Feminist Theorists

Hope is central to marginal politics which speak of desires for equality or simply for a better life. Feminism might be characterised as a politics of hope, a movement underpinned by a utopian drive for equality. This version of hope has been used, for example in Barack Obama’s phrase ‘the audacity of hope’ – a mobilisation of an affirmative politics which nevertheless implies that we are living in hopeless times. Similiarly, in recent years, feminism has seen the production of a prevailing mood of hopelessness around a generational model of progress, which is widely imagined to have ‘failed’. However, as a number of feminist theorists have pointed out, the temporality of feminism cannot be conceived as straightforwardly linear: feminism can only be imagined as having failed if it is understood as a particular set of relations and things. This collection grapples with the question of hope: how it figures and structures feminist theory as both a movement towards certain goals, and as inherently hopeful. Questions addressed include: Does hope necessarily imply a fantasy of perfectibility, a progression to a utopian future? Might it also be conceived in other ways: as an attachment?A lure? Does life tend towards hope, happiness, optimism? And, if so, what are the consequences when hope fails? Who decides which hopes are false? What is the cost of giving up hope? This book was published as a special issue of the Journal for Cultural Research.

At no point in recorded history has there been an absence of intense, and heated, discussion about the subject of how to conduct relations between women and men. This Handbook provides a comprehensive guide to these omnipresent issues and debates, mapping the present and future of thinking about feminist theory. The chapters gathered here present the state of the art in scholarship in the field, covering: Epistemology and marginality Literary, visual and cultural representations Sexuality Macro and microeconomics of gender Conflict and peace. The most important consensus in this volume is that a central organizing tenet of feminism is its willingness to examine the ways in which gender and relations between women and men have been (and are) organized. The authors bring a shared commitment to the critical appraisal of gender relations, as well as a recognition that to think ‘theoretically’ is not to detach concerns from lived experience but to extend the possibilities of understanding. With this focus on theory and theorizing about the world in which we live, this Handbook asks us, across all disciplines and situations, to abandon our taken-for-granted assumptions about the world and interrogate both the origin and the implications of our ideas about gender relations and feminism. It is an essential reference work for advanced students and academics not only of feminist theory, but of gender and sexuality across the humanities and social sciences.

First book in English to offer a thorough introduction to key concepts and figures in Spanish feminist thought. Major Concepts in Spanish Feminist Theory is the first book in English to offer a substantial overview of Spanish feminist thought. It focuses on six concepts—solitude, personality, social class, work, difference, and equality—and distinguishes Spanish feminist theory from that of other countries. Roberta Johnson employs a chronological format to highlight continuity and polemics in Spanish feminist thinking from the eighteenth century to the present. She brings together arguments from well-known names such as Benito Jerónimo Feijoo, Concepción Arenal, Emilia Pardo Bazán, María Martínez Sierra, Carmen de Burgos, and Carmen Laforet, as well as less familiar figures such as the Countess Campo Alange María Laffitte and Lilí Álvarez, who defied restrictions on feminist activity during the Franco dictatorship to publish feminist books. The topics of difference and equality are explored, and the book recounts the long tension between theorists of each persuasion—a tension that erupted publicly during Spain’s democratic era. Each theorist’s arguments are laid out in straightforward, non-jargonistic prose, making this book a useful classroom tool for courses on Spanish women writers, Spanish culture, and cross-cultural feminist studies. “This book is a significant overview of the theoretical concepts and authors that make up the history of Spanish feminism from the eighteenth century to the present. The organization of the book around concepts is not only its great strength but is also refreshing—a novel approach to a chronological history of Spanish feminism.” — Alda Blanco, San Diego State University

The path-breaking Encyclopedia of Feminist Theories is an accessible, multidisciplinary insight into the complex field of feminist thought. The Encyclopedia contains over 500 authoritative entries commissioned from an international team of contributors and includes clear, concise and provocative explanations of key themes and ideas. Each entry contains cross references and a bibliographic guide to further reading; over 50 biographical entries provide readers with a sense of how the theories they encounter have developed out of the lives and situations of their authors.

The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theory provides a rich overview of the analytical frameworks and theoretical concepts that feminist theorists have developed to analyze the known world. Featuring leading feminist theorists from diverse regions of the globe, this collection delves into forty-nine subject areas, demonstrating the complexity of feminist challenges to established knowledge, while also engaging areas of contestation within feminist theory. Demonstrating the interdisciplinary nature of feminist theory, the chapters offer innovative analyses of topics central to social and political science, cultural studies and humanities, discourses associated with medicine and science, and issues in contemporary critical theory that have been transformed through feminist theorization. The handbook identifies limitations of key epistemic assumptions that inform traditional scholarship and shows how theorizing from women's and men's lives has profound effects on the conceptualization of central categories, whether the field of analysis is aesthetics, biology, cultural studies, development, economics, film studies, health, history, literature, politics, religion, science studies, sexualities, violence, or war.

"A range of contemporary feminist critical writers are discussed: Gloria Anzaldua, Judith Butler, Helene Cixous, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Jane Flax, Susan Griffin, Donna Haraway, Luce Irigaray, Julia Kristeva, Elaine Pagels, Adrienne Rich, Eve Sedgwick, Joan Scott, Jane Tompkins, Trinh Minh-ha, and Patricia Williams. Their investment in the oral modulations of words marks not only a provocative engagement with the incommensurability of contemporary theory, but also a turn to the ambiguous and tangled qualities of language - "poetic literacy" - that generate an evocative epistemology."--BOOK JACKET.

This first major study of feminist theory, which is revised and completely reset, now takes the reader into the twentieth century. It chronicles a renaissance of feminist theory through the so-called third wave of the present day, which follows significant "waves" of earlier periods: the fifteenth through early eighteenth centuries as well as the more widely recognized nineteenth century; and the 1960s through the 80s.

Celebrates a rich but neglected tradition of feminist thought. In twenty-one lively and inspiring portraits, modern- day feminists such as Alix Kates Shulman and Ann Oakley recapture the lives and work of the outstanding feminist thinkers of the last three centuries, both in the context of their own day and in light of the present women’s movement.--Back cover.