Feminist Academic Press Column

July, 2001

Publisher List

Subject List

Univ. of Alabama Press Univ. of Chicago Press Cornell Univ. Press Duke Univ. Press Univ. Press of Florida Univ. of Georgia Press Greenwood Publishing Group Univ. of Illinois Press Univ. of Iowa Press Jossey-Bass Inc. Univ. Press of Kentucky Univ. of Massachusetts Press Univ. of Minnesota Press Univ. of Nebraska Press Northeastern Univ. Press Northwestern Univ. Press Univ. of Oklahoma Press Univ. of Pennsylvania Press RAND Rutgers Univ. Press Stanford Univ. Press Stylus Publishing State Univ. of New York Pr. (SUNY) Teacher's College Press Temple University Press Univ. of Tennessee Press Univ. of Texas Press University Press of Virginia Univ. of Wisconsin Press

African-American Swingin' at the Savoy, Norma Miller and Evette Jensen Anthropology Misogyny, David D. Gilmore The Teacup Ministry & Other Stories, Rhoda H. Halperin Regulating Menstruation, Van De Walle and Renne, editors Arts: Art, Photography Peeling Potatoes, Painting Pictures, Renee Baigell and Matthew Baigell Kathy Vargas, Lucy Lippard Arts: Film, Video Lourdes Portillo, Rosa L. Fregoso, editor Women Filmmakers in Mexico, Elissa J. Rashkin Autobiography/Memoir Quilting Lessons, Janet C. Berlo Diaries of Girls and Women, Suzanne L. Bunker, editor The Heart Too Long Suppressed, Carol Hebald Biography Flowers in the Snow, Gweneth Hoyle The Diaries of Beatrice Webb, Norman Mackenzie, et.al It Seems to Me, L.Schlup and D.Whisenhunt, editors Fiction: General Accident, A Day's News, Christa Wolf Fiction: Short Stories One Day in the Life of a Born Again Loser..., Helen Norris The Sweetheart Is In, S.L. Wisenberg Gay/Lesbian Studies Sexual Strangers, Shane Phelan Gender Studies The Masculine Woman in America, Laura L. Behling Health & Medicine The Trotula, Monica H. Green History Roman Women, Augusto Fraschetti European Feminisms, 1700-1950, Karen Offen International Women in Politics, Gender Affairs Department Urban Girls, Gary Barker, et.al. Theoretical Perspectives on Gender and Development, Jane L. Parpart, et.al. International: Latin & Central America The Rigoberta Menchú Controversy, Arturo Arias, editor Jewish Women Rescuing Haya, Shelly Spilka Latinas (Out) Classed Women, Phillipa Kafka "Saddling La Gringa", Phillipa Kafka Lesbian Studies Lesbian Rabbis, Rebecca T. Alpert, et.al. Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict, Hilary Lapsley Literary Criticism Willa Cather & the Others, Jonathan Goldberg At Fault, Kate Chopin, Suzanne Disheroon Green The Sexual Woman in Latin American Literature, Diane E. Marting Revising Flannery O'Connor, Katherine Hemple Prown African Feminist Fiction and Indigenous Values, Donald R. Wehrs Literature Louisa May Alcott, Daniel Shealy, et.al. Process, Sandra Spanier [edited and with an introduction by] Sacred Narratives, Jane Tylus Native-American I'll Go and Do More, Carolyn Niethammer Voices of American Indian Assimilation and Resistance, Siobhan Senier Poetry Song of the Cicadas, Mông-Lan The Forest of Wild Hands, Judy Rowe Michaels Politics Who Gets the Good Jobs, Robert Cherry Damaged Identities, Narrative Repair, Hilde L. Nelson Psychology Fair Sex, Savage Dreams, Jean Walton Women's Studies Rethinking Rape, Ann J. Cahill Women on Power, Sue J.M. Freeman, et.al Invisible Women, Margaret C. Harrell Dinner Roles, Sherrie A. Innness Femicide in Global Perspective, Russell and Harmes, editors Gender Equity or Bust!, Mary Dee Wenniger and Mary Helen Conroy, editors

One Day in the Life of a Born Again Loser and Other Stories, Helen Norris, Univ. of Alabama Press, $16.95 pb, 0-8173-1091-6, 2001.
This collection of nine stories adds to the distinctive body of writing by award-winning Southern author Helen Norris. These stories are filled with complexity and humor and the ever-present dialog keeps the stories moving and presents the characters as full of surprises.
**** Fiction: Short Stories

Accident, A Day's News: A Novel, Christa Wolf, Univ. of Chicago Press, $14.00 pb, 0-226-90506-3, 2001.
When an East German writer awaits a call from the hospital where her brother is undergoing brain surgery and instead receives news of a massive nuclear accident at Chernobyl, she's contemplates mortality and life in all the moments lived.
**** Fiction: General

Regulating Menstruation: Beliefs, Practices, Interpretations, Etienne Van De Walle and Elisha P. Renne, editors, Univ. of Chicago Press, $20.00 pb, 0-226-84744-6, or $50.00 cl, 0-226-84743-8, 2001.
You know that phenomenon of women working together who start to bleed together? How fitting, then, that the scholars involved in this book were working in parallel universes on topics of menstruation only to find they had enough questions in common to hold an Internet conference that resulted in this book! These multidisciplinary essays consider women's attitudes&endash;internationally and cross culturally&endash;towards their menses. It sheds new light on women's use of substances and practices in their efforts to regulate or stimulate menstruation.
** Anthropology; Health & Medicine; Women's Studies

Roman Women, Augusto Fraschetti, editor and Linda Lappin [translator], Univ. of Chicago Press, $20.00 pb, 0-226-26094-1, 2001.
For those interested in discovering women in ancient history, here's an opportunity to learn about Roman women active in politics, theater, cultural life and religion from the 1st to the 4th centuries: Claudia, the vestal virgin; Cornelia, a matron; Fulvia, the passionate; "Lycoris," a mime; Livia, the politician; Vibia Perpetua, writer and martyr; Helena Augusta, an innkeeper; Hypatia, the intellectual; and Melanie the Younger, a saint.
*** History; Women's Studies

Sacred Narratives: Lucrezia Tornabuoni de'Medici, Jane Tylus [edited and translated], Univ. of Chicago Press, $20.00 pb, 0-226-80854-8, or $50.00 cl, 0-226-80852-1, 2001.
Religious poems by one of the most prominent woman in Renaissance Florence, Lucrezia Tornabuoni de'Medici (1425-82).
*** Literature; Spirituality/Religion; History

Damaged Identities, Narrative Repair, Hilde Lindemann Nelson, Cornell Univ. Press, $17.95 pb, 0-8014-8740-4, or $42.50 cl, 0-8014-3665-6, 2001.
from the cover...
"Thoughtful, persuasively argued, and witty, this important book analyzes powerful assaults on group identities, then proposes strategies of resistance and repair. A sustained, original, political development of narrative approaches to ethics and moral psychology." &endash;Sara Ruddick, author of Maternal Thinking: Toward a Politics of Peace

The nature of identity&endash;especially of groups such as Gypsies, mothers, nurses, and transsexuals&endash;is explored by comparing the stories these groups express of themselves against the narratives written about them.
** Politics; Philosophy

Rethinking Rape, Ann J. Cahill, Cornell Univ. Press, $18.95 pb, 0-8014-8718-8, or $39.95 cl, 0-8014-3794-6, 2001.
Rape. It's still ever present and continues to pervasively define and limit women's choices of daily activity. Cahill provides a readable and well-researched book on feminist theories that have guided our strategies on rape (Brownmiller&endash;rape = violence, not sex; and MacKinnon&endash;because of compulsory heterosexuality, rape exists on the continuum of heterosexual sex). She describes how neither position gets us very far and argues for new interpretations of rape based on feminist theories of embodiment. Rape, therefore, can be understood as violation of feminine bodily integrity and a pervasive threat to identity. This provocative book will re-draw our attention to rape as a central concern for feminist activism. Recommended.
**** Women's Studies; Philosophy

Fair Sex, Savage Dreams: Race, Psychoanalysis, Sexual Difference, Jean Walton, Duke Univ. Press, $18.95 pb, 0-8223-2611-6, or $54.95 cl, 0-8223-2603-5, 2001.
Walton rereads the works of Joan Riviere, Melanie Klein, H.D., Marie Bonaparte, and Margaret Mead&endash;white women refashioning Freud's problematic accounts of sexual subjectivity. She charts the fantasies of racial difference and establishes that race was inseparable from accounts of gender and sexuality. Challenging the notion that subjects acquire gender identities in isolation from racial ones, she demonstrates how white-centered psychoanalytic theories provide ways to understand how race and sex are deeply connected to understanding subjectivity.
** Psychology; Women's Studies; Race Theory

Willa Cather & the Others, Jonathan Goldberg, Duke Univ. Press, $18.95 pb, 0-8223-2672-8, or $54.95 cl, 0-8223-2677-9, 2001.
Adding another viewpoint to scholarship on Willa Cather, Goldberg compares Cather's work to her women contemporaries and shows how her fiction transform categories of gender, sexuality, race, and class.
** Literary Criticism; Gay/Lesbian Studies; Gay/Lesbian Studies

African Feminist Fiction and Indigenous Values, Donald R. Wehrs, Univ. Press of Florida, $55.00 cl, 0-8130-1884-6, 2001.
from the press release...
"Challenging most Western approached to the interpretation of African texts, cultures, and histories, Donald Wehrs offers detailed readings of six novels to suggest that the feminism of the heroines, the logic of the plots, and even the very language of the narrators in these fictions rest upon conceptual and moral vocabularies drawn from indigenous African sources...this book casts new light upon related issues of interest in women's studies, feminist theory, theories of the novel, cultural studies, and ethical philosophy."

The six novels include: Efuru (Nwapa), The Stillborn (Alkali), Une si longue lettre (Ba), Nervous Conditions (Dangarembga), Changes (Ata Aidoo), Kehinde (Emecheta).
* Literary Criticism; International: Africa

The Forest of Wild Hands, Judy Rowe Michaels, Univ. Press of Florida, $12.95 pb, 0-8130-2085-9, or $24.95 cl, 0-8130-2081-6, 2001.
from the press release...
"In these moving poems, Judy Michaels illuminates an intense period of five years in her life: against a backdrop that celebrates her young students, an enduring marriage, and the power of music and mountains, she writes about the sudden loss of her mother to cancer, her father's ensuing depression and alcoholism, and her own experience with ovarian cancer."
**** Poetry

The Sexual Woman in Latin American Literature: Dangerous Desires, Diane E. Marting, Univ. Press of Florida, $55.00 cl, 0-8130-1832-3, and 2001.
By scrutinizing the literary works of three popular novelists&endash; Guatemalan Miguel Angel Asturias, Brazilian Clarice Lispector and Peruvian Mario Varo Llosa&endash;as well as lesser-known women writers, Marting explores representations of female sexual desire in Latin America. She connects this writing to the social changes of women's lives during the 19602 through the 1980s. Her questions center not only on themes and history but also on grammatical structures. Additionally, it contributes to the controversial discussions related to the female body.
* Literary Criticism; International: Latin & Central America

Louisa May Alcott: Selected Fiction, Daniel Shealy, Madeleine B. Stern and Joel Myerson, editors, Univ. of Georgia Press, $19.95 pb, 0-8203-2313-6, 2001.
This first time in one volume collection includes&endash;according to the editors&endash;Louisa May Alcott's best fiction published between 1852 and 1888 exemplifying her range as a writer in the genres of romanticism, Gothicism, and realism.
**** Literature

(Out) Classed Women: Contemporary Chicana Writers on Inequitable Gendered Power Relations, Phillipa Kafka, Greenwood Publishing Group, $49.95 cl, 0-313-31123-4, 2000.
Through the literary works of Sandra Cisneros, Roberta Fernández, Kathleen Alcala, Gloria Anzaldúa, Ana Castillo and other Chicana writers, Kafka explores the major concerns of Chicanas due to gendered power relations. She also details the solutions proposed by these writers. Additionally, this book explores the relationships between Chicana writers with Jewish Feminist, women writers and critics of color, and mainstream feminist writers.
** Latinas; Literary Criticism

Also of interest...
"Saddling La Gringa": Gatekeeping in Literature by Contemporary Latina Writers, by Phillipa Kafka, Greenwood Publishing Group, $55.00 cl, 0-313-31122-6, 2001.
** Latinas; Literary Criticism

The Masculine Woman in America, 1890-1935, Laura L. Behling, Univ. of Illinois Press, $34.95 cl,
0-252-02627-6, 2001.
This book examines how the suffrage movement's efforts to secure social and political independence for women were translated by a fearful society into a movement of unnatural "masculinized" women and dangerous "female sexual inverts."
** Gender Studies; History; Women's Studies

Process: A Novel by Kay Boyle, Sandra Spanier [edited and with an introduction by], Univ. of Illinois Press, $24.95 cl, 0-252-02668-3, 2001.
This first and lost novel by Kay Boyle (1902-1992) was discovered by Sandra Spanier&endash;a preeminent authority of Boyle's work&endash;as she was preparing an edition of Boyle's letters. This novel offers the portrait of a woman as a young artist and compares favorably with her other modernist writings.
**** Literature

Dinner Roles: American Women and Culinary Culture, Sherrie A. Innness, Univ. of Iowa Press, $17.95 pb, 0-87745-763-8, or $35.95 cl, 0-87745-762-X, 2001.
When I visit my mom's kitchen, I'm overwhelmed by the numbers of cookbooks and recipe boxes gathered there. She also has drawers filled with recipes cut out of who knows how many magazines and taken from prepared food boxes&endash;there's more there than any family of nine could consume in three lifetimes! Perhaps she just likes to cook or imagine various kinds of food but I suspect she's a victim of the phenomenon described in Dinner Rolls. Inness explores the wide range of popular media from the first half of the 20th century, including cookbooks, women's magazines, and advertisements, to shed light on the network of sources that helped perpetuate the notion that cooking is women's work. She also covers the rise of electric appliances, the introduction of ethnic foods, and the presentation of the 1950s housewife to add to the understanding of women's roles in culinary culture.
**** Women's Studies; Food Issues; History

Gender Equity or Bust!: On the Road to Campus Leadership with Women in Higher Education, Mary Dee Wenniger and Mary Helen Conroy, editors, Jossey-Bass Inc., $24.95 pb, 0-7879-5284-2, 2001.
The editors of this volume glean illustrative pieces from articles in Women in Higher Education since 1992 create a broad view of women's progress in career recognition and achievement in higher education. Using travel as the metaphor (gender equality or bust), they portray the wild and turbulent ride across themes such as overall conditions, leadership, sexual harassment, systemic issues and roadblocks, and self-esteem/inner resolve. This book is recommended for any woman professional in higher education or aspiring to go there. Recommended.
**** Women's Studies; Education

It Seems to Me: Selected Letters of Eleanor Roosevelt, Leonard C. Schlup and Donald W. Whisenhunt, editors, Univ. Press of Kentucky, $30.00 cl, 0-8131-2185-X, 2001.
Eleanor Roosevelt is undoubtedly one of the most important women political figures of the 20th century. Though biographies and collection of her political essays and collections of her letters to friends and family have been published, this is the first comprehensive collection of her letters to public figures, world leaders and individuals outside her family. These letters, written after the death of FDR in 1945, portray Eleanor in her own words as she lectures, badgers, offer opinions to such people at Harry S. Truman, Eisenhower, Churchill, Carrie Chapman Catt, Martin Luther King, Jr. and many others. They also provide insight into her unlikely friendship with Mme. Chiang Kai-shek. The introduction to this collection provides valuable insight into how this collection was gathered. Each letter is prefaced by a short paragraph that places it in historical context. Highly recommended.
**** Biography; History

now available in paperback....
Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict: The Kinship of Women, Hilary Lapsley, Univ. of Massachusetts Press, $19.95 pb, 1-55849-295-X, or $? cl, 1-55849-181-3, 1999.
Winner of the Judy Grahn Award for Best Book of the Year in Lesbian Nonfiction
from the cover...."The reader gains a wealth of knowledge about the work, relationships, and lives of two of the most influential women in 20th-century social science." &endash;Journal of Lesbian Studies
**** Lesbian Studies; Biography

Song of the Cicadas, Mông-Lan, Univ. of Massachusetts Press, $13.95 pb, 1-55849-307-7, 2001.
Winner of the 2000 Juniper Prize
After the fall of Saigon, Mông-Lan immigrated to San Francisco at a young age with her family. These poems reflect the mourning of an expatriate struggling with the values of her adoptive culture.
**** Poetry; International: Asia

The Rigoberta Menchú Controversy, Arturo Arias, editor and With a response from David Stoll, Univ. of Minnesota Press, $19.95 pb, 0-8166-3626-5, 2001.
In 1999, the 1983 autobiography of Nobel Peace Prize winner and indigenous rights activist Rigoberta Menchú was criticized by David Stoll in a book that challenged the veracity of details in her account. This opened up a storm of controversy. This casebook offers a balanced perspective and includes primary documents as well as the writings of international scholars who assess the political, historical, and cultural contexts of the debate. In a new essay, David Stoll responds to his critics.
** International: Latin & Central America; Social Sciences

Flowers in the Snow: The Life of Isobel Wylie Hutchison, Gweneth Hoyle, Univ. of Nebraska Press, $29.95 cl, 0-8032-2403-6, 2001.
Between 1927 and 1936, Isobel Wylie Hutchison explored Norway's Lofoten Islands along the Arctic Circle through northern Canada and the American Aleutians in search of botanical specimens. This was not her first plant gathering adventure but perhaps her most daring. She traveled by whatever means necessary&endash;trading schooners, coast guard vessels, snowshoe or sled and depended on her wits and the generosity of strangers. Unconventional for her time, Hutchison not only collected these flowers but also wrote novel and travel books describing her adventures.
*** Biography

I'll Go and Do More: Annie Dodge Wauneka, Navajo Leader and Activist, Carolyn Niethammer, Univ. of Nebraska Press, $29.95 cl, 0-8032-3345-0, 2001.
Annie Dodge Wauneka (1918-1997) was known in the Navajo Nation as "Our Legendary Mother." She participated in the Navajo Tribal Council and was a passionate advocate for Indian health care, education and other issues. This biography draws on interviews with family and friends, speeches and correspondence.
**** Native-American; Biography

Quilting Lessons: Notes from the Scrap Bag of a Writer and Quilter, Janet C. Berlo, Univ. of Nebraska Press, $20.00 cl, 0-8032-1318-2, 2001.
Did you ever want to just walk away from it all and just do something different, say... like quilting? Janet C. Berlo did just that as she walked away from a successful career as an art historian and academic and spent the next 18 months quilting. It's not important whether she identifies this period of what she called "quilt madness" as a "mid-life crisis" or a severe case of writer's block. This memoir is a search for meaning among a career, family life, daily tasks and friendships. As she immerses herself in color and patterns, she learns lessons about her self and lessons about "bits & pieces" that carry over into her academic work as well.
**** Autobiography/Memoir; Arts: Art, Photography

The Diaries of Beatrice Webb, Norman Mackenzie, Jeanne Mackenzie, editors and Lynn Knight [abridged by], Northeastern Univ. Press, $45.00 cl, 1-55553-483-X, 2001.
Beatrice Webb (1858-1943) was a Fabian socialist, social researcher and reformer and co-founder of the London School of Economics. From the age of 15 until her death, Webb wrote diligently in her diary which provides not only insight into her own relationships and developing political thought but also provides insight into the social and cultural changes of the time&endash;especially in connection with the rise of the Labour Movement and social communism.
*** Biography; Women's Studies; History

The Heart Too Long Suppressed: A Chronicle of Mental Illness, Carol Hebald, Northeastern Univ. Press, $24.95 cl, 1-55553-482-1, 2001.
In a stunning act of courage and defiance, Carol Hebald threw her prescribed medicine for mental illness into the ocean. Though doctors predicted she would commit suicide, this act may have saved her life. This memoir chronicles Hebald's spiral into mental illness, her journey from one therapist to the nest, her periodic hospitalizations, shock treatments and her fight against misdiagnosed medications. In the end, she finds her inner voice....
"Hebald's moving account dramatically illustrates the dangers of letting the voice of authority outshout your Inner Voice: she effectively demonstrates that the sole recovery possible from the maladies a person so acquires is to regain the voice he or she has not so much lost as renounced."&endash;Dr. Thomas Szasz, from the foreword
**** Autobiography/Memoir; Psychology; Women's Studies

Women on Power: Leadership Redefined, Sue J.M. Freeman, Susan C. Bouque and Christine M. Shelton, editors, Northeastern Univ. Press, $20.00 pb, 1-55553-478-3, or $50.00 cl, 1-55553-479-1, 2001.
What does it mean for women to be in leadership? Though women have made enormous in roads into the professional workplace, few have assumed leadership roles. These cases studies&endash;including the Boston Women's Health Book Collective, global perspectives on women's environmental activism, mothering as a catalyst for social activism, women in veterinary medicine and women in sports&endash;provides historical and theoretical insight into issues of women's leadership and power.
*** Women's Studies

The Sweetheart Is In: Stories, S.L. Wisenberg, Northwestern Univ. Press, $17.95 pb, 0-8101-5124-3, or $49.95 cl, 0-8101-5108-1, 2001.
quote from the cover....
"....what's most unusual about her stories in their knowledgeability and utter honesty about religious doubt and yearning. Her stories about souls searching for a profound connection with their Jewishness are unlike any others I know, partly because of that flat-out candor, but partly because of the way her particular styles serves her subject." &endash;Rosellen Brown, author of Half a Heart
**** Fiction: Short Stories; Jewish Women

Voices of American Indian Assimilation and Resistance: Helen Hunt Jackson, Sarah Winnemussa, and Victoria Howard, Siobhan Senier, Univ. of Oklahoma Press, $29.95 cl, 0-8061-3293-0, 2001.
Between 1879 and 1934, the United States government advocated for the assimilation of Indians and the dissolution of tribes through land allotments which uprooted tribal culture. Three women, each with her own work and advocacy for the voices of American Indians and women artists, countered the assimilation discourse by providing forms of communal discourse. Jackson's 1884 bestseller Ramona has the effect of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Paiute performer Winnemucca wrote was is believed to be the first Native women's autobiography&endash;Life Among the Piutes. Victoria Howard, a Clackamas Chinook storyteller had transcribed hundreds of ethnographic texts and songs. This book not only honors their work but also adds to the understanding of US policy towards Native Americans and damaging attempts at cultural assimilation.
** Native-American; History; Biography

Misogyny: The Male Malady, David D. Gilmore, Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, $26.50 cl, 0-8122-3608-4, 2001.
from the author's introduction...
"In this book I do not try to provide a single or definitive answer to the problem of misogyny, but rather attempt to formulate a series of pertinent questions about it...The first question...What danger do women pose to men? Second, why are masculine delusions about women's 'evil power' so intense that men must surround themselves with countless prophylactics and austere taboos and often inflict painful rituals of purgation, expiation, and decontamination upon themselves and their sons?"
This book offers an anthropological and cross-cultural view of misogyny as a global phenomenon.
** Anthropology; Gender Studies

The Trotula: A Medieval Compendium of Women's Medicine, Monica H. Green [editor & translator], Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, $55.00 cl, 0-8122-3589-4, 2001.
"...because women are by nature weaker than men and because they are most frequently afflicted in childbirth, diseases very often abound in them especially around the organs devoted to the work of Nature....out of shame and embarrassment do not dare to reveal their anguish over their diseases...to a physician. Therefore, their misfortune, which ought to be pitied...have impelled me to give clear explanation regarding diseases in caring for their health." So begins The Trotula, the most influential compendium of women's health in medieval Europe. Though attributed to the first female medical professional in 12th c. Salerno, Green analyzes the text against the historical gynecological literature as well as current knowledge about women's lives in the 13th century. She asserts that two-thirds of it are perhaps by male authorship. Original Latin text and several plates included.
* Health & Medicine; History; Women's Studies

Invisible Women: Junior Enlisted Army Wives, Margaret C. Harrell, RAND, $15.00 pb, 0-8330-2880-4, 2001.
Available from RAND, (877) 584-8642 or National Book Network, (800) 462-6420
Very often we can find information about women in the military as soldiers, nurses or other positions or biographies of individual women who stood out during wartime or peacetime. There are many women who support the military community whose lives and work go virtually unnoticed&endash;wives of military personnel. Invisible Women addresses this issue. After interviewing hundreds of spouses, Harrell selected three women whose voices convey the dilemmas faced by many junior enlisted families. They confront lack of education, financial difficulty, youth, distance from their husbands and families, and invisibility in the military bureaucracy. Harrell hopes these presenting these voices will have an overall effect on military policy toward enlisted families.
**** Women's Studies; Military; Social Sciences

Lesbian Rabbis: The First Generation, Rebecca T. Alpert, Sue Levi Elwell and Shirley Idelson, editors, Rutgers Univ. Press, $24.00 pb, 0-8135-2916-6, or $54.00 cl, 0-8135-2915-8, 2001.
This fascinating collection of essays by 18 lesbian rabbis breaks new ground and will surely inspire and challenge anyone who lives contradictions between a religion that denies or questions ones existence while responding to an inner sense of truth and belief. These women reflect on their experiences as trailblazers in Judaism while understanding the tension in their own sense of lesbian identity. Highly recommended.
**** Lesbian Studies; Jewish Women; Spirituality/Religion

Peeling Potatoes, Painting Pictures: Women Artists in Post-Soviet Russia, Estonia, and Latvia, The First Decade, Renee Baigell and Matthew Baigell, Rutgers Univ. Press, $25.00 pb, 0-8135-2946-8, or $60.00 cl, 0-8135-2945-X, 2001.
Through interviews with artists and viewing specific works of art, the authors of this book offer an understanding of how women artists from Russia, Estonia, and Latvia understand themselves in a post-Soviet era in relation to their art and to the feminist movement of the West.
*** Arts: Art, Photography; International: Russia & Slavic

Who Gets the Good Jobs: Combating Race and Gender Disparities, Robert Cherry, Rutgers Univ. Press, $24.00 pb, 0-8135-2921-2, or $60.00 cl, 0-8135-2920-4, 2001.
Through examining capitalist theories in historical record and surveying the political and economic forces that influence labor market practices, Cherry explores why race and gender disparities still exist in employment. His analysis includes recommendations&endash;such as government-funded childcare and the creation of more favorable work environments.
*** Politics; Women's Studies; Working

European Feminisms, 1700-1950: A Political History, Karen Offen, Stanford Univ. Press, $19.95 pb, 0-8047-3420-8, 2001.
Though discussing contemporary feminisms by waves (2nd, 3rd) may be an easy shorthand, it does disconnect our discussions from both larger global and historical considerations. In an ambitious history, detailed in both depth and breadth, Offen provides a comprehensive account that re-reads European history from developing feminist perspectives. Additionally, it places feminist theories within a stronger historical context in which sexual politics becomes disentangled from the emerging philosophical discussions of Enlightenment, reason, nature, equality vs. difference, and public vs. private. This hefty book is affordable and interesting enough to appeal to the general reader but demands concentration (hence the double-star rating).
** History; Women's Studies; International: Western Europe

Theoretical Perspectives on Gender and Development, Jane L. Parpart, M. Patricia Connelly, editors and V. Eudine Barriteau, International Development Research Center (Ottawa), $22.00 pb, 0-88936-910-0, 2000.
Distributed in the U.S. by Stylus Publishing (800-232-0223)
For anyone designing a beginning class on or who simply want to know more about the issues and perspectives involved in gender and development, Theoretical Perspectives on Gender and Development provides an extremely useful book. The text is straightforward and provides basic information from questions like "why is theory" to "Why gender, why development" and finally to implications and alternative strategies for development and gender. It contains pertinent questions, offers list of implications, uses many clear illustrations and graphics, and provides good bibliographies. Recommended.
**** International; Women's Studies

Urban Girls: Empowerment in Especially Difficult Circumstances, Gary Barker, Felicia Knaul and with Neide Cassaniga and Anita Schrader, Intermediate Technology Publications (London), $22.50 pb, 1-85339-475-0, 2000.
Distributed in the U.S. by Stylus Publishing (800-232-0223)
This book uses case studies from various urban areas around the world (Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, the Caribbean, and the U.S.) from projects conducted by non-governmental organization working with girls and young women. What emerges is an understanding of the conditions and the hardships encountered by urban girls and recommendations for advocacy and service delivery projects for girls and young women that will help to improve their lives.
*** International; Women's Studies

Women in Politics: Voices from the Commonwealth, Gender Affairs Department of the Commonwealth Secretariat , Commonwealth Secretariat (London), $25.00 pb, 0-85092-569-X, 1999.
Distributed in the U.S. by Stylus Publishing (800-232-0223)
Through the profiles and narratives of 33 women in politics from eleven countries, this study focuses on the realities of life for those women dedicated to politics. It emphasis the challenges and barriers but also illuminates different strategies that could be used for the goals of gender equity, development and peace. The countries represented include: Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, Dominica, Guyana, India, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Seychelles, South Africa and Uganda.
*** International; Politics; Women's Studies

Rescuing Haya: Confessions of an Eighth Generation Israeli Emigrant, Shelly Spilka, State Univ. of New York Pr. (SUNY), $16.95 pb, 0-7914-4870-3, 2001.
Haya is searching&endash;for her self, for the missing pieces of her childhood, for her life. In this moving memoir, Spilka considers the conflicted feelings she has of her homeland and her struggles with love and loss. She speaks openly of the tensions between her Orthodox father and her non-religious mother which contribute to her own rejection of Zionist vision, and her search for identity and self-expression. It is another journey into understanding the struggle for identity among Israeli women.
**** Jewish Women; Autobiography/Memoir

Femicide in Global Perspective, Diana E.H. Russell and Roberta A. Harmes, editors, Teacher's College Press, $24.95 pb, 0-8077-4047-0, or $52.00 cl, 0-8077-4048-9, 2001.
The editors of this volume have several goals: 1) To make visible the gender issues related to violence against women and girls; 2) to name it what it is&endash;femicide&endash;the killing of females because they are females; 3) to understand it as a widespread problem throughout the world as an international crisis. Recommended.

quote from the cover...
"Diana Russell has devoted her life's work to naming and resisting violence against women. She and Roberta Harmes have given us an indispensable volume on the international scope of femicide, one that should further ever greater awareness and activism." &endash;Jane Caputi
**** Women's Studies; Social Sciences; Violence and Abuse

Sexual Strangers: Gays, Lesbians, and the Dilemma of Citizenship, Shane Phelan, Temple University Press, $18.95 pb, 1-56639-828-2, or $59.50 cl, 1-56639-827-4, 2001.
Who is a citizen and what rights does a citizen have in terms of equal rights and tolerance? How does this specifically apply to lesbians, gays, and transgendered peoples? Phelan points out that citizenship permits one to share in an American identity, and claim rights granted by the Constitution. Because queers are not permitted to marry, to be out in military service and are excluded from political policy-making, we are not really citizens in the heterocentric regime. She challenges what it means to have true citizenship in the U.S.
*** Gay/Lesbian Studies; Politics

Swingin' at the Savoy: The Memoir of a Jazz Dancer, Norma Miller and Evette Jensen, Temple University Press, $19.95 pb, 1-56639-849-5, 2001.
Memoirs that not only offer the voice of the writer but also provide a lively snapshot of the larger historical time period through an insider's view always appeal to me. So it is with Swingin' at the Savoy, the memoir of Norma Miller who was a dancer, award winning choreographer, show producer, and stand-up comedienne. This memoir centers on her years as a member of Herbert White's Lindy Hoppers at the celebrated Savoy Ballroom in Harlem. She also shares anecdotes of her encounters with jazz greats such as Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, Ethel Waters and others. For those interested in this important cultural period, this book not only provides an intimate look but also 52 photos, some with handwritten notes explaining the detail.
**** African-American; Arts: Music, Dance, Theater; Autobiography/Memoir

At Fault, Kate Chopin: A Scholarly Edition with Background Readings, Suzanne Disheroon Green and David J. Caudle, editors, Univ. of Tennessee Press, $15.00 pb, 1-57233-121-6, or $30.00 cl, 1-57233-120-8, 2001.
This comprehensive presentation of At Fault, Kate Chopin's often neglected but worthy novel, includes the complete text of the novel as well as important contextual pieces. It tells the history of the novel (Chopin published it at her own expense) as well as reprints the reviews and opinions of her contemporaries when it first appeared in 1890. Additional text and several illustrations also place the novel in historical, literary and cultural context.
** Literary Criticism; Literature

Kathy Vargas: Photographs, 1971-2000, Lucy Lippard [Essay by], MaLin Wilson-Powell [Introduction by] and William J. Chiego [Forward by], Marion Koogler McNay Art Museum (San Antonio), $29.95 pb, 0-91667-45-1, 2001.
Distributed by University of Texas Press
This full-color volume is the catalog for the artist's first major retrospective, which opened in December of 2000 at the Marion Koogler McNay Art Museum (San Antonio, TX). It includes an essay by Lucy Lippard, insights by the curator of the exhibit, MaLin Wilson-Powell , and a photographer's chronology, exhibition's history, and bibliography.
**** Arts: Art, Photography; Women's Studies

Lourdes Portillo: The Devil Never Sleeps and Other Films, Rosa L. Fregoso, editor, Univ. of Texas Press, $24.95 pb, 0-292-72525-6, or $55.00 cl, 0-292-72524-8, 2001.
This collection of interviews, critical essays, and production materials offers the first in-depth study of contemporary Chicana filmmaker, Lourdes Portillo. It emphasizes her creativity, the controversial themes she addresses in her films, audience reception, and the struggles inherent in producing and making independent films. Of related interest...see Women Filmmakers in Mexico.
** Arts: Film, Video; Women's Studies; International: Latin & Central America

The Teacup Ministry & Other Stories: Subtle Boundaries of Class, Rhoda H. Halperin, Univ. of Texas Press, $14.95 pb, 0-292-73143-4, or $30.00 cl, 0-292-73142-6, 2001.
For those looking for accessible, readable, and people-centered readings that spark discussion on class-related issues, The Teacup Ministry & Other Stories may be just the thing. Based on anthropological and ethnographic research, these stories challenge stereotypes and provide intimate portraits that create a sense of resonance or new understanding. The themes for these narratives include class boundaries, class creativity, and class vulnerability.
**** Anthropology; Social Sciences; Addiction and Recovery

Women Filmmakers in Mexico: The Country of Which We Dream, Elissa J. Rashkin, Univ. of Texas Press, $22.95 pb, 0-292-77109-6, or $45.00 cl, 0-292-77108-8, 2001.
Rashkin provides an historical overview of Mexican women's filmmaking then focuses on the work of five contemporary filmmakers&endash;Marisa Sistach, Busi Cortés, Guita Schyfter. María Novaro, and Dana Rotberg. She documents how and why women filmmakers have achieved success and how this has affected the Mexican intellectual sector since the 1960s to assist emerging women filmmakers. Of related interest...see Lourdes Portillo.
** Arts: Film, Video; Women's Studies; International: Latin & Central America

Revising Flannery O'Connor: Southern Literary Culture and the Problem of Female Authorship, Katherine Hemple Prown, University Press of Virginia, $35.00 (sd) cl, 0-8139-2012-4, 2001.
Prown places gender at the center of understanding the writings of O'Connor in order to see past the "southern lady" and understand her work in a more feminist critical stance.
** Literary Criticism; Regional: South

Diaries of Girls and Women: A Midwestern American Sampler, Suzanne L. Bunker, editor, Univ. of Wisconsin Press, $24.95 pb, 0-299-17224-4, or $60.00 cl, 0-299-17220-1, 2001.
This collection includes selections from 46 girls and women who lived in Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin between 1837 and 1999&endash;women and girls from diverse backgrounds and ages, occupations and aspirations. She approaches these diaries as historical documents, therapeutic tools, and forms of literature in order to provide insight into the self-images of girls and women as they interact with families and communities. Photographs of the some of the women add to the books overall sense of intimacy.
**** Autobiography/Memoir; Women's Studies; History; Regional: Midwest

Copyright © July, 2001 • Mev Miller, editor, Feminist Academic Press Column

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