The essays in Transitions, Environments, Translations explore the varied meanings of feminism in different political, cultural, and historical contexts. They respond to the claim that feminism is Western in origin and universalist in theory, and to the assumption that feminist goals are self-evident and the same in all contexts.
Rather than assume that there is a blueprint by which to measure the strength or success of feminism in different parts of the world, these essays consider feminism to be a site of local, national and international conflict. They ask: What is at stake in various political efforts by women in different parts of the world? What meanings have women given to their efforts? What has been their relationship to feminism--as a concept and as an international movement? What happens when feminist ideas are translated from one language, one political context, to another?

The essays in Transitions, Environments, Translations explore the varied meanings of feminism in different political, cultural, and historical contexts. They respond to the claim that feminism is Western in origin and universalist in theory, and to the assumption that feminist goals are self-evident and the same in all contexts.
Rather than assume that there is a blueprint by which to measure the strength or success of feminism in different parts of the world, these essays consider feminism to be a site of local, national and international conflict. They ask: What is at stake in various political efforts by women in different parts of the world? What meanings have women given to their efforts? What has been their relationship to feminism--as a concept and as an international movement? What happens when feminist ideas are translated from one language, one political context, to another?

"Schools of Thought" brings together a cast of prominent scholars to assess, with unprecedented breadth and vigor, the intellectual revolution over the past quarter century in the social sciences. This collection of twenty essays stems from a 1997 conference that celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Institute for Advanced Study's School of Social Science. The authors, who represent a wide range of disciplines, are all associated with the School's emphasis on interpretive social science, which rejects models from the hard sciences and opts instead for a humanistic approach to social inquiry.

Following a preface by Clifford Geertz, whose profound insights have helped shape the School from the outset, the essays are arranged in four sections. The first offers personal reflections on disciplinary changes; the second features essays advocating changes in focus or methodology; the third presents field overviews and institutional history; while the fourth addresses the link between political philosophy and world governance. Two recurring themes are the uses (and pitfalls) of interdisciplinary studies and the relation between scholarship and social change. This book will be rewarding for anyone interested in how changing trends in scholarship shape the understanding of our social worlds.

The contributors include David Apter, Kaushik Basu, Judith Butler, Nicholas Dirks, Jean Elshtain, Peter Galison, Wolf Lepenies, Jane Mansbridge, Andrew Pickering, Mary Poovey, Istvan Rev, Renato Rosaldo, Michael Rustin, Joan W. Scott, William H. Sewell, Jr., Quentin Skinner, Charles Taylor, Anna Tsing, Michael Walzer, and Gavin Wright.

In Going Public, a collection of international thinkers convene to reconsider the public/private distinction, an issue long central to feminists in their academic and political work. The feminist critique of rights has been fundamental to changes in Western liberal democracy and global human rights campaigns. These essays, in geographically and theoretically diverse case studies, test the currency of the categories of public and private as they determine social practices including protections and invasions of privacy by states, employers and other institutions. They ask what counts as 'the private' in different cultural contexts and, in their unique discussion with one another, reconsider the history and direction of social change. The unexpectedness of the approaches in these essays will unsettle received opinion, provoke new discussion, and challenge readers to think more seriously about the importance of figurative language, the power of common and uncommon usage, and the meaning of rights.