Recent Work on Feminist Theory

What follows are responses to a query on WMST-L in August 2008 about new books
in feminist theory.  For additional WMST-L files available on the Web, see the
WMST-L File Collection.

Hello all
Over the last several years I have found myself struggling to find new books
on the narrower topic of feminist theory (which is to say, titles that are
not easily able to be classed 'women/gender & ___' ). So I turn to you with
the following question -- and please feel free to respond offlist!

What feminist theory books you have read in the last 3 years or so that you
felt were important, significant, surprising, challenging to the dominant
oeuvre, or otherwise worth recommending?

I'm looking for titles that can be defined as feminist theory as broadly as
you like (gender studies, sexuality, identity, activism, masculinity,
however you define the field, really). I find great things that fall under
that "women/gender & ___" classification (such as  Women and Sports,
Feminism & Theology, Queer Studies & The Media, etc...) so would prefer
recommendations that are less interdisciplinary and more core to the
discipline of Women's studies, gender studies, feminism... itself.

thanks! I can't wait to see what you recommend!

Rudy Leon Collection Development & Instruction Librarian College Libraries
email:  leonre  AT  potsdam.edu
SUNY Potsdam                 AIM: leonre3309
44 Pierrepont Avenue        
Potsdam, NY 13676-2294   http://www2.potsdam.edu/leonre      

Dear Rudy- I read Naomi Zack's latest book _Inclusive Feminism_ and found it
intriguing.
http://books.google.ca/books?id=8-wIEyCKetYC&printsec=frontcover&dq=inauthor:Naomi+inauthor:Zack&sig=ACfU3U35QaRIBORONMygBdiS2wVXYahJPQ#PPP11,M1 It wasn't useful for my research purposes, but others might like it more.

I really enjoyed the expanded 2nd editon of the STacy Gillis, et al edited
_Third Wave Feminism: A Critical Exploration_.

I just turned around and looked at my bookshelf. Nothing else is jumping out at
me. Please do post whatever findings you get on the WMST-L, please.

Best-
Janni

I've enjoyed Linda Zerilli's Feminism and the Abyss of Freedom (which works
with Arendt on questions of freedom in feminism), and Amy Allen's  The
Politics of Our Selves: Power, Autonomy, and Gender in Contemporary Critical
Theory.  These both fall in the category of feminist philosophy, but I find
both are useful for moving contemporary feminist theorizing in new
directions.

Emily Regan Wills
PhD candidate
Department of Political Science
New School for Social Research
wille480  AT  newschool.edu

Hello, Rudy,
What a great question! I've been very excited by the "newer" feminist
materialism. The text that got me interested in this work is Alaimo and
Hekman's *Material Feminisms*. Karen Barad is a thinker whose work is
inspiring a lot of interest in this area, too (she's in the Alaimo and
Hekman book, but also was working earlier in this area).

If folks do respond off-list, could you please post a summary? Thanks!
Jeannie

-- 
Jeannie Ludlow, Ph.D.
jeannieludlow  AT  gmail.com

Coordinator
Women's Studies & Women's Resource Center
Eastern Illinois University
Charleston, IL 61920

I would second the suggestion about Karen Barad.  She has a book out, called
Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter
and Meaning.  While she is a physicist and difficult to read, she is well
worth the effort.   She has also written several essays that have appeared
in other feminist anthologies. I have taught her essay on the piezoelectric
crystal--
"Performing Culture / Performing Nature: Using the Piezoelectric Crystal of
Ultrasound Technologies as a Transducer Between Science Studies and Queer
Theories," in /Digital Anatomies/, edited by Christina Lammar, Vienna: Turia
& Kant, 2001.    This crystal is central to the technology of digital
imaging in pregnancy and so, as Barad argues, a player in the politics of
reproduction and abortion. 
Difficult stuff, but really worth the work.


Laurie Finke
Kenyon College

Please take a look at my book, Breaking the Bowls: Degendering and Feminist
Change, Norton, 2005.  I think it is "important, significant, surprising,
challenging to the dominant oeuvre." Okay -- at least it's challenging!

Judith 
 
**********************************************
Judith Lorber, Ph.D.
Professor Emerita
Graduate Center and Brooklyn College, CUNY
Imagine a world without gender!
**********************************************

I'm pasting here the list of titles that were recommended to me in answer to
the question
"What feminist theory books you have read in the last 3 years or so that you
felt were important, significant, surprising, challenging to the dominant
oeuvre, or otherwise worth recommending?"

Thanks to everyone for contributing!

I was particularly struck by 2 things, interrelated:

1. The majority of these books were recommended by their authors
2. There seems to have been a falling off of publications in the area of
feminist theory qua feminist theory-- which is what drove me to ask the
question, and which seems to be upheld by the scarce quantity of books
recommended.

Does this match folk's experience in research and reading trends? What is
filling in the theory gap? Or is it that WS has, for all intents and
purposes, gone back into the disciplines and lost it's singularity, it's je
ne sais qua?

Naomi Zack's /Inclusive Feminism/

Stacy Gillis, et al edited /Third Wave Feminism: A Critical Exploration/.
(expanded 2^nd edition specifically) 
/Feminist Theory: A Philosophical Anthology/ (Blackwell Philosophy
Anthologies) Ann Cudd & Robin Andreasen (eds), Wiley-Blackwell, 2005

+         Robert Jensen just published a new book about masculinity and
pornography, entitled /Getting Off/. He uses a lot of feminist theory in his
discussions about how pornography shapes (distorts) men's sexuality and
relationships with women and so on.

+         Linda Zerilli's /Feminism and the Abyss of Freedom/ (which works
with Arendt on questions of freedom in feminism)

+         Amy Allen's  /The Politics of Our Selves: Power, Autonomy, and
Gender in Contemporary Critical Theory/.  These both fall in the category of
feminist philosophy, but I find both are useful for moving contemporary
feminist theorizing in new directions.

+         Alaimo and Hekman's */Material Feminisms/*.

+         Karen Barad.  She has a book out, called Meeting the Universe
Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning.  While
she is a physicist and difficult to read, she is well worth the effort.
She has also written several essays that have appeared in other feminist
anthologies. I have taught her essay on the piezoelectric crystal--
"Performing Culture / Performing Nature: Using the Piezoelectric Crystal of
Ultrasound Technologies as a Transducer Between Science Studies and Queer
Theories," in //Digital Anatomies//, edited by Christina Lammar, Vienna:
Turia & Kant, 2001.    This crystal is central to the technology of digital
imaging in pregnancy and so, as Barad argues, a player in the politics of
reproduction and abortion.
Difficult stuff, but really worth the work.

+         Shira Tarrant /When Sex Became Gender/ (Routledge) and /Men Speak
Out: Views on Gender, Sex and Power/. [feminist political theory]

+         Breaking the Bowls: Degendering and Feminist Change, Norton, 2005.
Judith Lorber,

+         Penny Ingram -- /The Signifying Body: Toward an Ethics of Sexual
and Racial Difference/. The book is an attempt to take seriously Irigaray's
ethics of sexual difference and extend it to an examination of racial
difference, using the work of Frantz Fanon, as an ethical problematic. I use
Heidegger's fundamental ontology to make the case that ethics is not
something that comes after ontology but is in fact part of the nature of
Being. It is very much in the trend of new work being done on matter and the
body. I hope this is of some use to you.

+         Judith Gardiner (2002) /Masculinity Studies and Feminist Theory/,
Columbia U Press, 2002, for theoretical essays in the intersections of those
two areas.

Rudy Leon Collection Development & Instruction Librarian College Libraries
email:  leonre  AT  potsdam.edu
SUNY Potsdam                 AIM: leonre3309
44 Pierrepont Avenue        
Potsdam, NY 13676-2294   http://www2.potsdam.edu/leonre      

I would also recommend Julia Serano's _Whipping_Girl_

Reese
-- 
Reese Carey Kelly
Doctoral Candidate
Department of Sociology
University at Albany, SUNY

Hi all,
This question may be more than a little naive (and awkwardly written), but:

isn't one of the "singularities" of feminism that our theories are grounded
in and grow out of analyses of human experiences? and, if so, then wouldn't
a turn from "feminist theory qua feminist theory" and toward grounded
examinations that (judging from their having been recommended in response to
Rudy's query) build theory as part of their process be seen as a return to
feminism's singularity rather than a move away from it?

When I teach feminist theory, I like to begin with these essays from volume
1, no. 3 (2000)  of *Feminist Theory*: Stanley and Wise, "But the empress
has no clothes!: Some awkward questions about the 'missing revolution' in
feminist theory"; Ahmed, "Whose counting?"; Winter, "Who counts (or doesn't
count) what as feminist theory?: An exercise in dictionary use"; Ermarth,
"What counts as feminist theory?"

These essays challenge us to think about what we mean by "theory" and how
power is implicated in the building and maintenance of that meaning. I know
these essays are a lot older than the materials Rudy was seeking, but I do
think their questions are pertinent to Rudy's follow-up questions.

Peace, all,
Jeannie
-- 
Jeannie Ludlow, Ph.D.
jeannieludlow  AT  gmail.com

Coordinator
Women's Studies & Women's Resource Center
Eastern Illinois University
Charleston, IL 61920