"A ringing endorsement of the necessity of feminism to women's studies and of women's studies to the contemporary university, Women's Studies for the Future advances the field past the impasse between activism and poststructuralist theory and past paralyzing doubts about the viability of the category of women."-Judith Kegan Gardiner, editor of Masculinity Studies and Feminist Theory: New Directions "This collection provides insight on the institutional 'next steps' that will advance the field of women's studies and answers many of the academy's questions regarding the role and scope of our mandate."-Susan Van Dyne, professor and chair of the women's studies program, Smith College Established as an academic field in the 1970s, women's studies is a relatively young but rapidly growing area of study. Not only has the number of scholars working in this subject expanded exponentially, but women's studies has become institutionalized, offering graduate degrees and taking on departmental status in many colleges and universities. At the same time, this field-formed in the wake of the feminist movement-is finding itself in a precarious position in what is now often called a "post-feminist" society. This raises challenging issues for faculty, students, and administrators. How must the field adjust its goals and methods to continue to affect change in the future? Bringing together essays by newcomers as well as veterans to the field, this essential volume addresses timely questions including: .Without a unitary understanding of the subject-woman-what is the focus of women's studies? . How can women's studies fulfill the promise of interdisciplinarity? .What is the continuing place of activism in women's studies? .What are the best ways to think about, teach, and act upon the intersections of race, class, gender, disability, nation, and sexuality? Offering innovative models for research and teaching, Women's Studies for the Future ensures the continued relevance and influence of this developing field. Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy is a professor in the women's studies department at the University of Arizona, Tucson. Agatha Beins has an M.A. in women's studies from the University of Arizona and an MFA from Eastern Washington University.

This is the first analysis of periodicals' key role in U.S. feminism's formation as a collective identity and set of political practices in the 1970s. Between 1968 and 1973, more than five hundred different feminist newsletters and newspapers were published in the United States. Agatha Beins shows that the repetition of certain ideas in these periodicals-ideas about gender, race, solidarity, and politics-solidified their centrality to feminism. Beins focuses on five periodicals of that era, comprising almost three hundred different issues: Distaff (New Orleans, Louisiana); Valley Women's Center Newsletter (Northampton, Massachusetts); Female Liberation Newsletter (Cambridge, Massachusetts); Ain't I a Woman? (Iowa City, Iowa); and L.A. Women's Liberation Newsletter, later published as Sister (Los Angeles, California). Together they represent a wide geographic range, including some understudied sites of feminism. Beins examines the discourse of sisterhood, images of women of color, feminist publishing practices, and the production of feminist spaces to demonstrate how repetition shaped dominant themes of feminism's collective identity. Beins also illustrates how local context affected the manifestation of ideas or political values, revealing the complexity and diversity within feminism. With much to say about the study of social movements in general, Liberation in Print shows feminism to be a dynamic and constantly emerging identity that has grown, in part, out of a tension between ideological coherence and diversity. Beins's investigation of repetition offers an innovative approach to analyzing collective identity formation, and her book points to the significance of print culture in activist organizing.

This is the first analysis of periodicals' key role in U.S. feminism's formation as a collective identity and set of political practices in the 1970s. Between 1968 and 1973, more than five hundred different feminist newsletters and newspapers were published in the United States. Agatha Beins shows that the repetition of certain ideas in these periodicals-ideas about gender, race, solidarity, and politics-solidified their centrality to feminism. Beins focuses on five periodicals of that era, comprising almost three hundred different issues: Distaff (New Orleans, Louisiana); Valley Women's Center Newsletter (Northampton, Massachusetts); Female Liberation Newsletter (Cambridge, Massachusetts); Ain't I a Woman? (Iowa City, Iowa); and L.A. Women's Liberation Newsletter, later published as Sister (Los Angeles, California). Together they represent a wide geographic range, including some understudied sites of feminism. Beins examines the discourse of sisterhood, images of women of color, feminist publishing practices, and the production of feminist spaces to demonstrate how repetition shaped dominant themes of feminism's collective identity. Beins also illustrates how local context affected the manifestation of ideas or political values, revealing the complexity and diversity within feminism. With much to say about the study of social movements in general, Liberation in Print shows feminism to be a dynamic and constantly emerging identity that has grown, in part, out of a tension between ideological coherence and diversity. Beins's investigation of repetition offers an innovative approach to analyzing collective identity formation, and her book points to the significance of print culture in activist organizing.

Representing Rural Women highlights the complexity and diversity of representations of rural women in the U.S. and Canada from the nineteenth to twenty-first centuries. The 15 chapters in this collection offer fresh perspectives on representations of rural women in literature, popular culture, and print, digital, and social media. They explore a wide range of time periods, geographic spaces, and rural women's experiences, including Mormon pioneer women, rural lesbians in the 1970s, Canadian rural women's organizations, and rural trans youth. In their stories, these women and girls navigate the complex realities of rural life, create spaces for self-expression, develop networks to communicate their experiences, and challenge misconceptions and stereotypes of rural womanhood. The chapters in this collection consider the ways that rural geography allows freedoms as well as imposes constraints on women's lives, and explore how cultural representations of rural womanhood both reflect and shape women's experiences.

Representing Rural Women seeks to highlight the complexity and diversity of representations of rural women in the U.S. and Canada from the nineteenth to twenty-first centuries. The 15 chapters in the collection offer fresh perspectives on representations of rural women in literature, popular culture, and print, digital, and social media. They explore a wide range of time periods, geographic spaces, and rural women's experiences, including Mormon pioneer women, rural lesbians in the 1970s, Canadian rural women's organizations, and rural trans youth. In their stories, these women and girls navigate multiple settings and address the complex realities of rural life, create spaces for self-expression, develop networks to communicate their experiences, and seek to challenge misconceptions and stereotypes of rural womanhood. The chapters in this collection consider the ways that rural geography may allow freedoms as well as impose constraints on women's lives, and ultimately how cultural representations of rural womanhood both reflect and shape women's experiences.