Women In Transnational History

Women in Transnational History offers a range of fresh perspectives on the field of women’s history, exploring how cross-border connections and global developments since the nineteenth century have shaped diverse women’s lives and the gendered social, cultural, political and economic histories of specific localities. The book is divided into three thematically-organised parts, covering gendered histories of transnational networks, women’s agency in the intersecting histories of imperialisms and nationalisms, and the concept of localizing the global and globalizing the local. Discussing a broad spectrum of topics from the politics of dress in Philippine mission stations in the early twentieth century to the shifting food practices of British women during the Second World War, the chapters bring women to the centre of the writing of new transnational histories. Illustrated with images and figures, this book throws new light on key global themes from the perspective of women’s and gender history. Written by an international team of editors and contributors, it is a valuable and timely resource for students and researchers of both women’s history and transnational and global history.

Recent debates have used the concept of "transnational history" to broaden research on historical subjects that transcend national boundaries and encourage a shift away from official inter-state interactions to institutions, groups, and actors that have been obscured. This approach proves particularly fruitful for the dynamic field of global gender and women's history. By looking at the restless lives and work of women's activists in informal border-crossings, ephemeral NGOs, the lower management of established international organizations, and other global networks, this volume reflects the potential of a new perspective that allows for a more adequate analysis of transnational activities. By pointing out cultural hierarchies, the vicissitudes of translation and re-interpretation, and the ambiguity of intercultural exchange, this volume demonstrates the critical potential of transnational history. It allows us to see the limits of universalist and cosmopolitan claims so dear to many historical actors and historians.

How has feminism developed? What have feminists achieved? What can we learn from the global history of feminism? Feminism is the ongoing story of a profound historical transformation. Despite being repeatedly written off as a political movement that has achieved its aim of female liberation, it has been continually redefined as new generations of women campaign against the gender inequity of their age. In this absorbing book, historian Lucy Delap challenges the simplistic narrative of 'feminist waves' - a sequence of ever more progressive updates - showing instead that feminists have been motivated by the specific concerns of their historical moment. Drawing on an extraordinary range of examples from Japan to Russia, Egypt to Germany, Delap explores different feminist projects to show that those who are part of this movement have not always agreed on a single programme. This diverse history of feminism, she argues, can help us better navigate current debates and controversies. A tour de force from an award-winning expert, Feminisms shows that a rich relationship to the past can infuse today's activism with a sense possibility and inspiration.

Offering a comparative and international approach to early modern women's writing, the essays gathered here focus on multiple literatures across Italy, France, England, and the Low Countries. Individual essays investigate women in diverse social classes and life stages, ranging from siblings and mothers to nuns to celebrated writers. The collection overall is invested in crossing geographic, linguistic, political, and religious borders and in exploring familial, political, and religious communities.

The first cross-disciplinary history of women's international thought, analysing leading international thinkers of the twentieth century.

Since the 1970s West German historiography has been one of the main arenas of international comparative history. It has produced important empirical studies particularly in social history as well as methodological and theoretical reflections on comparative history. During the last twenty years however, this approach has felt pressure from two sources: cultural historical approaches, which stress microhistory and the construction of cultural transfer on the one hand, global history and transnational approaches with emphasis on connected history on the other. This volume introduces the reader to some of the major methodological debates and to recent empirical research of German historians, who do comparative and transnational work.

Women in the Modern History of Libya features histories of Libyan women exploring the diversity of cultures, languages and memories of Libya from the age of the Empires to the present. The chapters explore a series of institutional and private archives inside and outside Libya, illuminating historical trajectories marginalised by colonialism, nationalism and identity politics. They provide engaging and critical exploration of the archives of the Ottoman cities, of the colonial forces of Italy, Britain and the US, and of the Libyan resistance - the Mawsūʻat riwāyāt al-jihād (Oral Narratives of the Jihād) collection at the Libyan Studies Center of Tripoli - as well as of the private records in the homes of Jewish and Amazigh Libyans across the world. Developing the tools of women's and gender studies and engaging with the multiple languages of Libya, contributors raise a series of critical questions on the writing of history and on the representation of Libyan people in the past and the present. Illuminating the sheer diversity of histories, memories and languages of Libya, Women in the Modern History of Libya will be of great interest to scholars of North Africa; women's and gender history; memory in history; cultural studies; and colonialism. The chapters were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of North African Studies.

A lyrical and meticulously researched mapping of the ways in which diverse societies have shaped female same-sex sexuality across time and geograhy From the ancient poet Sappho to tombois in contemporary Indonesia, women throughout history and around the globe have desired, loved, and had sex with other women. In beautiful prose, Sapphistries tells their stories, capturing the multitude of ways that diverse societies have shaped female same-sex sexuality across time and place. Leila J. Rupp reveals how, from the time of the very earliest societies, the possibility of love between women has been known, even when it is feared, ignored, or denied. We hear women in the sex-segregated spaces of convents and harems whispering words of love. We see women beginning to find each other on the streets of London and Amsterdam, in the aristocratic circles of Paris, in the factories of Shanghai. We find women’s desire and love for women meeting the light of day as Japanese schoolgirls fall in love, and lesbian bars and clubs spread from 1920s Berlin to 1950s Buffalo. And we encounter a world of difference in the twenty-first century, as transnational concepts and lesbian identities meet local understandings of how two women might love each other. Giving voice to words from the mouths and pens of women, and from men’s prohibitions, reports, literature, art, imaginings, pornography, and court cases, Rupp also creatively employs fiction to imagine possibilities when there is no historical evidence. Sapphistries combines lyrical narrative with meticulous historical research, providing an eminently readable and uniquely sweeping story of desire, love, and sex between women around the globe from the beginning of time to the present.