net/book/author.html
(****) Literary Criticism
Fictional
Females: Mirrors and Models / The Changing Image of Women in American Novels
from 1789 to 1939, Eleanor Hochman, Xlibris.com (1-888-795-4274),
$21.24 pb, 1-4010-4455-7, or $31.49 cl, 1-4010-4456-5, 2002.
The author writes... "Fictional Females is a book about books--specifically,
about more than 160 American novels that had female protagonists, appeared between
the immediate post-Revolutionary period and the beginning of World War II, and
shaped as well as reflected women¥s lives. All 80 authors, both men and women,
were bestsellers and/or critically acclaimed in their time, and their fiction
provides a record of how successive generations of women accepted or challenged
the conventions of their day and enjoyed the rewards or suffered the consequences
of either choice. Today, an examination of those novels and the historical context
in which they appeared illuminates the changing conscious and unconscious assumptions
about the nature of woman--of what she is, what she wants, and what she gets--over
the years." some of the authors and novels discussed in this 453 page volume
includes: James Fenimore Cooper, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Rebecca Harding Davis,
Helen Hunt Jackson, Kate Chopin (Awakening), Theodore Dreiser (Sister
Carrie), Edith Wharton, Ellen Glasgow, Edith Summers Kelley (Weeds),
F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Agnes Smedley ( Daughter of the Earth),
and many others. No individual book is handled in detail but her accessible
writing style does make the literature enticing and sets the works discussed
in historical context. (****) Literary Criticism; History
Those
Who Give, Rosemary Cania Maio, 1st Books Library, $18.00 pb, 1-4033-1951-0,
2003.
http://www.thosewhogive.com/ -- can also be purchased via the Internet for $6.95
(1717k) / From the publisher... "THOSE WHO GIVE is about teachers in
the "age of disillusion." It is tragedy and comedy, history and prophecy, celebration
and indictment. The setting is Boesch-Conklyn Academy, a public high school
in upstate New York. Structured in three parts, the novel begins with Book One:
"October 23, 1980," moves forward in time with Book Two: "Interim Progress Report,"
and reaches its inevitable conclusion in Book Three: "Antithesis." Through the
experiences of teachers, THOSE WHO GIVE reflects the human condition by exploring
such universal themes as love, loss, greed, work ethic, betrayal, and irony."
(**) Education; History
Women in Higher Education: An Encyclopedia, Ana M. MartÌnez Alem·n and Kristen A. Renn, editors, ABC-CLIO, Inc., $85.00 cl, 1-57607-614-8, 2002.
This is reference book all women's studies departments will want to have in their office -- or at least a copy in the library. This compendium covers topics such as historical and cultural contexts for women in higher education (e.g., Catholic women's colleges, black colleges, tribal colleges, and so on), gender theory in the academy, feminism in the academy, women in the curriculum, women in higher education policy, women students (including sororities, athletics, developmental issues and so on), women faculty, women administrators, and women employees (specifically with regards to unionization). additionally, it includes cross-references at the end of each section, and extensive bibliography, and 2 appendixes covering women's studies research resources and self-identified women's colleges. (Oddly, my alma mater - The College of Notre Dame of Maryland - is missing from that list which makes me wonder how they gathered that piece of information!) (****) Reference/Directories; Education ** Recommended
Univ. of Alabama Press
Marlene
Dietrich, Rita Hayworth, and My Mother, Rita Maria Magdaleno, Univ.
of Arizona Press, $15.95 pb, 0-8165-2258-8, 2003.
From the publisher... "This poetic memoir, recalling Magdaleno's return
to the land of her birth, is an intertwining of personal and public history,
bridging continents and cultures in search of family secrets. Her poems recall
a mother "Marlene Dietrich pretty, / her smoky voice / & those wide Aryan /
eyes that promised / never to lie," a war bride who named her child after a
Hollywood movie star even before casting eyes on America. They also offer a
new, intimate view of the waróand of today's reunified Germanyóand show that
the consequences of events played out half a century ago continue to resonate
with the children of that era." (****) Poetry
Naked
Wanting, Margo Tamex, Univ. of Arizona Press, $15.95 pb, 0-8165-2248-0,
2003.
Camino del Sol Series / Jacket copy... "Margo Tamez's voice is that
of the cicada and the cricket, the raven and the crane. In this volume of poetry,
she shows us that the earth is an erotic current linking all beings, a vibrant
network of birth, death, and rebirth. A sacred intertwining from which we as
humans have become disconnected." (****) Poetry; Latinas
Now in paperback...
Nampeyo and Her Pottery, Barbara Kramer,
Univ. of Arizona Press, $24.95 pb, 0-8165-2321-5, 2003.
(****) Arts: Art, Photography; Native American
Witnessing
and Testifying: Black Women, Religion and Civil Rights, Rosetta E. Ross,
Augsburg Fortress Press , $23.00 pb, 0-8006-3603-1, 2003.
Septima Clark, Sojourner Truth, Fannie Lou Hamer, Ella Baker and Clara Muhammad
are just a few of the key figures whose religious beliefs guided their work
and motivation as Civil Rights activists. This womanist exploration -- part
biography, part sociological study -- provides an important contribution for
these women (as well as some others) in bringing their stories, witness and
testifying to light. (****) African-American; Spirituality/Religion **
Recommended
Bucknell University Press - (Distributed by Associated University Presses)
Persephone
Unbound: Dionysian Aesthetics in the works of Anna de Noailles, Catherine
Perry, Bucknell University Press (Distributed by Associated University Presses),
$75.00 cl, 0-8387-5499-6, 2003.
Anna de Noailles (1876-1933) was a celebrated poet in France during her lifetime.
This is the first extensive book in English on this important writer who intellectually
engaged the poetic worlds of Baudelaire, Proust, Rilke, and others. (***) Literary
Criticism
University of California Press
A Defense
of Abortion, David Boonin, Cambridge Univ. Press, $23.00 pb, 0-521-52035-5,
or $65.00 cl, 0-521-81701-3, 2002.
From the publisher... "David Boonin has written the most thorough and
detailed case for the moral permissibility of abortion yet published. Critically
examining a wide range of arguments that attempt to prove that every human fetus
has a right to life, he shows that each of these arguments fails on its own
terms. He then explains how even if the fetus does have a right to life, abortion
can still be shown to be morally permissible on the critique of abortionís own
terms. Finally he considers several pro-life arguments that do not depend on
claims that the fetus has a right to life and concludes that these too are ultimately
unsuccessful. This major book will be especially helpful to those teaching applied
ethics and bioethics in philosophy departments or professional schools of law
and medicine. It will interest students of women studies and general readers
for whom abortion remains a high-profile issue." (**) Philosophy; Reproductive
Rights/Technology
Women
Philosophers of the Seventeenth Century, Jacqueline Broad, Cambridge
Univ. Press, $55.00 cl, 0-521-81295-X, 2002.
Philosophers of the seventeen century generally worked within the legacy of
Descartes, Locke and others. This volume explores the intellectual lives six
important feminist thinkers of the time: Elisabeth of Bohemia, Margaret Cavendish,
Anne Conway, Mary Astell, Damaris Cudworth Masham and Catharine Trotter Cockburn.
(**) Philosophy
Many Faces
of Gender: Roles and Relationships Through Time in Indigenous Northern Communities,
Lisa Frink, Rita S. Shepard and Gregory A. Reinhardt, editors, Univ.
Press of Colorado Press, $19.95 pb, 0-87081-687-X, or $45.00 cl, 0-87081-677-2,
2002.
This interdisciplinary collection of essays addresses the dearth of descriptions
and analyses of gender roles and relationships in Native societies in North
America's boreal reaches. (**) Anthropology; Gender Studies
A Wide-Awake
Woman: Josephine Roche in the Era of Reform, Elinor McGinn, Colorado
Historical Society (distributed by Univ. Press of Colorado Press), $21.95 pb,
0-942576-42-X, 2003.
Volume Seven in the Colorado History Series Josephine Roche (1886-1976) ran
for the governorship of Colorado in 1934. Though she lost, she continued to
fight for the next 60 years for reform in labor relations, health care, immigration
policy and many other issues. (****) Regional: West; Biography
Identity
Poetics: Race, Class, and the Lesbian-Feminist Roots of Queer Theory, Linda
Garber, Columbia Univ. Press, $18.50 pb, 0-231-11033-2, or $49.50 cl, 0-231-11032-4,
2001.
In this column, I generally don't backtrack to titles published more than a
year ago but this one slipped by and it relevant to the current debates on Sheila
Jeffreys' new book. according to the jacket copy..." "Queer theory," asserts
Linda Garber, "alternately buries and vilifies lesbian feminism, missing its
valuable insights and ignoring its rich contributions." Rejecting the either/or
choice between lesbianism and queer theory, she favors an inclusive approach
that defies current factionalism. In an eloquent challenge to the privileging
of queer theory in the academy, Garber calls for recognition of the historical
-and intellectually significant -role of lesbian poets as theorists of lesbian
identity and activism." Garber supports (and disagrees) with some of Jeffreys'
thinking though she comes at it from a different angle -- that of literary criticism
(whereas Jeffreys' is more of an historian). Read these two books together and
march on! (***) Lesbian Studies; Gay/Lesbian/Queer Studies **
Recommended
Domestic
Violence and the Politics of Privacy, Kristin A. Kelly, Cornell Univ.
Press, $16.95 pb, 0-8014-8829-X, or $39.95 cl, 0-8014-3908-6, 2003.
In this study of legal issues and domestic violence, Kelly explores the tensions
between preserving the privacy of the family and protecting vulnerable individuals.
(***) Law; Violence and Abuse; Gender/Law Issues
Univ. of Delaware Press - (Distributed by Associated University Presses)
The Crux,
Charlotte Perkins Gilmore and edited with an introduction by Jennifer S.
Tuttle, Univ. of Delaware Press (Distributed by Associated University Presses),
$42.50 cl, 0-87413-771-3, 2002.
The Crux examines the issue of sexually transmitted disease. Originally
serialized in 1911 in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's magazine The Forerunner, The
Crux portrays a multigenerational group of women who flee the repressive traditions
of their New England village on the advice of a woman physician. Migrating West,
they find self-fulfillment in a Colorado town. An argument against the traditional
nineteenth-century ideal of female "innocence" that left women vulnerable to
sexually transmitted disease, the novel invokes classic frontier ideology along
with a feminist critique of the male-dominated medical establishment in order
to argue for women's sexual self-determination. It also envisions many of Gilman's
best-known reformist ideas for gender relations and social organization, including
socialized housekeeping, professionalized child care, and economic independence
for white, middle-class women. This edition of the novel includes explanatory
notes to Gilman's text, along with an introduction contextualizing the novel
in terms of Gilman's biography as well as nineteenth-century gender ideologies,
medical discourses, and frontier mythologies. (****) Fiction
An Archive
of Feelings: Trauma, Sexuality, and Lesbian Public Cultures, Ann Cvetkovich,
Duke Univ. Press, $22.95 pb, 0-8223-3088-1, or $69.95 cl, 0-8223-3076-8, 2003.
From the publisher..."Cvetkovich contends that the field of trauma studies,
limited by too strict a division between the public and the private, has overlooked
the experiences of women and queers....An Archive of Feelings challenges
the field to engage more fully with sexual trauma and the wide range of feelings
in its vicinity, including those associated with butch-femme sex and aids activism
and caretaking. An Archive of Feelings brings together oral histories
from lesbian activists involved in act/up New York; readings of literature by
Dorothy Allison, Leslie Feinberg, CherrÌe Moraga, and Shani Mootoo; videos by
Jean Carlomusto and Pratibha Parmar; and performances by Lisa Kron, Carmelita
Tropicana, and the bands Le Tigre and Tribe 8 . Cvetkovich reveals how these
cultural formationsóactivism, performance, and literatureógive rise to public
cultures that both work through trauma and transform the conditions producing
it. (**) Lesbian Studies; Culture/Cultural Studies
Contentious
Lives: Two Argentine Women, Two Protests, and the Quest for recognition,
Javier Auyero, Duke Univ. Press, $18.95 pb, 0-8223-3115-2, or $54.95
cl, 0-8223-3128-4, 2003.
Contentious Lives examines the ways popular protests are experienced and remembered,
individually and collectively, by those who participate in them. Javier Auyero
focuses on the roles of two young women, Nana and Laura, in uprisings in Argentina
(the two-day protest in the northwestern city of Santiago del Estero in 1993
and the six-day road blockade in the southern oil towns of Cutral-co and Plaza
Huincul in 1996) and the roles of the protests in their lives. (***) International:
Latin & Central America; Social Sciences
Empire
of Care: Nursing and Migration in Filipino American History, Catherine
Ceniza Choy, Duke Univ. Press, $19.95 pb, 0-8223-3089-X , or $59.95 cl,
0-8223-3052-0, 2003.
From the publisher... "In western countries, including the United States,
foreign-trained nurses constitute a crucial labor supply. Far and away the largest
numbers of these nurses come from the Philippines. Why is it that a developing
nation with a comparatively greater need for trained medical professionals sends
so many of its nurses to work in wealthier countries? Catherine Ceniza Choy
engages this question through an examination of the unique relationship between
the professionalization of nursing and the twentieth-century migration of Filipinos
to the United States. The first book-length study of the history of Filipino
nurses in the United States, Empire of Care brings to the fore the complicated
connections among nursing, American colonialism, and the racialization of Filipinos."
(**) Asian American; History; Health & Medicine
Feminism
without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity, Chandra
Talpade Mohanty, Duke Univ. Press, $21.95 pb, 0-8223-3021-0, or $64.95 cl,
0-8223-3010-5, 2003.
From the book jacket..."Bringing together classic and new writings of the trailblazing
feminist theorist Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Feminism without Borders addresses
some of the most pressing and complex issues facing contemporary feminism....This
collection highlights the concerns running throughout her pioneering work: the
politics of difference and solidarity, decolonizing and democratizing feminist
practice, the crossing of borders, and the relation of feminist knowledge and
scholarship to organizing and social movements. Mohanty offers here a sustained
critique of globalization and urges a reorientation of transnational feminist
practice toward anti-capitalist struggles." (***) Womenís Studies; International
** Recommended
Living
with His Camera, Jane Gallop and Dick Blau [photographer], Duke Univ.
Press, $23.95 cl, 0-8223-3102-0, 2003.
Rarely do we have the opportunity to know about how the subject of photography
feels about having the artist living and continually photographing many intimate
moments. Jane Gallop has been living with Dick Blau (and his camera) for twenty
years. This is a look into their lives and her meditations on how the camera
enters their family life -- and brings them to the public gaze. (****) Arts:
Art, Photography; Family Relations
Making
Girls into Women: American Women's Writing and the Rise of Lesbian Identity,
Kathryn R. Kent, Duke Univ. Press, $21.95 pb, 0-8223-3016-4, or $64.95
cl, 0-8223-3030-X, 2003.
From the publisher... "Making Girls into Women offers an account of
the historical emergence of "the lesbian" by looking at late-nineteenth- and
early-twentieth-century womenës writing. Kathryn R. Kent proposes that modern
lesbian identity in the United States has its roots not just, or even primarily,
in sexology and medical literature, but in white, middle-class women's culture.
Kent demonstrates how, as white womenës culture shifted more and more from the
home to the school, workplace, and boarding house, the boundaries between the
public and private spheres began to dissolve. She shows how, within such spaces,
womenës culture, in attempting to mold girls into proper female citizens, ended
up inciting in them other, less normative, desires and identifications, including
ones Kent calls "protolesbian" or queer." (***) Lesbian Studies; Literary Criticism
The Manly
Masquerade: Masculinity, Paternity, and Castration in the Italian Renaissance,
Valeria Finucci, Duke Univ. Press, $24.95 pb, 0-8223-3065-2, or $74.95
cl, 0-8223-3054-7, 2003.
For those more interested in gender studies rather than women's studies, this
volume explores the ways in which men were defined as men in Renaissance Italy
through a variety of measures -- medical & travel literature, theology, law,
myth, plays, chivalric romances, conduct books, art and other cultural reproductions.
(**) Gender Studies; History
The New
Japanese Woman: modernity, Media, and Women in Interwar Japan, Barbara
Sato, Duke Univ. Press, $19.95 pb, 0-8223-3044-X, or $59.95 cl, 0-8223-3008-3,
2003.
This social history of Japanese culture portrays the "new woman" who emerged
between the world wars. Images of the modern woman appeared in media and shaped
images of women in the midst of urbanization, a growing middle class, and consumerism.
(**) International: Asia
Prozac
on the Couch: Prescribing Gender in the Era of Wonder Drugs, Jonathan
Michel Metzl, Duke Univ. Press, $24.95 cl, 0-8223-3061-X, 2003.
I have a number of friends and acquaintances who take Prozac -- so it constantly
feels like one must be careful with opinions about drug treatments and women
and dependency. And then there's that wonderful song by Cheryl Wheeler "Is it
Peace or is it Prozac?", a song reflective of her own breakdown. I often wonder
-- is Prozac the new Valium for control of women? This book shed analytic light
on some of the questions. From the publisher..."Providing a cultural
history of treatments for depression, anxiety, and other mental illnesses through
a look at the professional and popular reception of three "wonder drugs"--Milltown,
Valium, and Prozac--Metzl explains the surprising ways Freudian gender categories
and popular gender roles have shaped understanding of these drugs." Bottom line,
Freudian ideas about gender are entangled with modern prescriptions of Prozac
-- psychotropic medications have suffused popular culture. However, beyond this
warning, itís not clear what the solutions might be for sorting out genre, drugs,
and cultural expectations for women. (***) Psychology; Health & Medicine; Gender
Studies
The Scandal
of the State: Women, Law, and Citizenship in Postcolonial India, Rajeswari
Sunder Rajan, Duke Univ. Press, $21.95 pb, 0-8223-3048-2, 2003.
New Wave: New Directions in Women's Studies Series / This collection of case
studies grapples with the relationships between women and the state of India.
Rajan argues that the state not only determines women's political rights but
also their cultural identity and the way they live their daily lives. The case
studies explore such issues as the hysterectomies scandal (sterilization of
mentally retarded women), prostitution questions, women's roles in community
and state, unwanted girls, and "outlaw" woman. For scholars and activists interested
in Indian feminism or postcolonialism, this book comes as an important contribution.
(***) International: Asia; Womenís Studies
Vanishing
Women: Magic, Film, and Feminism, Karen Beckman, Duke Univ. Press,
$19.95 pb, 0-8223-3074-1, or $59.95 cl, 0-8223-3125-X, 2003.
Are women prone to disappear, or to instability, or to elusiveness? According
to Beckman in this study of 19th and 20th century films, women vanish through
mirrors, trapdoors, elevators, photographs and other places to create anxiety
of the "vanishing woman." This constantly vanishing woman portrays the figure
that hovers between the visible and invisible, thus psychically and psychologically
lurking -- and affecting the relationships between visibility, gender, and agency.
(**) Arts: Film, Video; Womenís Studies
Working
Differences: Women's Working Lives in Hungary and Austria, 1945-1995, Šva
Fodor, Duke Univ. Press, $18.95 pb, 0-8223-3090-3, or $54.95 cl, 0-8223-3077-6,
2003.
(**) International: Western Europe; Work & Labor; Social Sciences Also of
interest
Also of interest...
Cultures
of the Death Drive: Melanie Klein and the Modernist Melancholia, Esther
S·nchez-Pardo, Duke Univ. Press, $24.95 pb, 0-8223-3045-8, or $74.95 cl,
0-8223-3009-1, 2003.
This is a comprehensive guide to the writings of pioneering psychoanalyst Melanie
Klein (1882-1960). (**) Psychology; Literary Criticism
Dark Continents:
Psychoanalysis and Colonialism, Ranjana Khanna, Duke Univ. Press,
$21.95 pb, 0-8223-3067-9, or $64.95 cl, 0-8223-3055-5, 2003.
(*) Psychology
Imagine
Otherwise: On Asian Americanist Critique, Kandice Chuh, Duke Univ.
Press, $19.95 pb, 0-8223-3140-3, or $59..95 cl, 0-8223-3104-7, 2003.
(**) Asian American; Literary Criticism
Race,
Nature, and the Politics of Difference, Donald S. Moore, Jake Kosek and
Anand Pandian, editors, Duke Univ. Press, $24.95 pb, 0-8223-3091-1, or $74.95
cl, 0-8223-3079-2, 2003.
(**) Race Theory; Anthropology; Geography; Culture/Cultural Studies
Working
Out in Japan: Shaping the Female Body in Tokyo Fitness Clubs, Laura Spielvogel,
Duke Univ. Press, $19.95 pb, 0-8223-3049.0, 2003.
(**) International: Asia; Anthropology; Womenís Studies
Anna Madgigine Jai Kingsley: African Princess, Florida Slave, Plantation Slaveowner, Daniel L. Schafer, Univ. Press of Florida, $24.95 cl, 0-8130-2616-4, 2003.
E-Mails from Scheherazad, Mohja Kahf, Univ. Press of Florida, $12.95 pb, 0-8130-2621-0, or $24.95 cl, 0-8130-2620-2, 2003.
Making Waves: Female Activists in Twentieth-Century Florida, Jack E. Davis and Kari Frederickson, editors, Univ. Press of Florida, $55.00 cl, 0-8130-2604-0, 2003.
From the publisher..."Anna Kingsley's life story adds a dramatic chapter to histories of the South, the state of Florida, and the African Diaspora....Both an American slave and a slaveowner--and possibly an African princess--Anna was a teenager when she was captured in her homeland of Senegal in 1806 and sold into slavery. Zephaniah Kingsley, Jr., a planter and slave trader from Spanish East Florida, bought her in Havana, Cuba, and took her to his St. Johns River plantation in northeast Florida, where she soon became his household manager, his wife, and eventually the mother of four of his children. Her husband formally emancipated her in 1811, and she became the owner of her own farm and twelve slaves the following year....when Florida passed from Spanish to American control, and racism and discrimination increased in the American territories, Anna Kingsley and her children migrated to a colony in Haiti established by her husband as a refuge for free blacks. Amid the spiraling racial tensions of the antebellum period, Anna returned to north Florida, where she bought and sold land, sued white people in the courts, and became a central figure in a free black community." (****) Biography; African-American; Regional: South; History
The University of Central Florida Contemporary Poetry Series / From the publisher... "Kahf's carefully crafted poems do not speak only to important issues of ethnicity, gender, and religious diversity in America, but also to universal human themes of family and kinship, friendship, and the search for a place to pray."
(****) Poetry; Arab American ** Recommended
Some of the women activists portrayed in the rich history of feminist activism in Florida include: Ruth Bryan Owen ( First congresswomen in Florida), Betty Mae Tiger Jumper (Seminole activist), Mary McLeod Bethune (founder of Bethune-Cookman College). The women in this volume addressed urban renewal, environmental activism, child welfare, labor unions, education, women's liberation and civil liberties. (****) Regional: South; History
Gallaudet
Univ. Press
Selling
Mrs. Consumer: Christine Frederick and the Rise of Household Efficiency,
Janice Williams Rutherford, Univ. of Georgia Pr. Press, $22.95 pb, 0-8203-2480-9,
2003.
An early Martha Stewart without the empire? Christine Frederick (1883-1970)
was an educated woman who created a career for herself by establishing the ideal
of preserving the virtuous home -- and for women's permanent place within it.
(***) History; Womenís Studies
Hampton Press, Inc.
Black
Women in the Field: Experiences Understanding Ourselves and Others through Qualitative
Research, Gretchen Givens Generett and Rhonda Baynes Jeffries, editors,
Hampton Press Inc. (23 Braodway, suite 208, Cresskill, NJ 07626 - 201-894-1686),
$18.95 pb, 1-57273-484-1, or $39.50 cl, 1-57273-483-3, 2003.
Understanding Education and Policy Series / From the introduction...
"As Black women qualitative researchers struggling with our identities, e ask
ourselves many questions between the lines of this text. How do we get out of
ourselves in order to see into them? And once we get out, how do we go back?
This volume is a glimpse of eight Black female academics attempting to mediate
the back and forth -- acknowledging the impossibility of understanding the other
without understanding the self. we ask ourselves if out intentions in these
chapters will transcend the language we have used to express our ideas about
other people. We ponder our ability to speak on the Black experience, as well
as the Black female academic experience, without generalizing and stereotyping
it. we crave for that experience to be heard and embraced by our participants
and our colleagues" (pp. 8-9). This will be an important book for African American
academics and researcher s seeking to make sense of their voices and observations.
(***) African-American; Education ** Recommended
Harrington Park Press / Haworth Press
A Donor
Insemination Guide: Written By and For Lesbian Women, Marie Mohler and
Lacy Frazer, Harrington Park Press / An Imprint of Haworth Press, $12.95
pb, 1-56023-227-7, or $29.95 cl, 1-56023-226-9, 2003.
Alice Street Editions / From the publisher..."A Donor Insemination
Guide details the mechanics of conception, including preconception
fertility efforts, the key characteristics of viable sperm, and determining
fertile periods. Each phase of the process is illustrated by the real-life experiences
of the authors and several other lesbian couples. This step-by-step guide is
designed to help you meet the logistical, emotional, and legal challenges to
achieving conceptions and a healthy pregnancy." (****) Lesbian Studies;
Health & Medicine
Also of interest...
Homosexual Rites of Passage: A Road to Visibility
and Validation, Marie Mohler, Harrington Park Press / An Imprint
of Haworth Press, $14.95 pb, 1-56023-978-6, or $29.95 cl, 1-56023-977-8, 2003.
(****) Gay/Lesbian/Queer Studies; Psychology
Naked
in the Promised Land, Lillian Faderman, Houghton Mifflin, $26.00
cl, 0-618-12875-1, 2003.
This memoir has received high praise from writers such as Amy Tan, Sarah Schulman,
and Emma Donoghue among others -- as well as it should. Faderman has turned
her talents as a brilliant social historian and literary academic to gaze at
her own life events. She takes us on a remarkable journey as the daughter and
niece on the only Holocaust survivors of her family, through her days in the
underworld of lesbian addicts and pimps through her college life as a burlesque
stripper and finally as a renowned scholar. Wow! (****) Autobiography/Memoir;
Lesbian Studies ** Recommended
Humanity Books, Imprint of Prometheus
What
Answer?, Anna E. Dickinson and with introduction by J. Matthew Gallman,
Humanity Books, Imprint of Prometheus, $18.00 pb, 1-59102-050-6, 2003.
Classics in Black Studies Series Anna E. Dickinson (1842-1932) -- 19th
century orator, abolitionist and advocate for women's rights -- wrote just one
novel. This is it. set in the midst of the Civil War ear, this controversial
work explores issues of racial inequality, interracial marriage, and social
justice as well as the conflicted attitudes of Northern citizens to blacks just
after the war. The publisher admits this may not be an extraordinary piece of
literature but it does offer an important and timely insight into post-Civil
War racial conflict. (****) Literature; African-American; History
Reissue now available...
The Pivot of Civilization, Margaret Sanger
and with and introduction by H.G. Wells, Humanity Books, Imprint of Prometheus,
$18.00 pb, 1-59102-058-1, 2003.
Classics in Women's Studies Series - First published in 1922, this is Margaret
Sanger's most pioneering book in her attempt to discuss the still radical idea
of birth control. (****) Reproductive Rights/Technology; Womenís Studies
Delia's
Doctors: or, A Glance Behind the Scenes, Hannah Gardner Creamer and Introduction
by Nina Bym, Univ. of Illinois Press, $14.95 pb, 0-252-07108-5, or $39.95
cl, 0-252-02807-4, 2003.
First published in 1852, Delia's Doctors is one of four known novels by Hannah
Gardner Creamer, an American writer whose life and career have been all but
absent from the annals of American history. This early feminist novel is a wickedly
funny slice of mid-nineteenth-century Americana peppered with details of the
era's freakish medical tactics and leavened with a smart and sassy commentary
about the societal restraints on women's physical and intellectual abilities.
(****) Literature
The Making
of "Mammy Pleasant": A Black Entrepreneur in the Nineteenth-Century San Francisco,
Lynn M. Hudson, Univ. of Illinois Press, $29.95 cl, 0-252-02771-X, 2003.
Women in American History Series / From the publisher... "Mary Ellen
Pleasant arrived in Gold Rush-era San Francisco a free black woman with abolitionist
convictions and a predilection for entrepreneurial success. Behind the convenient
and trusted disguise of "Mammy," she transformed domestic labor into enterprise,
amassed remarkable real estate, wealth, and power, and gained notoriety for
her work in fighting Jim Crow." (****) African-American; History; Biography
Of Women,
Poetry, and Power: Strategies of Address in Dickinson, Miles, Brooks, Lorde,
and Angelou, Zofia Burr, Univ. of Illinois Press, $39.95 cl, 0-252-02769-8,
2002.
Burr explores the poetry of Josephine Miles, Gwendolyn Brooks, Audre Lorde,
and Maya Angelou within the canonization of the works of Emily Dickinson. (**)
Literary Criticism; Poetry
The Feminist
Avant-Garde in American Poetry, Elisabeth A. Frost, Univ. of Iowa
Press, $24.95 cl, 0-87745-836-7, 2003.
Gertrude Stein, Mina Loy, Sonia Sanchez Susan Howe and Harryette Mullen are
the primary poets whose work come into focus in this historical and theoretical
account of avant-garde women poets in the US from 1910 through the 1990s. Expanding
traditional conceptions of feminism and avant-garde writing, Frost specifically
explores radical forms and politics and female identity as written by this group
of diverse poets. (**) Literary Criticism; Poetry
Also of interest...
Are You Experienced?: Baby Boom Poets at Midlife, Pamela Gemin, editor,
Univ. of Iowa Press, $19.95 pb, 0-87745-850-2, 2003.
(****) Poetry; Culture/Cultural Studies
Johns Hopkins University Press
Restoring Women's History through Historic Preservation, Gail Lee Dubrow and Jennifer B. Goodman, editors, Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, $49.95 cl, 0-8018-7052-6, 2003.
Women's Experience of Modernity, 1875-1945, Ann L. Ardis and Leslie W. Lewis, editors, Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, $22.00 pb, 0-8018-6935-8, 2003.
From the publisher... "In Women's Experience of Modernity, 1875--1945, literary scholars working with a variety of interdisciplinary methodologies move feminine phenomena from the margins of the study of modernity to its center. Analyzing such cultural practices as selling and shopping, political and social activism, urban field work and rural labor, radical discourses on feminine sexuality, and literary and artistic experimentation, this volume contributes to the rich vein of current feminist scholarship on the "gender of modernism" and challenges the assumption that modernism rose naturally or inevitably to the forefront of the cultural landscape at the turn of the twentieth century." (**) Literature
Stir
It Up: Lessons in Community Organizing and Advocacy, Rinku Sen, Jossey-Bass
Inc., $25.00 pb, 0-7879-6533-2, 2003.
This promising book was sponsored by the MS. Foundation and is another important
publication from the Chardon Press Series edited by Kim Klein. This book offers
more than simply a best practice manual for community activism and social organizing.
Using case studies from economic justice grantees funded by the MS Foundation
between 1997 and 2001, this manual considers the effects of the globalization
of economic development on community organizing. As the author states in her preface,
"today's social, political and economic context, characterized by global capitalism
resurgent conservative movement, and the continued role of racism and sexism in
world society, requires deeper strategic capacity than most organization have
today....the range of political skills required of us goes far beyond recruiting
members and planning creative actions" (p. xvii). (****) Social Sciences **
Recommended
I'll Tell
You What: The Life of Elizabeth Inchbald, Annibel Jenkins, Univ.
Press of Kentucky, $39.95 cl, 0-8131-2236-8, 2003.
Elizabeth Simpson Inchbald (1753ñ1821) was one of the leading literary figures
of the late eighteenth centuryóan actress, a successful playwright and editor
of several collections of plays, a popular novelist, and a drama critic. (***)
Biography; Arts: Music, Dance, Theater
Also of interest...
Hold the Roses, Rose Marie, Univ. Press
of Kentucky, $25.00 cl, 0-8131-2264-3, 2003.
(****) Autobiography/Memoir
The Power
to Name: Locating the Limits of Subject Representation in Libraries, Hope
A. Olsen, Kluwer Academic Publishers, $86.00 cl, 1-4020-0776-0, 2002.
Naming has power. When I was a budding feminist 25 years ago, this was one of
my first awakenings. It was only 10 or so years, ago, however, that I began
to realize how this extended to library classifications. It was Sanford Berman
and many other committed feminist librarians who helped me to understand how
to find things in libraries - and how, as a publisher/bookseller - such classifications
affect how we sort and bring visibility to our books. For researchers and librarians,
this book is an important. As the author states in her preface, " The Power
to Name is intended for two audiences: those interested in knowledge organization
and those interested in theoretical study of representation. These two groups
come from the perspective of the structure and principles of organization and
from the perspective of understanding the cultural ramifications of naming.
The first may be those who develop subject representation schemes for a wide
range of purposes and those who apply those schemes [librarians, etc.]. The
second group is likely to be feminist, post structural and postcolonial theorists
who explore the construction of meaning." This book may be beyond the price
rang of casual readers but any good library should be sure to add this important
book to their collection. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Order Department, P.O.
Box 358, Accord Station Hingham, MA 02018-0358, 1-781 871-6600, kluwer@wkap.com
(***) Language / Linguistics; Reference/Directories; Social Sciences
The Mysteries of Elizabeth I: Selections from English Literary Renaissance,
Kirby Farrell and Kathleen Swaim, editors, Univ. of Massachusetts Press,
$19.95 pb, 1-55849-231-3, 2003.
These thirteen essays, nine of which were first published in English Literary
Renaissance, provide an important contribution to the literature exploring
the life and identity of Elizabeth I. (***) Biography; History
Lewd &
Notorious: Female Transgression in the 18th century, Katherine Kittredge,
editor, Univ. of Michigan Press, $24.95 pb, 0-472-08906-4, or $59.50 cl,
0-472-11090-X, 2003.
Women who transgress (hags, arts, killers, freaks and otherwise lewd or notorious)
are perceived as terrifying...and thus become marginalized. What do we as feminist
makes of such women? In her introduction, Kittredge suggests we ten to turn
away in revulsion. "This collection reflects my belief that we must not continue
to avert our eyes. In this volume, a group of talented scholars focuses the
critical gaze on images of women that are frequently painful, grotesque, or
pathetic to ascertain the messages that these depictions may convey and the
way this information was interpreted and negotiated by contemporary women" (pp.
1-2). (***) Literary Criticism; Womenís Studies
Marianne
Moore, Elizabeth Bishop, and May Swenson: The Feminist Poetics of Self- Restraint,
Kirstin Hotelling Zona, Univ. of Michigan Press, $44.50 cl, 0-472-11304-6,
2002.
From the publisher... "This book examines the strategic possibilities
of poetic self-restraint. Marianne Moore, Elizabeth Bishop, and May Swenson
all wrote poetry that is marked by a certain reserve--precisely the motive against
which most feminist poets and critics of the last thirty years have established
themselves. Kirstin Hotelling Zona complicates this dichotomy by examining the
conceptions of selfhood upon which it depends." (**) Literary Criticism
Skin
Deep, Spirit Strong: The Black Female Body in American Culture, Kimberly
Wallace-Sanders, editor, Univ. of Michigan Press, $24.95 pb, 0-472-06707-9,
or $52.50 cl, 0-472-09707-5, 2003.
From the introduction...(p. 5) "The chapters in Skin Deep, Spirit Strong are
both discernibly independent and in dialogue with each other as they address
issues of identity and representation in visual, literary, and historical contexts.
The volume demonstrates that when Black women stand at the center of the discussion
about the female body, their bodies tell a profoundly different story about
historic and contemporary American culture." (***) African-American; Womenís
Studies
Reissue now available...
The Goddess: Power, Sexuality, and the Feminine Divine,
Shahrukh Husain, Univ. of Michigan Press, $14.95 pb, 0-472-08934-X, 2003.
This reprint edition of the 1997 book published by Peter Baird is filled with
amazing color plates and artifacts tracing images of the Goddess throughout
history and from around the world. (****) Spirituality/Religion; Arts: Art,
Photography; History
Blood
Sisters, Valerie Miner, Michigan State Univ., $19.95 pb, 0-87013-665-8,
2003.
There are few novels I have read from many years ago that continue to stay vivid
in my memory and in the background of my thinking on political activism. This
is one of them. I read this novel when it was first published in 1982. I have
thought about this story many times, as I clash with friends, colleagues and
family members on viewpoints concerning activism, social justice, strategies
for civil disobedience, violence and non-violence, nationality, struggles for
freedom, and so on. I highly recommended it during these difficult political
times as it portrays with honesty that our positionalities and decisions are
complicated in multiple layers of ethics and decision-making. Publisher
description ... "At the heart of Blood Sisters are two cousins, one
Irish, one American, who grew up steeped in their mothersí ideals of the 1916
Uprising. The two young women try to understand each otherís views, to cross
the blurry lines between private and political life, but are divided by their
separate histories and often despair at the possibility of comprehension, let
alone reconciliation. Blood Sisters intricately combines important issues within
the tense format of a thriller. Miner subtly explores the relationships among
women of different generations, unexpected and unacceptable romance, the daily
dramas of immigrant life, and the struggle of Irish people to discover and create
their own identity and autonomy." (****) Fiction **
Recommended
Chaucer's
Queer Nation, Glenn Burger, Univ. of Minnesota Press, $22.95 pb,
0-8166-3806-3, or $63.95 cl, 0-8166-3805-5 , 2003.
From the publisher catalog..."Bringing the concerns of queer theory and
postcolonial studies to bear on Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, this ambitious book
compels a rethinking not only of this most canonical of works, but also of questions
of sexuality and gender in pre- and postmodern contexts, of issues of modernity
and nation in historiography, and even of the enterprise of historiography itself.
Glenn Burger shows us Chaucer uneasily situated between the medieval and the
modern, his work representing new forms of sexual and communal identity but
also enacting the anxieties provoked by such departures from the past." Medieval
Cultures Series, volume 34 (**) Literature; Gay/Lesbian/Queer Studies
Ghosts
of Slavery: A Literary Archaeology of Black Women's Lives, Jenny Sharpe,
Univ. of Minnesota Press, $17.95 pb, 0-8166-3723-7, 2003.
Sharpe traces the three very different experiences of slave women -- Nanny the
maroon leader, Joanna the mulatto concubine, and Mary Prince a fugitive slave
-- during different eras of slavery. Using nontraditional sources such as oral
storytelling, slave songs, travel writing, court documents, proslavery literature,
and contemporary literature, the author investigates the lives of these women
to draw a portrait of the unique and composite gendered story of slavery. (**)
African-American; Womenís Studies; History
Union
Women: Forging Feminism in the united Steelworkers of America, Mary Margaret
Fonow, Univ. of Minnesota Press, $19.95 pb, 0-8166-3883-7, 2003.
This sociological and historical study portrays the work and spaces created
by women steelworkers in a male-dominated workforce. These women address issues
of sexual discrimination and advocate for women's rights. their organizations,
networks and resources contribute to the feminist response to globalization
and economic and labor concerns. (***) Social Sciences; Womenís Studies
Also of interest...
Entry Denied: Controlling Sexuality at the Border,
Eithne LuibhÈid, Univ. of Minnesota Press, $19.95 pb, 0-8166-3804-7,
or $54.95 cl, 0-8166-3803-9, 2003.
An examination of 150 years of sexuality-based discrimination against immigrants
to the United States. (****) Race Theory; Womenís Studies; Sexuality
Gender
and Difference in the Middle Ages, Sharon Farmer and Carol Braun Pasternack,
editors, Univ. of Minnesota Press, $24.95 pb, 0-8166-3894-2, or $68.95 cl,
0-8166-3893-4, 2002.
Medieval Cultures Series, volume 32 (**) Gender Studies; Literature
Imagine There's No Woman: Ethics and Sublimation, Joan Copjec, MIT Press, $29.95 cl, 0-262-03299-6, 2003.
According to the publisher, this book is a psychoanalytic and philosophical exploration of sublimation as a key term in Jacques Lacan's theories of ethics and feminist sexuality. WARNING: not only will one's intellect be tested, but also one's eyesight. It is annoyingly set in 8 or 9-point text type thus making it a visual challenge as well as a challenge to one's ethical viewpoints. (**) Philosophy; Psychology
Approaches to Teaching
Gilman's "The Yellow Wall-Paper" and Herland, Denise D. Knight
and Cynthia J. Davis, editors, Modern Language Assoc., $18.00 pb, 0-87352-901-4,
or $37.50 cl, 0-87352-900-6, 2003.
This is the 76th volume of MLA's Approaches to Teaching World Literature series.
It is divided into two parts: 1) Materials includes historical and biographical
background and information on published editions, film versions and other cultural
information surrounding Gilman's work; and 2) Approaches features 21 essays
from a variety of teaching perspectives and a range of course offerings. It
will be a valuable resource for teachers new to teaching Gilman and for those
seeking fresh approaches. (***) Literature; Rhetoric
Univ.
of Nebraska Press
Black Cherries,
Grace stone Coates, Univ. of Nebraska Press, $14.95 pb, 0-8032-6429-1,
2003. Hot Chocolate at Hanselmann's, Rosetta Loy
and Translated by Gregory Conti, Univ. of Nebraska Press, $16.95 pb, 0-8032-8006-8,
or $50.00 cl, 0-8032-2945-3, 2003. Indigenous American Women: Decolonization, Empowerment,
Activism, Devon Abbott Mihesuah, Univ. of Nebraska Press, $16.95
pb, 0-8032-8286-9, or $50.00 cl, 0-8032-3227-6, 2003. Pieces from Life's Crazy Quilt, Marvin V.
Arnett, Univ. of Nebraska Press, $26.95 cl, 0-8032-1064-7, 2003. White Poplar, Black Locust, Louise Wagenknecht,
Univ. of Nebraska Press, $26.95 cl, 0-8032-4804-0, 2003. Women's Oral History: The Frontiers Reader,
Susan H. Armitage, editor, with Patricia Hart and Karen Weathermoon,
Univ. of Nebraska Press, $29.95 pb, 0-8032-5944-1, 2002.
This collection of interconnected short stories by Grace Stone Coates (1881-1976)
portrays the harsh life, deprivation, rural hardship and family bitterness of
a Kansas farm family. (****) Fiction: Short Stories; Regional: West
European Women Writers Series / Jacket copy... "A work of understated
elegance and cumulative power, this novel eases readers into a drama unfolding
within a Catholic family in Italy on the eve of World War II. As scenes only
dimly understood by the child Lorenza are revisited by the woman she becomes,
what seemed a family affairóa romance involving Lorenzaís mother, her fatherís
Jewish friend Arturo, and her aunt Margot in Switzerlandóbegins to reveal the
broader outlines of the drama of history, in particular the tragedy of Italyís
Jews during the Holocaust. Limning the interplay of past and present, of memory
and presence, this haunting work by one of Italyís foremost writers brings to
life the subtleties and complexities of history as it is experienced, interpreted,
and relived within the most intimate of realms." (****) Fiction; International:
Western Europe
From the introduction..."I have written these essays because of my concern
about tribal America" (p. xi). These essays by prominent Oklahoma Choctaw scholar
Devon Abbott Mihesuah, examine how American Indigenous women have been perceived
and depicted by non-Natives, including scholars, and by themselves. her writings
explore colonialism and patriarchal thought, women's traditional tribal roles,
participation in academia, effects of Euro-American and Christianity, psychological
stress , intratribal factionalism, Red Power, feminism and activism as they
affect the lives and conditions of American Indigenous women. (***) Native American;
Womenís Studies ** Recommended
American Lives Series -- The captivating book is part memoir and part social
history. It reveals the urban life of a black neighborhood in Detroit during
the Great Depression and through the Detroit race riot of 1943. Each piece of
this "crazy quilt" draws the reader into these vivid coming-of-age stories revealed
in the drama of adult complexities. (****) Autobiography/Memoir; Social Sciences;
History ** Recommended
This novel combines memoir and history to tell two related stories -- one of
growing up in a small and isolated northern California lumber town that no longer
exists and another of harmful timbering practices devastating ancient old-growth
forests and destroying communities and environment. (****) Fiction **
Recommended
Publisher description: "Women's Oral History includes nineteen essays,
each addressing the particularity of women's lives and experience. The collection
provides both "how to" interview guides and examples of current research in
sections covering basic methodology and rationale; the myriad uses of women's
oral history; and discoveries and insights gained from oral history applications.
The essays raise thought-provoking questions, glean original insights about
the lives of women and the practice of history, and call for women to write
and record their own histories." (***) History; Womenís Studies
Also of interest...
Front-Page Women Journalists, 1920-1950, Kathleen
A. Cairns, Univ. of Nebraska Press, $45.00 cl, 0-8032-1525-8, 2003.
A feminist and historical view of the journalistic contributions and work of
Ruth Finney, Charlotta Bass, and Agness Underwood. (****) History; Womenís Studies;
Work & Labor
Trauma at Home : After
9/11, Judith Greenberg, editor, Univ. of Nebraska Press, $19.95 pb,
0-8032-7108-5, 2003.
(****) Social Sciences
Writing for Her Life:
The Novelist Mildred Walker, Ripley Hugo, Univ. of Nebraska Press,
$29.95 cl, 0-8032-2383-8, 2003.
In this biography written by her daughter -- Ripley Hugo -- we not only catch
a glimpse of Mildred Walker as a successful novelist but also witness Hugo's
search to understand a mother known to her children as a doctor's wife and not
as n ambitious novelist. (****) Biography; Literature
Finding Higher Ground: A Life of Travels, Catharine Savage Brosman, Univ. of Nevada Press, $21.95 cl, 0-87417-538-0, 2003.
Environmental Arts & Humanities Series / This collection of personal essays explores the relationship between human beings and the environment. They are reflective pieces drawing on philosophical engagement, childhood memories, and a lifelong concern with cultural values. (****) Ecology & Environment; Essays of Resistance; Culture/Cultural Studies
Univ.
Press of New England
New
York University Press (NYU)
University of North Carolina Press
Behind
Every Choice Is a Story, Gloria Feldt and with Carol Trickett Jennings,
Univ. of North Texas Press, $19.95 cl, 1-57441-158-6, 2003.
In this book Gloria Feldt, the President of Planned Parenthood of America, weaves
together personal journey, commentary and memoir to discuss a woman's right
to control her reproductive choices. From the introduction... "I have
learned from nearly three decades of my work with planned Parenthood of America
(PPFA) and from my own experience as a mother that in a woman's life, these
issues [sex and reproduction] take on another, almost unfathomable layer of
meaning. The choices we make manifest themselves in our bodies, define our lives,
and become our stories....If you think this book is about abortion, think again.
many stories in this book are about abortion, to be sure, but most are about
the many other, often unacknowledged, facets of reproductive life" (xiv-xv).
(****) Reproductive Rights/Technology; History; Womenís Studies
Catching
the Wave: Reclaiming Feminism for the 21st Century, Rory Dicker, Alison
Piepmeier, editors and Afterword by Katha Pollit and Jennifer Baumgardner,
Northeastern Univ. Press, $20.00 pb, 1-55553-570-4, or $50.00 cl, 1-55553-571-2,
2003.
From the publisher... "Contesting the notion that we are in a post-feminist
age, this provocative collection of original essays identifies a third wave
of feminism. The contributors argue that the next generation needs to develop
a politicized, collective feminism that both builds on the strategies of second
wave feminists and is grounded in the material realities and culture of the
twenty-first century." This collection of essays is organized in five sections:
Needing Feminism, Coming to Feminism, Recognizing Feminism, Redefining Feminism
and Doing Feminism and includes essays by Nancy Gruver (New Moon Magazine),
Emi Koyama, Susan Muaddi Darraj, Jennifer Pozner and others. For those who want
to add to their collection of writings and positions on Third Wave feminisms,
this will be an important book for the collection. (****) Womenís Studies **
Recommended
Doves
of War: Four Women of Spain, Paul Preston, Northeastern Univ. Press,
$30.00 cl, 1-55553-560-7, 2003.
This biographical history outlines the involvement of four women during the
Spanish Civil War: On the left -- Margarita Nelkin, a revolutionary feminist
and Nan Green, a communist nurse, and on the right -- Mercedes Sanz-Bachiller,
a powerful woman in the Francoist zone and Priscilla Scott-Ellis, a wealthy
English socialite who helped as a nurse on the frontlines. (****) Biography;
History; Womenís Studies
The Life
and Writings of Betsey Chamberlain: Native American Mill Worker, Judith
A. Ranta, Northeastern Univ. Press, $18.95 pb, 1-55553-564-X, or $47.50
cl, 1-55553-565-8, 2003.
Betsey Guppy Chamberalin (1797-1886) was a mixed-race (English & Algonkian)
writer who worked in the textile mills of Lowell, MA. She wrote stories and
sketches of mill workerís lives, many of which were published in local workers'
magazines. She is the first known writer of published Native American fiction
and prose that challenged the persecution of the Native people and affirmed
their dignity. (****) Native American; Literature; Biography **
Recommended
The
Power and the Glory: A Novel of Appalachia, Grace MacGowan Cooke and
Introduction by Elizabeth S.D. Engelhardt, Northeastern Univ. Press, $18.95
pb, 1-55553-553-4, 2003.
First published in 1909, this adventure follows heroine Johnnie Consadine who
moves from the Appalachian mountains to work in a textile mil in Tennessee.
Her she stands up to the hypocritical middle-class, exposes corporate environmental
poisoning, and invents and patents an idea for improving machinery. From
the publisher... "The novel's themes of ecological feminism, social activism,
gender roles, and class distinctions remain strikingly relevant for modern readers,
who will revel in the adventures of a strong, intelligent, funny, and resourceful
Appalachian woman." (****) Fiction; Womenís Studies **
Recommended
Stories:
Elizabeth Stoddard, Susanne Opfermann and Yvonee Roth, editors, Northeastern
Univ. Press, $18.95 pb, 1-55553-562-3, or $45.00 cl, 1-55553-563-1, 2003.
Elizabeth Stoddard (1823-1902)was the predecessor for such regional favorites
as Mary Wilkins freeman, Sarah Orne Jewett, and Kate Chopin. Her short fiction
has long been overlooked. This is a collection of 16 short stories that first
appeared in publications such as Harper's Monthly, Harper's Bazaar and the Atlantic
Monthly. (****) Fiction: Short Stories
Reissue now available...
Letters to Henrietta, Isabella Bird and Kay
Chubbuck [editor], Northeastern Univ. Press, $18.95 pb, 1-55553-554-2, or
$47.50 cl, 1-55553-555-0, 2003.
(****) Autobiography/Memoir; Travel
Also of interest...
New Year in Cuba: Mary Gardner Lowell's Travel Diary,
1831-1832, Karen Robert, editor, Northeastern Univ. Press, $17.95
pb, 1-55553-558-5, or $45.00 cl, 1-55553-559-3, 2003.
(****) History; Womenís Studies
Women,
Power, and AT&T: Winning Rights in the Workplace, Lois Kathryn Herr,
Northeastern Univ. Press, $18.95 pb, 1-55553-536-4, or $47.50 cl, 1-55553-537-2,
2002.
(***) Work & Labor; Autobiography/Memoir
Gone,
Elisabeth Sheffield, FC2 (Distributed by Northwestern Univ. Press), $13.95
pb, 1-57366-108-2, 2003.
From the publisher... Elisabeth Sheffield's novel Gone juxtaposes the
manic, run-on confession of Stella Vanderzee, California freeway flyer, with
a series of cryptic letters from her Aunt Juju. This interwoven, doubling narrative
recounts how Stella returns home to seek an inheritance she considers her own.
However, her search is confounded by a secret history, a strange tale of closeted
sexuality and suppressed desire, revealing a family saga overwritten by half-truth
and innuendo. Gone is an attempt to give form to what has been lostóthe pastoral
past, the feminine bodyóeven as that attempt is inevitably the undoing of what
it retrieves (****) Fiction
I Will
Say Beauty, Carol Frost, Northwestern Univ. Press, $14.95 pb, 0-8101-5139-1,
or $49.95 cl, 0-8101-5138-3, 2003.
Catalog copy: ""I will say beauty," Carol Frost boldly says in one of her new
lyrical poems, beauty being for her and all of us elusive-in and out of nature.
The phrase is meant as a cri de coeur, and the poems are arranged to offer a
fresh way to look at-and exist within-nature. For Frost, beauty is a far cry
from the decorous and social."You walk toward a woman like yourself, but older,
only she isn't. You know how that is?" -- from A Woman Like Yourself, p.
75 (****) Poetry
Milestones:
A Bilingual edition, Marina Tsvetaeva and Translated and introduced by
Robin Kemball, Northwestern Univ. Press, $24.95 pb, 0-8101-1941-2, 2003.
Part of the European Poetry Classics series, these 84 poems were written by
Marina Tsvetaeva (1892-1941) in 1916. (****) Poetry
Nine
of Russia's Foremost Women Writers, Joanne Turnbull [translator],
glas (distributed by Northwestern Univ. Press), $17.95 pb, 5-7172-0063-3, 2003.
Third in glas's series of collections of top women writers, this collection
includes nine known and new important Russian women writers: Svetlana Alexiyevich,
Maria Arbatova, Nina Gorlanova, Anastasia Gosteva, Ludmila Petruvskaya, Margarita
Sharapova, Olga Slavnikova, Olga Smirnova and Ludmila Ulitskaya. (****) International:
Russia & Slavic; Fiction: Anthologies ** Recommended
The Promised
Folly, Judith Hall, Northwestern Univ. Press, $14.95 pb, 0-8101-5137-5,
or $49.95 cl, 0-8101-5136-7, 2003.
Jacket copy... "If, as Oscar Wilde said, "nothing ages like happiness,"
then nothing rejuvenates like a pursuit. This is certainly the American way,
and in The Promised Folly, Judith Hall takes a fresh look at our American pursuits,
our supreme fictions. Her poems explore the folly that follows mere existence
and gives it back to her readers in different voices--Venus, Walt Whitman, Julius
Caesar, "Ma" Rainey--voices that contain multitudes. Whitman will become Falstaff,
for example, and Venus becomes Mars. Absurdities and incongruities such as these
are for Hall opportunities for lyric pleasure. As a result her poems are puckish,
sumptuous, and austere, and--not incidentally--compassionate." (****) Poetry
Reissue now available ...
All Night Movie, Alicia Borinsky, Translated with the author from
the Spanish by Cola Franzen and Forward by Luisa Valenzuela, Northwestern
Univ. Press, $15.95 pb, 0-8101-1954-4, 2002.
(****) Fiction; International: Latin & Central America
The Coffin
Tree, Wendy Law-Yone, TriQuarterly Books / Northwestern Univ. Press,
$15.95 pb, 0-8101-5141-3, 2003.
(****) Fiction; International: Asia
Irrawaddy
Tango, Wendy Law-Yone, TriQuarterly Books / Northwestern Univ. Press,
$15.95 pb, 0-8101-5142-1, 2003.
From the publisher... "Irrawaddy Tango, a pepper-tongued, tango-dancing
Asian beauty rises from a village girlhood to become the wife of her country's
dictator and then a leader of the rebel forces arrayed against him. Tango captures
the attention of an ambitious colonel--the self-proclaimed Supremo--while dancing
at a talent contest. Once married, she is forced to endure the cruelties of
a ruthless and foolish husband, is kidnapped by rebel forces, recaptured and
brutally punished by her husband's military clique, and exiled to America. But
when she decides to return to the fictional Republic of Daya (clearly Burma)
it will decide the fates of both. Irrawaddy Tango tells the unsettling
tale of powerful men and powerless women. It evokes as well the harshness of
exile, revealing the misunderstandings between East and West and by doing so
captures the intensity of living between the two." (****) Fiction; International:
Asia
Treasures
in Heaven, Kathleen Alcal·, Northwestern Univ. Press, $15.95 pb,
0-8101-2036-4, 2003.
With this novel by Kathleen Alcal· Northwestern University Press launches a
new series -- Latino Voices -- which features fiction and literary non-fiction
written in English but expressing Latino/a experience in the United States.
First published in 2000 by Chronicle Books, Treasures in Heaven received
the 2001 Washington State Book Award. This novel portrays the degradation of
being a woman alone (without husband) in nineteenth-century Mexico who emerges
as an activist for women's issues in the foreshadowing of the Mexican Revolution.
(****) Fiction; Latinas
Sexual
Borderlands: Constructing an American Sexual Past, Kathleen Kennedy and
Sharon Ullman, editors, Ohio State Univ Press, $29.95 pb, 0-8142-5107-0,
or $74.95 cl, 0-8142-0927-0, 2003.
For professors seeking to present the historical, theoretical and often eclectic
materials on sexuality to their students, this collection of essays will prove
accessible, diverse and provocative. Essays include discussions of race, miscegenation,
homosexuality, prostitution, erotica, marriage and class among other topics.
It explores the relationships between sexuality in the narrative history of
the U.S. (***) Sexuality; History TEXTBOOK
Christina
Rossetti and Illustration: A Publishing History, Lorraine Janzen Kooistra,
Ohio Univ. Press, $55.00 cl, 0-8214-1454-2, 2003.
can you judge a book by its cover...or n the case of Christina Rossetti, by
its art? Kooistra studies the writings of Rossetti's poetry, devotional prose,
and work for children to understand the connections between image and text and
how publishers brought meaning to her works through book production. Rossetti'
s commitment to illustration and how she controlled the production of her books
influenced the ongoing reception of her work through time and to a variety of
audiences. (****) Arts: Art, Photography; Literature
Stepping
Forward: Black Women in Africa and the Americas, Catherine Higgs, Barbara
A. Moss and Earline Rae Ferguson, editors, Ohio Univ. Press, $26.95 pb,
0-8214-1456-9, or $55.00 cl, 0-8214-1455-0, 2002.
From the introduction... "This volume presents the edited proceedings
of a conference held at the University of Tennessee from September 15 to 18,
1999,....The meeting brought together scholars from South Africa, Jamaica, and
the United States to examine the comparative experiences of nineteenth- and
twentieth-century black women in African and African Diaspora communities. The
idea for the conference -- and this volume -- grew out of our common interests
in black women, their lives, their actions, and their aspirations....we were
intrigues by the similarities in the assumptions black women made and the strategies
they employed despite their cultural and geographical differences" (p. xiii).
These 18 essays cover a broad range of ground -- historical, activist, sociological,
spiritual, literary, artistic, and political -- in countries such as Kenya,
Jamaica, U.S. South, Liberia, and others. (***) International: Africa
View
from the Fazenda: A Tale of the Brazilian Heartlands, Ellen Bromfield
Geld, Ohio Univ. Press, $26.95 cl, 0-8214-1474-7, 2003.
Ellen Bromfield Geld is the daughter of Pulitzer prize winning author Louis
Bromfield. Except for passing references, though, this book is not about their
relationship. Rather it's about the life Ellen made on her own with her husband
and children in the rugged farm country of Brazil. She is a compelling and accomplished
writer in her own right. Her opening sentence draws us into her lyrical style
with open ease... "I imagine everyone has a center of gravity. Something which
binds one to the earth and gives sense and direction to what one does. Mine
has to do with writing and so depends on where I spread my papers and pencils"
(p. 1)." (****) Autobiography/Memoir ** Recommended
Letters from the Dust Bowl, Caroline Henderson and Alvin O. Turner [editor], Univ. of Oklahoma Press, $14.95 pb, 0-8061-3540-9, 2003.
Singing the Songs of My ancestors: The Life and Music of Helma Swan, Makah Elder, Linda J. Goodman and Helma Swan, Univ. of Oklahoma Press, $44.95 cl, 0-8061-3451-8, 2003.
Women Transforming Congress, Cindy Simon Rosenthal, editor, Univ. of Oklahoma Press, $34.95 pb, 0-8061-3496-8, or $44.95 cl, 0-8061-3455-0, 2003.
In this collection, Turner collects the essays and personal correspondence of Caroline Henderson. During the 1930s, she wrote for the Atlantic Monthly bringing national attention to the difficulties faced by US farmers, especially in her beloved Oklahoma, during the Great Depression. (****) History; Essays
This engaging book offers a variety of viewpoints. The first is one of memoir, music, and cultural awareness. The second is one of anthropology, ethnomusicology and historical cultural traditions. Helma Swan discusses how she became a singer and storyteller in Makeh culture where men traditionally held such posts. she describes the songs and dances, as well as ceremonies and regalia. On the more academic side, Goodman provides the historical ad cultural context for Swan's stories and experiences. (****) Native American; Arts: Music, Dance, Theater; Autobiography/Memoir; Anthropology
Written by women in politics and leading scholars on the Congress, this collection of essays follows the work, campaign trails and committee contributions of the 200 women who have served in congress since Jeannette Rankin (Montana, 1916). The volume discusses the ways in which this small group of women has made a difference in congressional politics. (****) Politics; Womenís Studies; History
Oxford
Univ. Press
The American
Woman 2003-2004: Daughters of a Revolution -- Young Women Today, Cynthia
B. Costello, Vanessa R. Wright and Anne J. Stone, editors, Palgrave Macmillan
(Global Publishing from St. Martinís Press), $24.95 pb, 0-312-29549-9, or $75.00
cl, 0-312-29551-0, 2003.
This is the ninth edition of The American Woman, a series biennially prepared
by the Womenís Research and Education Institute (WREI). This volume focuses
on the status of women between the ages of 25 - 35, an age group facing difficult
challenges while their conditions are significantly different from those of
their mothers' generation. (****) Womenís Studies **
Recommended
Beyond
French Feminisms: Debates on Women, Politics, and Culture in France, 1981-2001,
Roger CÈlestin, Eliane DalMolin and Isabelle de Courtivron, editors,
Palgrave Macmillan (Global Publishing from St. Martinís Press), $25.00 pb, 0-312-24040-6,
or $75.00 cl, 0-312-24019-8, 2003.
How has French feminism been progressing since the 1970s? This anthology includes
essays by some of the most prominent French and Francophone women who examine
new issues in French society. they question social and political questions,
multiculturalism, new historical approaches and trends in literature and film.
(***) Womenís Studies; International: Western Europe **
Recommended
Common
Ground or Mutual Exclusion: Women's Movements and International Relations,
Marianne Braig and Sonia W–lte, editors, Zed Books (Distributed by Palgrave
/St. Martinís), $22.50 pb, 1-84277-159-0, or $65.00 cl, 1-84277-158-2, 2003.
Where and how have women's movements influenced international relations in theory
and practice? This is the major focus of the articles collected in this volume.
The editors state, "the assessment...leave us with a diverse set of answers
based on the different approaches and perspectives chosen and the policy fields
involved. While generalized conclusions cannot and should not be drawn, as to
do so would blur the specific analytical strengths and the concrete potentials
for change in each policy field, some similarities can be detected. The contributions
show that, as a result of the political activities of the international women's
movement's) during the past 25 years, the international and institutional discourses
in the three fields have been 'engendered' to varying degrees" (17-18). But
at what cost? The editors offer flags of warning along with a myriad of questions
and possibilities. (***) Gender Studies; International; Politics
Feminist
Futures: Re-Imagining Women, Culture and Development, Kum-Kum Bhavnani,
John Foran and Priya Kurian, editors, Zed Books (Distributed by Palgrave
/St. Martinís), $25.00 pb, 1-84277-028-4, 2003.
It's been awhile since I've held a book this exciting. Each part is organized
by "what is" followed by a section of visioning for what can be. Part one includes
essays discussing gender and the sexualized body; part 2 considers environment,
technology and science; and part 3 addresses the cultural politics of representation.
The editors make it clear that globally women, especially women in the Third
World, suffer the effects of (mal)development, and that since the unfolding
events following 9-11, these conditions have deteriorated. "This volume represents
an effort to suggest the shape of a new paradigm for development studies, one
that puts women at its centre, culture on a par with political economy, and
keeps a focus on critical practices, pedagogies and movements for social justice"
(introduction, p.2). Though the scholars are located primarily in the U.S. and
New Zealand universities, this is a volume strongly representative of international
perspectives. (***) Womenís Studies; International **
Recommended
Gender
Studies: Terms and Debates, Anne Cranny-Francis, Wendy Waring, Pam Stavropoulos
and Joan Kirby, Palgrave Macmillan (Global Publishing from St. Martinís
Press), $22.50 pb, 0-333-77612-7, or $65.00 cl, 0-333-77611-9, 2003.
More than a dictionary or a survey and more than an annotated bibliography or
framework for developing a syllabus, Gender Studies provides not only
a useful undergraduate text but also an accessible tool for anyone interested
in deciphering contemporary academic and theoretical lingo/jargon associated
with gender studies. Interdisciplinary in scope -- women's studies, gender studies,
cultural studies, media, psychology, sociology and rhetoric studies -- this
volume covers the debates and everyday encounters associated with gender and
sexuality. (****) Gender Studies; Womenís Studies; Reference/Directories **
Recommended
Genderís
Place: Feminist Anthropologies of Latin America, Rosario Montoya, Lessie
Jo Frazier and Janise Hurtig, editors, Palgrave Macmillan (Global Publishing
from St. Martinís Press), $22.95 pb, 1-4039-6040-2, or $69.95 cl, 1-4039-6039-9,
2003.
Taken from an Uruguayan singer of he 1960s and 70s, "desalambrar" (to undo or
overrun fences) has been used by the New Left to urge people across Latin American
to tear down the divisions between them. This is the theoretical basis for these
ethnographic studies. The feminist anthropologists in this collection explore
and seek the interrelationships between gender and place, between culture, social
and historical specificity of gender and other social inequalities. (**) Anthropology;
International: Latin & Central America
Reading
U.S. Latina Writers: Remapping American Literature, Alvina E. Quintana,
editor, Palgrave Macmillan (Global Publishing from St. Martinís Press),
$55.00 cl, 0-312-29413-1, 2003.
This will be an important guide for composition, literature, and non-specialist
educators who want to more meaningfully include the writings of Latina writers
in their syllabus. Each entry include textual overview, historical context,
biographical background, major themes and critical issues, pedagogical suggestions,
literary, contexts, and suggestions for comparative literature. Literature recommended
includes: Rosa Linda Fregoso on Julia Alvarez Karen Gaffney on Julia Alvarez
Ifeoma C. K. Nwankwo on Veronica Chambers Theresa Delgadillo on Denise Ch·vez
Barbara Brinson Curiel on Sandra Cisneros Francis R. Aparicio on Judith Ortiz
Cofer Norma Cant™ on Montserrat Fontes Tiffany Ana Lopez on Maria Irene Fornes
Andrea OíReilly Herrera on Cristina GarcÌa Juan Felipe Herrera on Diana GarcÌa
Rosa Morilla-S·nchez on Alicia Gaspar de Alba Claudia Sadowski-Smith on Andrea
OíReilly Herrera Lisa S·nchez Gonz·lez on Nicholasa Mohr Dionne Espinoza on
CherrÌe Moraga Michelle Habell-Pall·n on Marisela Norte Alvina E. Quintana on
Loida Maritza PÈrez Lesley Feracho on Ana Lydia Vega Unfortunately, the price
makes it more of a library reference rather than something a professor is likely
to keep close at hand! (****) Latinas; Literature **
Recommended
Velvet
Barrios: Popular Culture & Chicana/o Sexualities, Alicia Gaspar de Alba,
editor and Tom·s Ybarra Frausto [forward by], Palgrave Macmillan (Global
Publishing from St. Martinís Press), $26.95 pb, 1-4039-6097-6, or $80.00 cl,
1-4039-6096-8, 2003.
New Directions in Latino American Cultures / From the publisher... "In
Chicano/a popular culture, nothing signifies the working class, highly-layered,
textured, and metaphoric sensibility known as "rasquache aesthetic" more than
black velvet art. The essays in this volume examine that aesthetic by looking
at icons, heroes, cultural myths, popular rituals, and border issues as they
are expressed in a variety of ways. The contributors dialectically engage methods
of popular cultural studies with discourses of gender, sexuality, identity politics,
representation, and cultural production. In addition to a hagiography of "locas
santas," the book includes studies of the sexual politics of early Chicana activists
in the Chicano youth movement, the representation of Latina bodies in popular
magazines, the stereotypical renderings of recipe books and calendar art, the
ritual performance of Mexican femaleness in the quinceaÒera, and mediums through
which Chicano masculinity is measured." (***) Latinas; Culture/Cultural Studies
Women
in Western Intellectual Culture, 600-1500, Patricia Ranft, Palgrave
Macmillan (Global Publishing from St. Martinís Press), $55.00 cl, 1-4039-6139-5,
2003.
(**) Philosophy
Writing
Women's History Since the Renaissance, Mary Spongberg, Palgrave Macmillan
(Global Publishing from St. Martinís Press), $21.95 pb, 0-333-72668-5, or $65.00
cl, 0-333-72667-7, 2003.
This is a history of history, and in particular, the women writers of history.
It traces the history of women's historical writings and offers insights into
how gender and gender perception has shaped history as a genre. Spongberg notes
in her introductions, "It is not the case that women have failed to engage with
history, but that their historical endeavors have not been regarded as 'proper'
history....were rarely considered 'real' historians..." (p. 1). This feminist
critique illuminates the ways in which women historical writers have encouraged
the growth of feminist discourse. (***) History; Womenís Studies
Also of interest...
America's Childcare Problem: The Way Out, Suzanne
W. Helburn and Barbara R. Bergman, Palgrave Macmillan (Global Publishing
from St. Martinís Press), $29.95 cl, 0-312-21149-X, 2003.
(***) Social Sciences; Economics
Burning
Women: Widows, Witches, and Early Modern European Travelers in India, Pompa
Banerjee, Palgrave Macmillan (Global Publishing from St. Martinís Press),
$59.95 cl, 1-4039-6018-6, 2003.
Series: Early Modern Cultural Studies, 1500-1700 Banerjee compares and contrasts
the Indian sati with English witch-burning. (***) History; International: Asia
The Penguin
Atlas of Women in the World: Completely Revised and Updated, Joni Seager,
Penguin Books, $20.00 pb, 0-14-200241-0, 2003.
Joni Seager's book continues to be an important and invaluable resource for
students, researchers, activists -- anyone interested in statistical information
of the status of women throughout the world. Her colorful and easy to read charts
and graphs provide a wide range of information regarding family life, work,
education, health, social issues and more. Get this indispensable books and
use it! (****) Reference/Directories; Women's Studies **
Recommended
The Progressive Housewife: Community Activism in Suburban Queens, 1945-1965, Sylvie Murray, Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, $35.00 cl, 0-8122-3718-8, 2003.
From the publisher... "Part of an ongoing historical revision of the 1950s, The Progressive Housewife engages the current attempt to recognize and understand the political meaning of the middle class and suburbia, dispelling the myth of suburban domestic passivity by revealing the forms of political activity ordinary women were engaged in long before contemporary feminism had surfaced." (**) History; Women's Studies
Univ.
of Pittsburgh Press
Unpacking
Queer Politics: A Lesbian Feminist Perspective, Sheila Jeffreys,
Polity / Blackwell Publishing, $24.95 pb, 0-7456-2838-9, 2003.
Whenever Sheila Jeffreys publishes a new book, a storm follows. Radical lesbians
find they (at last) have one more thing to read helping to theoretically focus
their viewpoints while those supportive of "queer" or transgressive or even
liberal viewpoints go into a rabid rage (recent exchanges on WMST-L in Spring
2003 bear this out). It's hard to have a middle ground on her writing and viewpoints
though some do try. I try not to tip my hand too much in this column - but I
often find myself breathing (catching fresh air) when I read Jeffreys' books
-- like someone is finally daring to explore lesbian meaning outside of male
and queer dimensions. As a lifelong never-been-with-a-man-really-love-women
kind of dyke, I need her writing. That's not to say I always agree with her
but I am certainly energized in my radical feminism and lesbianism because of
it. Her thesis is clear, "I will argue here that the political agenda of queer
politics is damaging to the interests of lesbians, women in general, and to
marginalized and valuable constituencies of gay men....this book is written
to bring the interests of women and lesbians once more into the forefront of
lesbian and gay discussion" (p. 2). Of course, knowing what IS lesbian in these
queer times can be tricky. I am reading this book with great interest, wondering
how it differs from Lesbian Heresy, marveling at its support of alternative
gay male vision (John Stoltenberg et. al.), and hoping that it does reinvigorate
lesbian feminists again (or more committedly) to radical social transformation.
(***) Lesbian Studies; Gay/Lesbian/Queer Studies **
Recommended
Poets
in the Public Sphere: The Emancipatory Project of Women's Poetry, 1800-1900,
Paula Bernat Bennett, Princeton Univ. Press, $22.50 pb, 0-691-02644-0,
or $55.00 cl, 0-691-02645-9, 2003.
Poetry has long been an accessible political and expressive vehicle for women.
Between 1800 - 1900 women across race, class, region and religion published
poetry in newspapers and magazines, thus exploiting the freedom offered by the
national periodical press. This poetry engaged readers on an array of political
issues -- abortion, Indian removals, economic and racial injustice, the Civil
War and women's changing status in communities. (**) Literature; Women's Studies
Also of interest...
Seeing with Their Hearts: Chicago Women and the Vision
of the Good City, Maureen A. Flanagan, Princeton Univ. Press, $35.00
cl, 0-691-09539-6, 2002.
From the publisher... "At the turn of the last century, as industrialists
and workers made Chicago the hardworking City of Big Shoulders celebrated by
Carl Sandburg, Chicago women articulated an alternative City of Homes in which
the welfare of residents would be the municipal government's principal purpose.
Seeing With Their Hearts traces the formation of this vision from the
relief efforts following the Chicago fire of 1871 through the many political
battles of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. In the process, it presses a
new understanding of the roles of women in public life and writes a new history
of urban America." (**) Regional: Midwest; History; Women's Studies
Now in paperback...
The Other Enlightenment: How French Women Became Modern,
Carla Hesse, Princeton Univ. Press, $22.95 pb, 0-691-11480-3, 2003.
(***) History; Women's Studies
Bayou Folk, Kate
Chopin, Prometheus Books, $11.00 pb, 1-57392-975-1, 2003.
Literary Classics Series - From the publisher..."The stories collected in Bayou
Folk present remarkably vivid snapshots of daily life in a now vanished world.
Many of them highlight the relations between blacks and whites in a society
where the rules of engagement still reflected the entrenched patterns of slavery
some two decades after the Civil War. As she was ahead of her time regarding
women's rights in The Awakening, where she depicted a woman unafraid to throw
off traditional restraints, Chopin was also farsighted about race relations
in Bayou Folk." (****) Fiction: Short Stories
Mothers
and Their Adult Daughters: Mixed Emotions, Enduring Bonds, Karen L. Fingerman,
Prometheus Books, $18.00 pb, 1-59102-028-X, 2003.
The mother-daughter tie takes on unique characteristics as daughters enter midlife
and mothers enter old age. Based on interviews with 48 mothers over age 70 and
their adult daughters, this book addresses both the rewards and the difficulties
mothers and daughters experience in maintaining their relationships into old
age. (****) Aging; Health & Medicine
Everyday
Activism: A Handbook for Lesbian, gay, and Bisexual People and their Allies,
Michael R. Stevenson and Jeanine C. Cogan, editors, Routledge, $17.95
pb, 0-415-92668-8, 2003.
Though organizing on glbt issues continues to increase across the country, there
are still many roadblocks and difficulties faced in the process. This handbook
will be of use to the seasoned activist or academic as well as those just coming
out and getting involved. It includes strategies, hard data, legal concerns
and other tools necessary to pursue justice and civil rights. (****) Gay/Lesbian/Queer
Studies ** Recommended
Reinventing
Eden: The Fate of Nature in Western Civilization, Carolyn Merchant,
Routledge, $25.00 cl, 0-415-93164-9, 2003.
The mores humans seek Eden -- the paradise lost -- the more we seem to destroy
it or any possibility of recovering it. This is Merchant's argument in this
important book that draws on the mythology of Eden, creation myth, and the never-ending
pursuit to conquer nature. (***) Ecology & Environment
Right
Women Women: From Conservatives to Extremists Around the World, Paola
Bacchetta and Margaret Power, editors, Routledge, $22.95 pb, 0-415-92778-1,
2002.
Women are active on the right -- as fascists, racists, conservatives, and anti-democracy
activists -- around the world (the U.S., Turkey, south Africa, etc.) and in
all religious traditions (Christian, Islamic, Hindi, etc.). This book provides
and insight into their activities and provides an in-depth look at right-wing
politics and women's active involvement in them. (****) Women's Studies; Politics
This Bridge
We Call Home: Radical Visions for Transformation, Gloria E. Anzald™a
and AnaLouise Keating, editors, Routledge, $24.95 pb, 0-415-93682-9, 2002.
It's been 21 years since This Bridge Called My Back was first published.
wow. I can think of only a handful of books that share the kind of impact on
feminism and women's vision and demand for social justice as this one. This
Bridge We Call Home carries forward that groundbreaking work into new terrain
and for new generations. I found the opening section where writers made their
tributes to This Bridge especially moving. The journey from honoring
the herstory to calling forth expanded voices and visions for women-of-color
consciousness is heartening. It seems the editors had to cut many articles from
this hefty volume and I wonder what will become of them. And I still mourn the
loss of Kitchen Table Press (as well as the many women's presses long-gone)
and wish this could have been published by a feminist press...and yet I still
hope this volume has the impact on readers of its predecessor and that it will
have the power to take us "home." (****) Women's Studies; Multicultural: General
** Recommended
With All Our Strength: The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan,
Anne E. Brodsky, Routledge, $25.00 cl, 0-415-93492-3, 2003.
As I write this, the aggression against Iraq is winding down and the situations
in Afghanistan have all but dropped from the daily reported news. This is not
new for RAWA (The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan) who
continues to do the work they began in 19977 -- that of resisting the fundamentalist
(Taliban) views of women in Afghanistan. Is spite the brief notice they received
shortly after 9/11 and worldwide attention in which the US would "save" Afghan
women from their plight, RAWA continues to seek justice and democracy for women
in Afghanistan. Through interviews with more than 100 of its members, this book
offers the history, strategy, strength and determination and continued resistance
work of RAWA. (****) International: Middle East; Women's Studies; War/Peace/Anti-Militarism
Now in paperback...
Madam President: Women Blazing the Leadership Trail,
Eleanor Clift and Tom Brazaitis, Routledge, $18.95 pb, 0-415-93432-X,
2003.
Updated and revised from the 2000 hardcover edition. (***) Politics; Women's
Studies
War Talk, Arundhati
Roy, South End Press, $40.00 cl, 0-89608-723-9, 2003.
I first heard about this book through an interview Arundhati Roy did on Democracy Now, a daily radio news and commentary program hosted by Amy Goodman. Her clarity and passion on issues related to war, militarism, religious and racial violence informed by her feminism adds greatly to what we think we know about global conditions, access to information, "democracy" and "freedom," and justice. In this brief essay collection she writes beautifully as she tells us horrific things -- and we'd better pay attention. Roy calls us to action -- "Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them" (p. 112). (****) War/Peace/Anti-Militarism ** Recommended
State
Univ. of New York Pr. (SUNY)
The Church
of Solitude, Grazia Deledda and Translated by E. Ann Matter, State
Univ. of New York Pr. (SUNY), $16.95 pb, 0-7914-5458-4 , or $49.50 cl, 0-7914-5457-6,
2002.
Grazia Deledda (1871-1936) is the only Italian woman to have won the Nobel prize
for literature (1926). From the publisher... "The Church of Solitude tells
the story of Maria Concezione, a young Sardinian seamstress living with breast
cancer at the cusp of the twentieth century. Overwhelmed by the shame of her
diagnosis, she decides that no one can know what has happened to her, but the
heavy burden of this secrecy changes her life in dramatic ways and almost causes
the destruction of several people in her life. This surprising novel paints
the portrait of a woman facing the unknown with courage, faith, and self-reliance,
and is the last and most autobiographical work of Grazia Deledda, who died of
breast cancer in 1936, shortly after its publication." (****) Literature
Circle
of Goods: Women, Work, and Welfare in a Reservation Community, Tressa
Berman, State Univ. of New York Pr. (SUNY), $21.95 pb, 0-7914-5536-X, 2003.
Federal policies including commodity rations and welfare reform have created
many upheavals for reservation life as exampled in Berman's research at the
Fort Berthold reservation. This ethnographic study compiles and explores the
stories of native American women -- their kinship, wage work, and informal economies
-- as they cope with these realities. The "circle of goods" refers to the ceremonial
relationship between systems of social and power relations, women as the center
of community relations, and the intricacies of family , work, creativity, economy,
and ritual. (**) Anthropology; Native American
Also of interest...
Athletic Intruders: Ethnographic Research on Women,
Culture, and Exercise, Anne Bolin and Jane Granskog, editors, State
Univ. of New York Pr. (SUNY), $23.95 pb, 0-7914-5584-X, 2003.
(**) Sports/Outdoors
Contradictions
in Women's Education: Traditionalism, Careerism, and Community at a Single-Sex
College, Barbara J. Bank and with Harriet M. Yelon, Teacher's College
Press, $27.95 pb, 0-8077-4364-X, or $60.00 cl, 0-8077-4364-X, 2003.
Jacket copy... This volume provides a fresh lens for viewing single-sex
colleges by examining a different setting-a non-elite women's college in the
Midwest. This is the story of how a group of undergraduate women experienced
and coped with the contradictions of gender traditionalism, careerism, and community
that formed the context in which they received their college education. (***)
Education
Black-Brown Relations
and Stereotypes, Tatcho Mindiola Jr., Yolanda Flores Niemann and Nestor
Rodriguez, Univ. of Texas Press, $19.95 pb, 0-292-75268-7, or $45.00 cl,
0-292-75264-4, 2003.
This book does not come particularly from a women's studies or feminist perspective.
However, for those who explore race relations in their classes, this book may
also be significant. As demographics change, the 2000 census shows that Hispanics
are slightly outnumbering African Americans as the largest ethnic group in the
U.S. The authors of this book explore how brown-black race relations may become
more important in the study of race relationships than the relationships between
Whites and other minority groups. (****) Latinas; African-American **
Recommended
Jane Austen's 'Outlandish Cousin': The Life and
Letters of Eliza de Feuillide, deirdre Le Faye, The British Library
(Distributed by Univ. of Toronto Press), $35.00 cl, 0-7123-4762-3, 2002. Making Avonlea: L.M. Montgomery and Popular Culture,
Irene Gammel, editor, Univ. of Toronto Press, $27.50 pb, 0-8020-84338,
or $70.00 cl, 0-8020-35582, 2003. Privatization, Law, and the Challenge to Feminism,
Brenda Cossman and Judy Fudge, editors, Univ. of Toronto Press, $35.00
pb, 0-8020-8509-1, or $75.00 cl, 0-8020-3699-6, 2003. Sojourning Sisters: The Lives and Letters of Jessie
and Annie McQueen, Jean Barman, Univ. of Toronto Press, $50.00 cl,
0-8020-3697-X, 2003. Zarathustra's Sisters: Women's Autobiography and
the Shaping of Cultural History, Susan Ingram, Univ. of Toronto Press,
$45.00 cl, 0-8020-3690-2, 2003.
Fans and scholars of Jane Austen may be interested in this biography as it sets
the stage for many of Austen's writings and reveals as much about Austen's family
as it does her cousin. (***) Biography
Has Anne of Green Gables had a strong impact on popular culture? The
author of this undertaking makes a case that its impact can not be underestimated
or ignored. from novel, to film, to television, to theater, Montgomery's work
has influenced not only Canada and north America but has reached as far as Japan
and Iran. (***) Culture/Cultural Studies
From the publisher... "Privatization has caused a large reconfiguration
of the relations between the state, the market, and the family in the late twentieth
and the early twenty-first centuries, all of which has had a profound effect
on the lives of women. This collection of essays address this timely issue by
examining eight case studies on the role of law in various arenas such as fiscal
and labour market policy, family and immigration law, and laws designed to regulate
health services and to prohibit child prostitution." (**) Law; International
Through family correspondence and research, Barman offers a fresh look at the
settlement of communities throughout Canada by following the sisterhood and
sojourns of two sisters who made their way across and around Canada in the late
1800s and early 1900s. (****) Autobiography/Memoir
From the introduction..."The six women who serve as subject for this
study share the experience of being in or writing about a relationship with
a man who is significant to the tradition of western letters. One would be justified
in expecting a critical survey of the extent to which their reception has been
shaped by their relationships....It is not, however, on account of their relationship
per se that I was drawn to work on these particular six women. They have much
more in common that simply the fact of their involvement with "names" and their
subsequent autobiographical output" (pp. 3-4). Through looking at the lives
and writings of Lou Andreas-SalomÈ, Simone de Beauvoir, Asja Lacis, Nadezhda
Mandel'shtam, Romla Nijinsky and Maitreyi Devi, Ingram uses an interdisciplinary
approach to explore the complexities of their contributions. (***) Biography;
Culture/Cultural Studies
Also of interest...
The Century of Women:
Representations of Women in Eighteenth-century Italian Public Discourse,
, Univ. of Toronto Press, $45.00 cl, 0-8020-3652-X, 2002.
(**) History; Literature
Women Gender, and Transitional
Lives: Italian Workers of the World, Donna R. Gabaccia and Franca Iacovetta,
editors, Univ. of Toronto Press, $29.95 pb, 0-8020-8462-1, or $70.00 cl,
0-8020-3611-2, 2002.
(*) International; Gender Studies; History
When the Bough Breaks:
Parental Perceptions of Ethical Decision-Making in NICU, Winifred J.
Ellenchild Pinch, Univ. Press of America, $ 58.00 pb, 0-7618-2361-6, 2002.
Unlike many medical ethics books exploring the dilemmas faced by health professionals,
this book focuses on the needs, desires, and perceptions of parents with infants
in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). From the publisher..."Ethical
dilemmas abound in the neonatal intensive care unit as hour-to-hour life and
death decisions are made for premature or compromised newborns. This book is
a rich tapestry of parental perceptions woven from the many stories parents
tell about their experiences with a baby in the unit, as well as major events
after discharge related to the ethical decision making. When the Bough Breaks
can serve as a supplementary text for a number of courses, including counseling,
psychology, sociology, philosophy, theology, nursing, and allied health." (***)
Health & Medicine; Parenting
A History of Household Government in America, Carole Shammas, University
Press of Virginia, $19.50 pb, 0-8139-2126-0, or $55.00 cl, 0-8139-2125-2, 2003.
From the publisher... "A History of Household Government in America tells
the story of the seldom noted expansion and then the dramatic contraction in household
authority and the effects these changes had on the governmental system." (**)
History; Politics
Wild by
Design: Two Hundred Years of Innovation and Artistry in American Quilts,
Janet Catherine Berlo and Patricia Cox Crews, Univ. of Washington Press,
$35.00 pb, 0-295-98309-4, 2003.
From the publisher... "Over fifty appliquÈ and pieced quilts are illustrated,
chosen from the collections of the International Quilt Study Center for their
outstanding visual qualities. Each is accompanied by a lively dialogue among
quilt experts that illustrates the varied dimensions of quilts as aesthetic
objects of the highest order and as reflections of the lives and societies of
their makers. This multifaceted analysis of quilts sheds light on the histories
of women, textiles, and American art and culture." (****) Arts: Art, Photography;
History
Now in paperback...
Alphabet Theater, Meredith Stricker, Wesleyan
Univ. Pr, $14.95 pb, 0-8195-6523-7, or $30.00 cl, 0-8195-6522-9, 2003.
Multi-media performance poetry (****) Poetry
Gender Nonconformity, Race, and Sexuality: Charting the Connections, Toni Lester, editor, Univ. of Wisconsin Press, $24.95 pb, 0-299-18144-8, or $50.00 cl, 0-299-18140-5, 2003.
In Praise of Black Women, Vol. 3: Modern African women, Simone Schwarz-Bart and with AndrÈ Schwarz-Bart, Univ. of Wisconsin Press, $49.95 cl, 0-299-17270-8, 2003.
Winter Love: Ezra Pound and H.D., Jacob Korg, Univ. of Wisconsin Press, $26.95 cl, 0-299-18390-4, 2003.
What does it mean to be a "real" man or a "real" women? What does it mean to exhibit gender nonconformity?How does gender connect with sex-roles or sexuality? How do race and ethnicity inform or affect these perceptions of nonconformity. How is gender constructed, policed, or managed? This collection of essays address such questions from social science perspectives and then examine personal stories of reinvention and transformation, including discussions of the lives of dancers Isadora Duncan and Bill T. Jones, playwright Lorraine Hansberry, and surrealist artist Claude Cahun. (***) Gay/Lesbian/Queer Studies; Gender Studies
I can not say enough about this wonderful series from the Univ. of Wisconsin. This volume features the history, culture and unforgettable tales of women in Africa from Senegal to South Africa, from the nineteenth century to the present. The women featured include: Madam Yoko, Zauditu, Mariama Ba, Buchi Emecheta, Bessie Head, Ellen Kuzwayo, Miriam Makeba, among others. The fourth and final volume is due for release in Spring 2004. (****) International: Africa; History; Women's Studies; Arts: Art, Photography ** Recommended
From the publisher... "Ezra Pound and Hilda Doolittle, who used the pseudonym H.D., are among the most important American modernist poets. In this comparative study, Jacob Korg examines their intertwined lives, from an early romantic relationship when both writers were in their early twenties, through the ongoing friendship and artistic dialogue that helped shape their work. Drawing on unpublished letters and manuscripts as well as published works, Korg offers a fresh view of two American artists and a wholly unexpected portrait of Pound-examined here, for the first time, through the context of a female modernist." (***) Literary Criticism; Biography; Gay/Lesbian/Queer Studies
Yale
Univ. Press
When Dieting Becomes
Dangerous: A Guide to Understanding and Treating Anorexia and Bulimia, Deborah
M. Michel and Susan G. Willard, Yale Univ. Press, $13.95 pb, 0-300-09233-4,
or $27.50 cl, 0-300-09232-6, 2003.
This book is intended for those who want to simply know the signs and manifestations
or anorexia and bulimia. assessment and treatment guidelines are included along
with therapy and family therapy suggestions. There is also a chapter for health
professionals (and the rest of us) who are not specialists containing guidelines
for recognition of eating disorders. Internet sites and professional organizations
are also included. (****) Health & Medicine; Psychology
Copyright May, 2003• Mev Miller, editor, Feminist Academic Press Column
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