Carole R. McCann - Böcker

Figuring the Population Bomb traces the genealogy of twentieth-century demographic “facts” that created a mathematical panic about a looming population explosion. This narrative was popularized in the 1970s in Paul Ehrlich’s best-selling book The Population Bomb, which pathologized population growth in the Global South by presenting a doomsday scenario of widespread starvation resulting from that growth. Carole McCann uses an archive of foundational texts, disciplinary histories, participant reminiscences, and organizational records to reveal the gendered geopolitical grounds of the specialized mathematical culture, bureaucratic organization, and intertextual hierarchy that gave authority to the concept of population explosion. These demographic theories and measurement practices ignited the population “crisis” and moved nations to interfere in women’s reproductive lives. Figuring the Population Bomb concludes that mid-twentieth-century demographic figures remain authoritative to this day in framing the context of transnational feminist activism for reproductive justice.

Figuring the Population Bomb traces the genealogy of twentieth-century demographic “facts” that created a mathematical panic about a looming population explosion. This narrative was popularized in the 1970s in Paul Ehrlich’s best-selling book The Population Bomb, which pathologized population growth in the Global South by presenting a doomsday scenario of widespread starvation resulting from that growth. Carole McCann uses an archive of foundational texts, disciplinary histories, participant reminiscences, and organizational records to reveal the gendered geopolitical grounds of the specialized mathematical culture, bureaucratic organization, and intertextual hierarchy that gave authority to the concept of population explosion. These demographic theories and measurement practices ignited the population “crisis” and moved nations to interfere in women’s reproductive lives. Figuring the Population Bomb concludes that mid-twentieth-century demographic figures remain authoritative to this day in framing the context of transnational feminist activism for reproductive justice.

The fifth edition of the Feminist Theory Reader assembles readings that present key aspects of the conversations within intersectional US and transnational feminisms and continues to challenge readers to rethink the ways in which gender and its multiple intersections are configured by complex, overlapping, and asymmetrical global–local configurations of power. The feminist theoretical debates in this anthology are anchored by five foundational concepts—gender, difference, women’s experiences, the personal is political, and especially intersectionality—which are integral to contemporary feminist critiques. The anthology continues to center the voices of transnational feminist scholars with new essays giving it a sharper focus on the materiality of gender injustices, racisms, ableisms, colonialisms, and especially global capitalisms. Theoretical discussions of translation politics, cross-border solidarity building, ecofeminism, reproductive justice, #MeToo, indigenous feminisms, and disability studies have been incorporated throughout the volume. With the new essays and the addition of a new editor, the Feminist Theory Reader has been brought fully up to date and will continue to be a touchstone for women’s and gender studies students, as well as academics in the field, for many years to come.

The fifth edition of the Feminist Theory Reader assembles readings that present key aspects of the conversations within intersectional US and transnational feminisms and continues to challenge readers to rethink the ways in which gender and its multiple intersections are configured by complex, overlapping, and asymmetrical global–local configurations of power. The feminist theoretical debates in this anthology are anchored by five foundational concepts—gender, difference, women’s experiences, the personal is political, and especially intersectionality—which are integral to contemporary feminist critiques. The anthology continues to center the voices of transnational feminist scholars with new essays giving it a sharper focus on the materiality of gender injustices, racisms, ableisms, colonialisms, and especially global capitalisms. Theoretical discussions of translation politics, cross-border solidarity building, ecofeminism, reproductive justice, #MeToo, indigenous feminisms, and disability studies have been incorporated throughout the volume. With the new essays and the addition of a new editor, the Feminist Theory Reader has been brought fully up to date and will continue to be a touchstone for women’s and gender studies students, as well as academics in the field, for many years to come.

The sixth edition of the Feminist Theory Reader provides a general introduction to feminist theory, both in the United States and globally.In their balance of foundational and contemporary texts, the editors situate feminist theory within intersectional and transnational social justice movements and uphold the book’s challenge to readers to rethink the ways in which gender and its multiple intersections are configured by complex, overlapping, and asymmetrical configurations of power. The new edition furthers its commitment to the voices of transnational feminist scholars throughout the book’s four central sections and addresses an array of topics of contemporary concern, including the care crisis, reproductive justice, indigenous feminisms, global civil society, settler colonialism, violence, prison abolition, neoliberal feminisms, transfeminism, and disability studies. A substantially revised final section considers solidarity strategies in contemporary times to tie together a new edition that shares theories of feminism and the voices and experiences of women across time and place, drawing from them important lessons for the present day.Enriching its foundation with newer essays and expanded scope, the Feminist Theory Reader delves even deeper into the paradigmatic concepts of the field and cements its place as a touchstone for feminist scholars, teachers, and students of women’s and gender studies for many years to come.