This book is an examination of feminist writers' appropriation of a range of popular genres: detective fiction, science fiction, romance, and the fairy tale. The author argues that feminists can successfully appropriate all four genres because genres, as cultural productions, have accommodated the cultural changes brought about by second-wave feminism. The book provides a history of each of the genres, reinstating women's contributions in those histories, and a comprehensive review of the feminist critical debates on each of the genres.

Subaltern Women's Narratives brings together intersectional feminist scholarship from the Humanities and Social Sciences and explores subaltern women's narratives of resistance and subversion. Interdisciplinary in nature, the collection focuses on fictional texts, archival records, and ethnographic research to explore the lived experiences of subaltern women in different marginalised communities across a wide geographical landscape, as they negotiate their way through modes of labour and activism. Thematically grouped, the focus of this book is two-fold: to look at the lived experiences of subaltern women as they negotiate their lives in a world of political flux and conflicts; and to examine subaltern women's dissenting practices as recorded in texts and archives. This collection will push the boundaries of scholarship on decolonial and postcolonial feminism and subaltern studies, reading women's subversive practices especially in the themes of epistemology and embodiment. This book is aimed primarily at scholars, postgraduates, and undergraduates working in the fields of colonial and postcolonial studies. It will appeal to both historians and scholars of nineteenth century and contemporary literature. Specifically scholars working on subaltern theory, feminist theory, indigenous cultures, anticolonial resistance, and the Global South will find this book particularly relevant.

The Safety Trap: Why We Need Diverse and Brave Spaces explains how the histories and currency of safe spaces are determined by those with privilege and power; those who choose to invite us in or leave us out. Whether we encounter boundaries at national borders, bathrooms, or birth certificates, our personal safety and wellbeing is at stake. Gender-diverse and queer non-binary people, have bodies, brains, and hearts that challenge traditional ways of being male, female, gay, straight, Black, white, good, and bad. These practitioners-at the interfaces of government policy, architecture, queer art curation, group work, sex work, and tattooing-explore cancel culture and free speech, considering what it takes to be brave. In our current times of global conflict and binary oppositions, they address the urgent need for accessible and inclusive spaces everywhere. To listen and speak across the ideological voids that divide us, we must understand the differences that underpin our feelings of safety and discomfort.

Two works in one, this volume contains the full text of "With Her in Ourland" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, as well as an illuminating sociological analysis by Mary Jo Deegan with the assistance of Michael R. Hill. "Ourland" is the sequel to Gilman's acclaimed feminist utopian novel "Herland"; both were published in her journal, "The Forerunner," in 1915 and 1916. "Ourland" resumes the adventures of DEGREESIHerland DEGREESR's protagonists, Ellador and Van, but turns from utopian fantasy to a challenging analysis of contemporary social fissures in "his land," or the real world. The republication of "Herland" as a separate novel in 1979 revived critical interest in Gilman's work but truncated the larger aims implicit in the DEGREESIHerland/Ourland DEGREESR saga, leaving an erroneous understanding of Gilman's other/better half of the story, in which it is suggested that strong women can resocialize men to be nurturant and cooperative. Gilman's choice of a sexually integrated society in "With Her in Ourland" provides us with her answer to her ideal society, but her foray into a woman-only society as a corrective to a male dominated one is a controversial option. The challenging message of "Ourland," however, does not impede the pleasure of reading it as a novel.

Though known more for her fiction today, Gilman in her time was a recognized and accomplished sociologist who admired Lester F. Ward and frequently visited Jane Addams of Chicago's Hull-House. The male protagonist in "Herland/Ourland," Van, is a sociologist, used by Gilman as a foil on which to skewer the assumptions and practices of patriarchal sociology. The interpretation presented here, which adopts a sociological viewpoint, is invaluable reading for scholars and students of sociology, American women's studies, and utopian literature.

Ruling Women is the first study of its kind devoted to an analysis of the debate concerning government by women in seventeenth-century France. Drawing on a wide range of political, feminist and dramatic texts, Conroy sets out to demonstrate that the dominant discourse which upholds patriarchy at the time is frequently in conflict with alternative discourses which frame gynaecocracy as a feasible, and laudable reality, and which reconfigure (wittingly or unwittingly) the normative paradigm of male authority. Central to the argument is an analysis of how the discourse which constructs government as a male prerogative quite simply implodes when juxtaposed with the traditional political discourse of virtue ethics. In Government, Virtue, and the Female Prince in Seventeenth-Century France, the first volume of the two-volume study, the author examines the dominant discourse which excludes women from political authority before turning to the configuration of women and rulership in the pro-woman and egalitarian discourses of the period. Highly readable and engaging, Conroy's work will appeal to those interested in the history of women in political thought and the history of feminism, in addition to scholars of seventeenth-century literature and history of ideas.

This book focuses on some English-speaking women philosophers who have been major actors since the 20th century in the field of practical philosophy, namely political and social philosophy, feminist approaches to philosophy, moral psychology, the theory of action and ethics. The book explores topics linked to the main aspects of the thought of those philosophers, i.e. Elizabeth Anscombe, Judith Butler, Philippa Foot, Nancy Fraser, Carol Gilligan and Martha Nussbaum. Six women French commentators have written a chapter on each of those women anglo-american philosophers, creating a dialogue as they think with them, elaborating their own positions in their respective fields.

With contributions from established and emerging scholars, this collection draws on original research to consider recent theoretical and methodological debates, shifts in law and policy, and social and cultural changes around sexuality. The book bridges identified gaps between theory, research methods and practice, and lived experiences across time and place. It reflects on the current wave of interdisciplinary work, setting out new ways of conceptualizing and researching sexuality and explores persistently marginalized, re-traditionalized and normative sexual practices, subjectivities and identities. This distinctive consideration of innovative contributions from across the humanities and social sciences places emergent debates, enduring legacies and new queries within its 'reflections' and 'futures'.

Challenging the simplistic story by which feminism has become complicit in neoliberalism, this book traces the course of globalization of women's economic empowerment from the Global South to the Global North and critically examines the practice of empowering low-income women, primarily migrant, indigenous and racialised women. The author argues that women's economic empowerment organizations become embedded in the neoliberal re-organization of relations between civil society, state and market, and in the reconfiguration of relations between the personal and the political. Also examined are the contractual nature of institutional arrangements in neoliberalism, the ontological divide between economy and society, and the marginalisation of feminist economics that persists in the field of women's economic empowerment. The book will be of interest to scholars and students of social sciences, gender studies, sociology, and economics. This book is based on the author's doctoral dissertation at the Humboldt University of Berlin, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences.

The contributors to this original volume provide a new and nuanced approach to studying how discourses of religion shape public domains in sites of political contestation and "broken solidarities." Our public discourse is saturated with intractable debates about religion, race, gender, and nationalism. Examples range from Muslim women and headscarves to Palestine/Israel and to global anti-Black racism, along with other pertinent issues. We need fresh thinking to navigate the questions that these debates raise for social justice and solidarity across lines of difference. In Religion and Broken Solidarities, the contributors provide powerful reflections and wisdom to guide how we can approach these questions with deep ethical commitments, intersectional sensibilities, and intellectual rigor. Religion and Broken Solidarities traces the role of religious discourse in unrealized moments of solidarity between marginalized groups who ostensibly share similar aims. Religion, the contributors contend, cannot be separated from national, racial, gendered, and other ways of belonging. These modes of belonging make it difficult for different minoritized groups to see how their struggles might benefit from engagement with one another. The four chapters, which interpret historical and contemporary events with a sharp and critical lens, examine accusations of antisemitism and anti-Muslim racism in the Women's March in Washington, DC; the failure of feminists in Iran and Turkey to realize a common cause because of nationalist discourse concerning religiosity and secularity; Black Catholics seeking to overcome the problems of modernity in the West; and the disjunction between the Palestinian and Mizrahi cause in Palestine/Israel. Together these analyses show that overcoming constraints to solidarity requires alternative imaginaries to that of the modern nation-state. Contributors: Atalia Omer, Joshua Lupo, Perin E. Gurel, Juliane Hammer, Ruth Carmi, Brenna Moore, and Melani McAlister.

'One the foremost writers and participants in the Kurdish women's movement' - Harsha Walia The Kurdish women's movement is at the heart of one of the most exciting revolutionary experiments in the world today: Rojava. Forged over decades of struggle, most recently in the fight against ISIS, Rojava embodies a radical commitment to ecology, democracy and women's liberation. But while striking images of Kurdish women in military fatigues proliferate, a true understanding of the women's movement remains elusive. Taking apart the superficial and Orientalist frameworks that dominate, Dilar Dirik offers instead an empirically rich account of the women's movement in Kurdistan. Drawing on original research and ethnographic fieldwork, she surveys the movement's historical origins, ideological evolution, and political practice over the past forty years. Going beyond abstract ideas, Dirik locates the movement's culture and ideology in its concrete work for women's revolution in the here and now. Taking the reader from the guerrilla camps in the mountains to radical women's academies and self-organised refugee camps, readers around the world can engage with the revolution in Kurdistan, both theoretically and practically, as a vital touchstone in the wider struggle for a militant anti-fascist, anti-capitalist feminist internationalism.

The relationship between women and houses has always been complex. Many influential writers have used the space of the house to portray women's conflicts with the society of their time. On the one hand, houses can represent a place of physical, psychological and moral restrictions, and on the other, they often serve as a metaphor for economic freedom and social acceptance. This usage is particularly pronounced in works written in the nineteenth and twentieth century, when restrictions on women's roles were changing: "anxieties about space sometimes seem to dominate the literature of both nineteenth-century women and their twentieth-century descendants." The Metaphor of the House in Feminist Literature uses a feminist literary criticism approach in order to examine the use of the house as metaphor in nineteenth and twentieth century literature.

Cuban Feminist Theology: Visions and Praxis offers rare and much needed insights in essays that span the entirety of Cuban theologian Ofelia Miriam Ortega's career. The chapters address the social, economic, and political realities in Cuba, the Caribbean and Latin America as the contexts of Cuban feminist theology; the challenges of ecumenism; the urgency of feminist and liberationist theologies amongst patriarchal and oppressive systems throughout the world; and the importance of theological education.

Victorian traveller Mary Kingsley has been portrayed as a victim of 19th-century attitudes towards women, a brave and daring explorer, an anti-imperialist agitator and even a feminist heroine. In this biography, Dea Birkett examines and then confronts all these portraits. Mary Kingsley was neither victim nor rebel, but a late Victorian woman who manipulated the boundaries of her life without ever openly overstepping them. She argued against women's suffrage and for absolute differences between the races. She campaigned to prevent women becoming members of the learned societies in Britain, yet canoed up rapids in West Africa. Africa gave her a new life yet in the end it killed her.

Today, a multiplicity of feminist approaches has become an integral part of the fields of German literary and cultural studies. This comprehensive reference provides a much needed synthesis of the contribution women have made to German literature and culture. In entries for more than 500 topics, the volume surveys literary periods, epochs, and genres; critical approaches and theories; important authors and works; female stereotypes; laws and historical developments; literary concepts and themes; and organizations and archives relevant to women and women's studies. Each entry offers a concise identification of the term, a discussion of its significance, and a bibliography of works for further reading. Today, a multiplicity of feminist approaches has become an integral part of the fields of German literary and cultural studies. While biographical works on women writers exist, this is the first reference to synthesize the wealth of feminist scholarship in German studies. While existing reference works focus exclusively on women authors, this volume contains numerous topical entries and covers the role of women in German literature and culture from the Middle Ages to the present day. Included are alphabetically arranged entries on more than 500 topics. While some entries are provided for important women writers and other individuals, the bulk of the volume provides information on literary periods, epochs, and genres; critical approaches and theories; female stereotypes; laws and historical developments; literary concepts and themes; and organizations and archives relevant to women and women's studies. Each entry includes a brief identification of the subject, a discussion of feminist thought on the topic, and a brief bibliography. Entries are written by numerous contributors and reflect a range of critical/theoretical approaches.

This book argues that it is the fluidity of women's identities that enables them to bridge the gender divides and roles ascribed to them by society and culture with those that they have chosen for themselves whilst retaining a sense of their self.

This book explores the different ways women have been liberating themselves from the shackles of patriarchy and cultural laws that inhibit their independence and freedom to show that women are also contributing meaningfully to society. Women have worked to attain freedom through speaking out, writing memoirs, fiction, plays, poetry, and essays. The creative experiences of women are captured in this book, thus fulfilling the book's aim to give women voices to air their views and show that they are effectual members of society. The book examines the roles played by patriarchy, religion, and socioeconomic and political systems that keep women to the background. It also examines the issue of education, otherhood, marginalization, cultural imposition, and the diverse positions of women in local and international affairs. The book testifies that women's literature, and the stories of women all over the world, can be appreciated and viewed from different perspectives because of the diverse cultural environment in which women find themselves. This confirms that the issue of marginalization, suppression, and oppression of women are on-going problems in different societies around the world.

In this groundbreaking new study on ladinas in Guatemala City, Patricia Harms contests the virtual erasure of women from the country's national memory and its historical consciousness. Harms focuses on Spanish-speaking women during the "revolutionary decade" and the "liberalism" periods, revealing a complex, significant, and palpable feminist movement that emerged in Guatemala during the 1870s and remained until 1954. During this era ladina social activists not only struggled to imagine a place for themselves within the political and social constructs of modern Guatemala, but they also wrestled with ways in which to critique and identify Guatemala's gendered structures within the context of repressive dictatorial political regimes and entrenched patriarchy. Harms's study of these women and their struggles fills a sizeable gap in the growing body of literature on women's suffrage, social movements, and political culture in modern Latin America. It is a valuable addition to students and scholars studying the rich history of the region.

Capital is pushing into motion ever larger global material flows. In doing so it has come to depend on massive expenditures of energy, putting to work fossil fuels and the machines they animate to transform the world, accumulate power and grow the economy. The ecological relations and crises of today's societies are driven by the processes of extraction of the elements that come together as a throughput of material and energy flows controlled by capital and shaped by its imperative of valorization. In A Social Ecology of Capital, Eric Pineault proposes an original model of the fossil social metabolism that has sustained the growth of advanced capitalism in the last century. Drawing on ecological economics and critical political economy, the book analyses how the social structures of accumulation, production, consumption and waste determine and regulate the material flow and the accumulation of material artifacts. Showing how social relations shape the ecology of capital, the book highlights the contradictions humanity now faces.

J. Ann Tickner is ranked among the most influential scholars of international relations. As one of the founders of the field of feminist international relations, she is also among the most pioneering. In many ways her academic career has traced the development of the feminist subfield of IR, and it is no overstatement to say that the field today would look much different without her groundbreaking contributions. A Feminist Voyage through International Relations provides a compendium of Tickner's work as a feminist IR scholar, from the late 1980s through today. The book addresses the issue of methodology in feminist IR and the continuing challenge from traditional IR scholars that feminists don't perform legitimate scientific research. Tickner introduces and contextualizes her previous writings with new essays that trace her intellectual development as a feminist scholar. The chapters consider the introduction of women and gender into the conversation about IR, as well as feminist methodological interventions and conversations with the IR mainstream. The final section of the book includes some of Tickner's later writings on topics including race, imperialism, and religion. She ends with thoughts on the present currents of feminist IR and its place within the wider discipline. Given the way that her career has mirrored the evolution of the subfield, Tickner's book provides a methodological and epistemological story of feminist interventions in IR and a thoughtful refection on where the field is headed in the future.

An interdisciplinary study of market women from all parts of Africa shows how, from historical times to the present, African women have used the economic power they have derived from market activities and commercial enterprises to improve their social and political status in a man's world. They used their wealth in pre-colonial times to obtain titles and even chieftainship. Because of their involvement in trade, many women acquired considerable property, especially real estate. The authors stress the positive aspect of women's economic activities, but also point out the prevalent sexual division of labor in Africa as a limiting factor. They illustrate the concomitant struggle between men and women over certain market items traditionally associated with one or the other sex. They analyze the cultural, social, and economic barriers that restrict female involvement in some economic activities. Nevertheless, the overwhelming conclusion by all of the writers, who are Africans and Americans, is that women play a major role in the economic sector of all the regions of the continent.

Capitalist ideology wants us to believe that there is an optimal way to live. 'Making connections' means networking for work. Our emotional needs are to be fulfilled by a single romantic partner, and self-care equates to taking personal responsibility for our suffering. We must be productive and heterosexual, we must have babies and buy a house. But the kicker is most people cannot and do not want to achieve these goals. Instead we are left feeling atomised, exhausted and disempowered. Radical Intimacy shows that it doesn't need to be this way. Including inspiring ideas for alternative ways to live, Sophie K Rosa demands we use our radical imagination to discover a new form of intimacy. Including critiques of the 'wellness' industry that ignores rising poverty rates, the mental health crisis and racist and misogynist state violence; transcending love and sex under capitalism to move towards feminist, decolonial and queer thinking; asking whether we should abolish the family; interrogating the framing of ageing and death and much more, Radical Intimacy is the compassionate antidote to a callous society. Now as an audiobook, to listen to on the go.

Co-Honorable Mention for the 2021 Book Award by the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women and Gender (SSEMWG) In Heroines, Harpies, and Housewives, Martha Moffitt Peacock provides a novel interpretive approach to the artistic practice of Imaging Women of Consequence in the Dutch Golden Age. From the beginnings of the new Republic, visual celebrations of famous heroines who crossed gender boundaries by fighting in the Revolt against Spain or by distinguishing themselves in arts and letters became an essential and significant cultural tradition that reverberated throughout the long seventeenth century. This collective memory of consequential heroines who equaled, or outshone, men is frequently reflected in empowering representations of other female archetypes: authoritative harpies and noble housewives. Such enabling imagery helped in the structuring of gender norms that positively advanced a powerful female identity in Dutch society.

'Inspiring' GUARDIAN 'Heartbreaking' INDEPENDENT 'I loved it' ADAM KAY 'Beautiful' MATT HAIG 'Luminous' NICCI GERRARD 'Essential reading' MADELEINE BUNTING 'A celebration' CHRISTIE WATSON ----- A Best Book for Summer in The Times, Guardian and The i Independent Book of the Month ----- Caring is an issue that affects us all - as bestselling novelist Kate Mosse knows all too well. Kate has cared in turn for her father and mother, and for Granny Rosie, her 90-year-old mother-in-law. Along the way she has experienced the joys, challenges and frustrations shared by an invisible army of carers. At the heart of this care lie everyday acts of love, and the realisation that, sooner or later, most of us will come to rely on an extra pair of hands. ----- 'Lifts the spirits without pulling punches' IAN RANKIN 'Irresistible' RACHEL JOYCE 'Questions how and why we fetishise independence when the reality of human experience is always interdependence' GUARDIAN, BOOK OF THE DAY 'Heartfelt, funny and at times heartbreaking. 10/10' INDEPENDENT 'Utterly beautiful' FRANCESCA SEGAL