Fifty One Key Feminist Thinkers

The feminist thinkers in this collection are the designated "fifty-one key feminist thinkers," historical and contemporary, and also the authors of the entries. Collected here are fifty-one key thinkers and fifty-one authors, recognizing that women are fifty-one percent of the population. There are actually one hundred and two thinkers collected in these pages, as each author is a feminist thinker, too: scholars, writers, poets, and activists, well-established and emerging, old and young and in-between. These feminists speak the languages of art, politics, literature, education, classics, gender studies, film, queer theory, global affairs, political theory, science fiction, African American studies, sociology, American studies, geography, history, philosophy, poetry, and psychoanalysis. Speaking in all these diverse tongues, conversations made possible by feminist thinking are introduced and engaged. Key figures include: Simone de Beauvoir Doris Lessing Toni Morrison Cindy Sherman Octavia Butler Marina Warner Elizabeth Cady Stanton Chantal Akerman Betty Friedan Audre Lorde Margaret Fuller Sappho Adrienne Rich Each entry is supported by a list of the thinker’s major works, along with further reading suggestions. An ideal resource for students and academics alike, this text will appeal to all those interested in the fields of gender studies, women’s studies and women’s history and politics.

Examining the lives and work of historical and contemporary feminist intellectuals, Feminist Thinkers and the Demands of Femininity explores the feminist struggle to "have it all." This fascinating interdisciplinary study focuses on how feminist thinkers throughout history have long striven to balance politics, intellectual work, and the material conditions of femininity. Taking a close look at this quest for an integrated life in the autobiographical and theoretical writings of well-known feminists such as Mary Wollstonecraft, Emma Goldman, and Simone de Beauvoir, alongside contemporary counterparts, like Azar Nafisi, Audre Lorde, and Ana Castillo, Marso moves beyond questions of who women are and what women want, adding an innovative personal dimension to feminist theory, showing how changing conceptions of femininity manifest themselves within all women’s lives.

Essays describe the background and ideas of major feminists, from Aphra Benn and Mary Wollstonecraft to Vera Brittain and Simone de Beauvoir

"Feminist Social Thought gives a real insight into the works of six noteworthy feminist thinkers, namely, Simone de Beauvoir, Betty Friedan, Kate Millett, Shulamith Firestone, Juliet Mitchell and Sheila Rowbotham. The text promises to be the much-needed handbook for teachers and students of feminist thought giving a clear understanding of the classics of second wave feminism. This book offers a comprehensive and coherent guide to second wave feminist thinkers for students of Women's Studies, Sociology, and Social and Literary Theory."

A clear, comprehensive, and indispensable introduction to the major traditions of feminist theory, Feminist Thought includes incisive, critical examinations of liberal feminism, radical feminism, Marxist and socialist feminism, and ecofeminism. This third edition has been thoroughly reformulated and expanded to include the latest developments in feminist thought, including a new chapter on care-focused feminism (Chapter 5), an exploration of the connections of multicultural and global feminism with postcolonial feminism (Chapter 6), and a close consideration of the links between postmodern feminism and third-wave feminism (Chapter 8). Key feminist theorists such as Judith Butler, Martha Nussbaum, and Eva Feder Kittay receive new or extended discussions. The bibliography, organized by topics within chapters, provides an invaluable aid to further research. An illuminating guide to the diversity of feminism, Feminist Thought continues to serve as the essential resource for students and thinkers who want to understand the theoretical origins and complexities of contemporary feminist debates. Contents Introduction; the Diversity of Feminist Thinking 1. Liberal Feminism 2. Radical Feminism; Libertarian and Cultural Perspectives 3. Marxist and Socialist Feminism; Classical and Contemporary 4. Psychoanalytic Feminism 5. Care-focused Feminism 6. Multicultural, Global, and Postcolonial Feminism 7. Ecofeminism 8. Postmodern and Third-wave Feminism Conclusion; Margins and Centers

In her 1974 Revolution in Poetic Language, Julia Kristeva resisted the abstract use of language, with its aim of totalization and finality, in all its colonizing and alienating forms. A major thinker and critic, Kristeva reappropriated Hegel's concepts of desire and negativity, in conjunction with the thought of Heidegger, Arendt, Freud, and Lacan, to revolt against modernity's culture of nihilism and the West's inability to deal with loss. This collection celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of Revolution in Poetic Language by revisiting Kristeva's oeuvre and establishing exciting new directions in Kristeva studies. Engaging with queer and transgender studies, disability studies, decolonial studies, and more, renowned and rising scholars plot continuities in—and push the boundaries of—Kristeva's thinking about loss, revolution, and revolt. The volume also includes two essays by Kristeva, translated into English for the first time here—"The Impossibility of Loss" (1988) and "Of What Use Are Poets in Times of Distress?" (2016).

Lars von Trier's intense, disturbing, and sometimes funny films have led many to condemn him as misogynist or misanthropic. The same films inspire this collection's reflections on how our fears and desires regarding gender, power, race, finitude, family, and fate often thwart -- and sometimes feed -- our best democratic aspirations. The essays in this volume attend to von Trier's role as provocateur, as well as to his films' techniques, topics, and storytelling. Where others accuse von Trier of being clichéd, the editors argue that he intensifies the "clichés of our times" in ways that direct our political energies towards apprehending and repairing a shattered world. The book is certainly for von Trier lovers and haters but, at the same time, political, critical, and feminist theorists entirely unfamiliar with von Trier's films will find this volume's essays of interest. Most of the contributors tarry with von Trier to develop new readings of major thinkers and writers, including Agamben, Bataille, Beauvoir, Benjamin, Deleuze, Euripides, Freud, Kierkegaard, Ranciére, Nietzsche, Winnicott, and many more. Von Trier is both central and irrelevant to much of this work. Writing from the fields of classics, literature, gender studies, philosophy, film and political theory, the authors stage an interdisciplinary intervention in film studies.

A discussion of the work of feminist thinkers from the last three hundred years, which features contributions from contemporary writers such as Ann Oakley and Alix Kates Shulman on the feminist intellectual tradition pioneered by the likes of Aphra Benn, Christabel Pankhurst and Virginia Woolf.