A unique combination of the activist and the academic, Feminist Review has an acclaimed position within women's studies courses and the women's movement. It publishes and reviews work by women; featuring articles on feminist theory, race, class and sexuality, women's history, cultural studies, black and third world feminism, poetry, photography, letters and much more.

This collection contains essays by leaders in the field of post-structuralist enquiry as well as by those immersed in the new spirituality and the social consequences of recent biological research. Other essays reflect political struggles being waged with different strategies by radical feminists, and the analyses undertaken by feminists uneasy about their inclusion within educational institutions and the radical new interpretations of sexuality within the cultural domain.

Are women still oppressed? Is paid employment the key to liberation? Should pornography be banned? Do women have an absolute right to abortion? Can women in government really make a difference? This book draws on a wide range of theoretical, empirical and comparative material to provide a lucid account of feminist debates and the ways in which political disagreements stem from underlying theoretical assumptions. Clear and balanced in its assessment of different problems and perspectives, it offers an essential guide to contemporary feminist thinking and practice.

At no point in recorded history has there been an absence of intense, and heated, discussion about the subject of how to conduct relations between women and men. This Handbook provides a comprehensive guide to these omnipresent issues and debates, mapping the present and future of thinking about feminist theory. The chapters gathered here present the state of the art in scholarship in the field, covering: Epistemology and marginality Literary, visual and cultural representations Sexuality Macro and microeconomics of gender Conflict and peace. The most important consensus in this volume is that a central organizing tenet of feminism is its willingness to examine the ways in which gender and relations between women and men have been (and are) organized. The authors bring a shared commitment to the critical appraisal of gender relations, as well as a recognition that to think ‘theoretically’ is not to detach concerns from lived experience but to extend the possibilities of understanding. With this focus on theory and theorizing about the world in which we live, this Handbook asks us, across all disciplines and situations, to abandon our taken-for-granted assumptions about the world and interrogate both the origin and the implications of our ideas about gender relations and feminism. It is an essential reference work for advanced students and academics not only of feminist theory, but of gender and sexuality across the humanities and social sciences.

Now in its third edition, Feminist Literary Theory remains the most comprehensive, single volume introduction to a vital and diverse field Fully revised and updated to reflect changes in the field over the last decade Includes extracts from all the major critics, critical approaches and theoretical positions in contemporary feminist literary studies Features a new section, Writing 'Glocal', which covers feminism's dialogue with postcolonial, global and spatial studies Revised chapter introductions provide readers with helpful contextual information while extensive notes offer recommendations for further reading

Feminist Media: From the Second Wave to the Digital Age analyses the relationship between second wave feminist media production and capitalism, as well as identifying the tradition that can be drawn between second wave feminism, Riot Grrrl and feminist blogging today. There has been a recent re-evaluation of the importance of second wave feminist media, demonstrated by the digitization of Spare Rib by the British Library in 2015. However, up until now, research on the magazine has been limited. This book analyses the relationship between Spare Rib and the capitalist publishing industry, comparing it to American feminist magazine Ms. The book argues that it is important to understand the cultural economies of the magazines as this had an impact on the assumed readership of the magazines, therefore having an impact on the issues that were privileged. The second half of the book charts a crucial and often overlooked link between feminist media production in the ‘second wave’ and more contemporary forms of feminist media activism.

So what is feminism anyway? Is it possible to make sense of the complex and often contradictory debates? In this concise and accessible introduction to feminist theory, Chris Beasley provides clear explanations of the many types of feminism. She outlines the development of liberal, radical and Marxist/socialist feminism, and reviews the more contemporary influences of psychoanalysis, postmodernism, theories of the body, queer theory and the ongoing significance of race and ethnicity. What is Feminism? is a clear and up-to-date guide to Western feminist theory for students, their teachers, researchers and anyone else who wants to understand and engage in current feminist debates.

From the cutting edge to the basics The latest advances as well as the essentials of feminist literary theory are at your fingertips as soon as you open this brand-new reference work. It features-in quick and convenient form-precise definitions of important terms and concise summaries of the salient ideas of critics working in the field who have made significant contributions to feminist literary studies, and points out how a feminist perspective has affected the development of emerging ideas and intellectual practices. Every effort has been made to include as many feminist thinkers as possible. Expanded coverage of key subjects Overview entries cover topics ranging from creativity, beauty, and eroticism topornography, violence, and war, with a thorough exploration of the major theoretical points of feminist literary approaches and concerns. In addition, entries organized around literary periods and fields, such as medieval studies, Shakespeare and Romanticism survey subjects in the framework of feminist literary theory and feminist concerns. Shows how feminist ideas have shaped literary theory The Encyclopedia gathers in one place all the key words, topics, proper names, and critical terminology of feminist literary theory. Emphasis throughout is on usage in the United States and Great Britain since the l970s. Each entry is accompanied by a bibliography that is a point of departure for further research. A key advantage of this Encyclopedia is that it amasses bibliographic references for so many important and often-cited works within a single volume. Instructors especially will find this information invaluable in the preparation of course material. Special FeaturesOffers precise contemporary definitions of all important critical terms * Summarizes the salient ideas of key literary critics * Overviews cover major theoretical issues * Entries on periods and fields survey feminist contributions * Emphasizes terminology that has evolved since the l970s * Indexes proper names, subjects, key words, and related topics

In the past decade, a sense of feminist 'success' has developed within the United Nations and international law, recognized in the Security Council resolution 1325 on women, peace and security, the increased jurisprudence on gender based crimes in armed conflict from the ICTR/Y and the ICC, the creation of UN Women, and Security Council sanctions against perpetrators of sexual violence in armed conflict. Contributing to the development of feminist and gender scholarship on international law, Gina Heathcote provides a feminist analysis of the central pillars of international law, noting the advances and limitations of feminist approaches. Through incorporating into mainstream international legal studies specific critical and feminist narratives, this book considers the manner in which feminist thinking has changed international law, and the manner in which international law has remained impervious to key feminist dialogues. It argues for a return to structural bias feminism that engages the foundations of international law and uses gender as a method for challenging post-millennium narratives on fragmentation, the role of international institutions, the nature of legal authority, sovereignty, and the role of international legal experts.

Soon after its publication in 1973, Fear of Flying brought Erica Jong immense popular success and media fame. Alternately pegged sassy and vulgar, Jong's novel embraced the politics of the women's liberation movement and challenged the definition of female sexuality. Yet today, more than twenty years and several books later, literary reputation continues, for the most part, to elude Jong. Typecast by her adversaries as a media-seeking sensationalist, Erica Jong has been unfairly side-stepped by academia, Charlotte Templin contends. In this carefully researched study augmented by personal interviews with Jong, Templin assembles and analyzes the medley of responses to Jong's books by reviewers, critics, writers, academics, and the media-by liberals, conservatives, and feminists. She examines the diverse opinions on the merit and relevance to contemporary life of Fear of Flying; the invocation of a high culture/low culture dichotomy to discredit How to Save Your Own Life; the anatomy of literary success with Fanny; Jong's reception in a postfeminist age, and the trivialization of Jong's works that is inevitable with mass media exposure. Templin also shows how antagonistic reviewers tend to identify Jong with her fictitious characters—a practice more common when the author is a woman—and judge her to be guilty of the sin of not being a "proper woman." In turn she shows how reviewers reveal something of their own values and ideological biases in their critiques and how literary reputations are built, destroyed, and altered over time. The first book to make a detailed examination of the reputation of a woman writer, Feminism and the Politics of Literary Reputation provides an excellent case study for the literary reception of women writers within a broad cultural context. Templin's analysis offers valuable insight into the reception of women writers—especially commercially successful women writers—and dramatically illustrates the relation of literary reputation to popular appeal and cultural mores.