This book argues that neoliberal discourses prevalent in higher education seek to undermine, commodify, and co-opt the radical, transformative work that many gender and women's studies departments, programs, and centers are doing. The contributors to the collection discuss their responses to these challenges in and out of the classrooms, from mentorship and activism to active allyship and experimental pedagogies. They aim to inspire a new wave of feminist consciousness raising that will encourage transformative ways of engaging with the university and serve as doorways to new understandings of productivity and creativity.

The contributors in this collection argue neoliberal discourses are prevalent in higher education and seek to undermine, commodify, and co-opt the radical, transformative work that many gender and women's studies departments, programs, and centers are doing. The contributors discuss the ways in which they respond to these challenges in and out of the classrooms: from mentorship and activism to active allyship, experimental pedagogies, and applying feminist theory. The contributors propose a new wave of feminist consciousness raising, new tools for engaged teaching and activism, new visions of self-care models, slow research and scholarship, unionization, and new advice for leaving tenured or tenure-track positions that serves as doorways to new understandings of productivity and creativity.

Even as substantial legal and social victories are being celebrated within the gay rights movement, much of working-class America still exists outside the current narratives of gay liberation. In Steel Closets, Anne Balay draws on oral history interviews with forty gay, lesbian, and transgender steelworkers, mostly living in northwestern Indiana, to give voice to this previously silent and invisible population. She presents powerful stories of the intersections of work, class, gender, and sexual identity in the dangerous industrial setting of the steel mill. The voices and stories captured by Balay-by turns alarming, heroic, funny, and devastating-challenge contemporary understandings of what it means to be queer and shed light on the incredible homophobia and violence faced by many: nearly all of Balay's narrators remain closeted at work, and many have experienced harassment, violence, or rape. Through the powerful voices of queer steelworkers themselves, Steel Closets provides rich insight into an understudied part of the LGBT population, contributing to a growing body of scholarship that aims to reveal and analyze a broader range of gay life in America.