Transformations – serie

Feminist scholarship is sometimes dismissed as not quite ‘proper’ knowledge – it’s too political or subjective, many argue. But what are the boundaries of ‘proper’ knowledge? Who defines them, and how are they changing? How do feminists negotiate them? And how does this boundary-work affect women’s and gender studies, and its scholars’ and students’ lives?These are the questions tackled by this ground-breaking ethnography of academia inspired by feminist epistemology, Foucault, and science and technology studies. Drawing on data collected over a decade in Portugal and the UK, US and Scandinavia, this title explores different spaces of academic work and sociability, considering both official discourse and ‘corridor talk’. It links epistemic negotiations to the shifting political economy of academic labour, and situates the smallest (but fiercest) departmental negotiations within global relations of unequal academic exchange. Through these links, this timely volume also raises urgent questions about the current state and status of gender studies and the mood of contemporary academia. Indeed, its sobering, yet uplifting, discussion of that mood offers fresh insight into what it means to produce feminist work within neoliberal cultures of academic performativity, demanding increasing productivity.As the first book to analyse how academics talk (publicly or in off-the-record humour) about feminist scholarship, Power, Knowledge and Feminist Scholarship is essential reading for scholars and students in gender studies, LGBTQ studies, post-colonial studies, STS, sociology and education.Winner of the FWSA 2018 Book Prize competition

This book explores ‘difficult conversations’ in feminist theory as an integral part of social and theoretical transformations.Focusing on intersectionality within feminist theory, the book critically addresses questions of power and difference as a central feminist concern. It presents ethical, political, social, and emotional dilemmas while negotiating difficult conversations, particularly in terms of sexuality, class, ‘race’, ethnicity and cross-identification between the researcher and researched. Topics covered include challenging cultural relativism; queer marginalisation; research and affect; and feminism and the digital realm.This book is aimed primarily at students, lecturers and researchers interested in epistemology, research methodology, gender, identity, and social theory. The interdisciplinary nature of the book is aimed at reaching the broadest possible audience, including those engaged with feminist theory, anthropology, social policy, sociology, psychology and geography.

This book explores ‘difficult conversations’ in feminist theory as an integral part of social and theoretical transformations.Focusing on intersectionality within feminist theory, the book critically addresses questions of power and difference as a central feminist concern. It presents ethical, political, social, and emotional dilemmas while negotiating difficult conversations, particularly in terms of sexuality, class, ‘race’, ethnicity and cross-identification between the researcher and researched. Topics covered include challenging cultural relativism; queer marginalisation; research and affect; and feminism and the digital realm.This book is aimed primarily at students, lecturers and researchers interested in epistemology, research methodology, gender, identity, and social theory. The interdisciplinary nature of the book is aimed at reaching the broadest possible audience, including those engaged with feminist theory, anthropology, social policy, sociology, psychology and geography.

This book is about the future: Ireland’s future and feminism’s future, approached from a moment that has recently passed. The Celtic Tiger (circa 1995-2008) was a time of extraordinary and radical change, in which Ireland’s economic, demographic, and social structures underwent significant alteration. Conceptions of the future are powerfully prevalent in women’s cultural production in the Tiger era, where it surfaces as a form of temporality that is open to surprise, change, and the unknown. Examining a range of literary and filmic texts, Irish Feminist Futures analyzes how futurity structures representations of the feminine self in women’s cultural practice. Relationally connected and affectively open, these representations of self enable sustained engagements with questions of gender, race, sexuality, and class as they pertain to the material, social, and cultural realities of Celtic Tiger Ireland. This book will appeal to students and scholars of Irish studies, Irish feminist criticism, sociology, cultural studies, literature, women's studies, gender studies, neo-materialist and feminist theories.

The mother-daughter relationship has preoccupied feminist writers for decades, but typically it has been the daughter's story at centre-stage. Mothering the Self brings together these maternal and daughterly stories by drawing on in-depth interviews with women who speak both as mothers and as daughters. This study examines the ways in which these mothers and daughters participate in their understanding of class, gender, and race locations, both using and resisting them. The result is a fresh start from which to consider the far-reaching implications of this relationship - not simply for mothers and daughters, but in terms of how we understand the shaping of the self and its place within the social world.

Examining the relationship between strangers, embodiment and community, Strange Encounters challenges the assumptions that the stranger is simply anybody we do not recognize and instead proposes that he or she is socially constructued as somebody we already know. Using feminist and postcolonial theory this book examines the impact of multiculturalism and globalization on embodiment and community whilst considering the ethical and political implication of its critique for post-colonial feminism.A diverse range of texts are analyzed which produce the figure of 'the stranger', showing that it has alternatively been expelled as the origin of danger - such as in neighbourhood watch, or celebrated as the origin of difference - as in multiculturalism. The author argues that both of these standpoints are problematic as they involve 'stranger fetishism'; they assume that the stranger 'has a life of its own'.

Examining the relationship between strangers, embodiment and community, Strange Encounters challenges the assumptions that the stranger is simply anybody we do not recognize and instead proposes that he or she is socially constructued as somebody we already know. Using feminist and postcolonial theory this book examines the impact of multiculturalism and globalization on embodiment and community whilst considering the ethical and political implication of its critique for post-colonial feminism.A diverse range of texts are analyzed which produce the figure of 'the stranger', showing that it has alternatively been expelled as the origin of danger - such as in neighbourhood watch, or celebrated as the origin of difference - as in multiculturalism. The author argues that both of these standpoints are problematic as they involve 'stranger fetishism'; they assume that the stranger 'has a life of its own'.

With contributions from some of the most important current feminist thinkers, Transformations traces both the shifts in thinking that have allowed feminism to arrive at its present point, and the way that feminist agendas have progressed in line with wider social developments. A thorough reassessment of feminism's place in contemporary life, the authors engage in current debates as diverse as globalization, technoscience, embodiment and performativity, taking feminism in fresh directions, mapping new territory and suggesting alternative possibilities.

With contributions from some of the most important current feminist thinkers, Transformations traces both the shifts in thinking that have allowed feminism to arrive at its present point, and the way that feminist agendas have progressed in line with wider social developments. A thorough reassessment of feminism's place in contemporary life, the authors engage in current debates as diverse as globalization, technoscience, embodiment and performativity, taking feminism in fresh directions, mapping new territory and suggesting alternative possibilities.

Using a variety of print advertisements, this exciting and provocative study explores how the consumer is created by advertisements in terms of:* Sex* Class* Race.It also explores the figure of the citizen and how this identity is produced by contemporary political discourses. Advertising and Consumer Citizenship will be essential reading for all those interested in the study of consumption, citizenship and gender.

Using a variety of print advertisements, this exciting and provocative study explores how the consumer is created by advertisements in terms of:* Sex* Class* Race.It also explores the figure of the citizen and how this identity is produced by contemporary political discourses. Advertising and Consumer Citizenship will be essential reading for all those interested in the study of consumption, citizenship and gender.

This exciting collection of work from leading feminist scholars including Elspeth Probyn, Penelope Deutscher and Chantal Nadeau engages with and extends the growing feminist literature on lived and imagined embodiment and argues for consideration of the skin as a site where bodies take form - already written upon but open to endless re-inscription.Individual chapters consider such issues as the significance of piercing, tattooing and tanning, the assault of self harm upon the skin, the relation between body painting and the land among the indigenous people of Australia and the cultural economy of fur in Canada. Pierced, mutilated and marked, mortified and glorified, scarred by disease and stretched and enveloping the skin of another in pregnancy, skin is seen here as both a boundary and a point of connection - the place where one touches and is touched by others; both the most private of experiences and the most public marker of a raced, sexed and national history.

This exciting collection of work from leading feminist scholars including Elspeth Probyn, Penelope Deutscher and Chantal Nadeau engages with and extends the growing feminist literature on lived and imagined embodiment and argues for consideration of the skin as a site where bodies take form - already written upon but open to endless re-inscription.Individual chapters consider such issues as the significance of piercing, tattooing and tanning, the assault of self harm upon the skin, the relation between body painting and the land among the indigenous people of Australia and the cultural economy of fur in Canada. Pierced, mutilated and marked, mortified and glorified, scarred by disease and stretched and enveloping the skin of another in pregnancy, skin is seen here as both a boundary and a point of connection - the place where one touches and is touched by others; both the most private of experiences and the most public marker of a raced, sexed and national history.

Featuring essays by leading feminist scholars from a variety of disciplines, this key text explores the latest developments in autobiographical studies. The collection is structured around the inter-linked concepts of genre, inter-subjectivity and memory. Whilst exemplifying the very different levels of autobiographical activity going on in feminist studies, the contributions chart a movement from autobiography as genre to autobiography as cultural practice, and from the analysis of autobiographical texts to a preoccupation with autobiography as method.

Featuring essays by leading feminist scholars from a variety of disciplines, this key text explores the latest developments in autobiographical studies. The collection is structured around the inter-linked concepts of genre, inter-subjectivity and memory. Whilst exemplifying the very different levels of autobiographical activity going on in feminist studies, the contributions chart a movement from autobiography as genre to autobiography as cultural practice, and from the analysis of autobiographical texts to a preoccupation with autobiography as method.

Women and the Irish Diaspora looks at the changing nature of national and cultural belonging both among women who have left Ireland and those who remain. It identifies new ways of thinking about Irish modernity by looking specifically at women's lives and their experiences of migration and diaspora. Based on original research with Irish women both in Ireland and in England, this book explores how questions of mobility and stasis are recast along gender, class, racial and generational lines. Through analyses of representations of 'the strong Irish mother', migrant women, 'the global Irish family' and celebrity culture, Breda Gray further unravels some of the complex relationships between femininity and Irish modernity(ies).

Women and the Irish Diaspora looks at the changing nature of national and cultural belonging both among women who have left Ireland and those who remain. It identifies new ways of thinking about Irish modernity by looking specifically at women's lives and their experiences of migration and diaspora. Based on original research with Irish women both in Ireland and in England, this book explores how questions of mobility and stasis are recast along gender, class, racial and generational lines. Through analyses of representations of 'the strong Irish mother', migrant women, 'the global Irish family' and celebrity culture, Breda Gray further unravels some of the complex relationships between femininity and Irish modernity(ies).

Why are we so reluctant to believe that women can mean to kill? Based on case-studies from the US, UK and Australia, this book looks at the ways in which female killers are constructed in the media, in law and in feminist discourse almost invariably as victims rather than actors in the crimes they commit. Morrissey argues that by denying the possibility of female agency in crimes of torture, rape and murder, feminist theorists are, with the best of intentions, actually denying women the full freedom to be human. Case studies cover among others the battered wife, Pamela Sainsbury, who garrotted her husband as he slept, the serial killer, Aileen Wournos, who killed seven middle-aged men in Florida between 1989 and 1990, Tracey Wiggington, the so-called "lesbian vampire killer", and Karla Homolka who helped her husband kill two teenage girls in St. Catherines Ontario in 1993.

Why are we so reluctant to believe that women can mean to kill? Based on case-studies from the US, UK and Australia, this book looks at the ways in which female killers are constructed in the media, in law and in feminist discourse almost invariably as victims rather than actors in the crimes they commit. Morrissey argues that by denying the possibility of female agency in crimes of torture, rape and murder, feminist theorists are, with the best of intentions, actually denying women the full freedom to be human. Case studies cover among others the battered wife, Pamela Sainsbury, who garrotted her husband as he slept, the serial killer, Aileen Wournos, who killed seven middle-aged men in Florida between 1989 and 1990, Tracey Wiggington, the so-called "lesbian vampire killer", and Karla Homolka who helped her husband kill two teenage girls in St. Catherines Ontario in 1993.

Is it possible that changes in rhetorical practice could alter not just how thought is expressed, but also how it is made? Through a close stylistic and rhetorical analysis of contemporary feminist writing - from the cultural theory of Judith Butler to the popular journalism of Naomi Wolf and Germaine Greer - Lynne Pearce demonstrates how feminist thought is created as well as communicated through the frameworks in which it is presented. By linking rhetorical innovation with feminist epistemology in such a direct way, this is a book that will be of immense methodological as well as theoretical interest to readers, providing valuable insight into the often mysterious processes of conception and composition.

Is it possible that changes in rhetorical practice could alter not just how thought is expressed, but also how it is made? Through a close stylistic and rhetorical analysis of contemporary feminist writing - from the cultural theory of Judith Butler to the popular journalism of Naomi Wolf and Germaine Greer - Lynne Pearce demonstrates how feminist thought is created as well as communicated through the frameworks in which it is presented. By linking rhetorical innovation with feminist epistemology in such a direct way, this is a book that will be of immense methodological as well as theoretical interest to readers, providing valuable insight into the often mysterious processes of conception and composition.

Postcolonialism has attracted a large amount of interest in cultural theory, but the adjacent area of multiculturalism has not been scrutinised to quite the same extent. In this innovative new book, Sneja Gunew sets out to interrogate the ways in which the transnational discourse of multiculturalism may be related to the politics of race and indigeneity, grounding her discussion in a variety of national settings and a variety of literary, autobiographical and theoretical texts. Using examples from marginal sites - the "settler societies" of Australia and Canada - to cast light on the globally dominant discourses of the US and the UK, Gunew analyses the political ambiguities and the pitfalls involved in a discourse of multiculturalism haunted by the opposing spectres of anarchy and assimilation.

Postcolonialism has attracted a large amount of interest in cultural theory, but the adjacent area of multiculturalism has not been scrutinised to quite the same extent. In this innovative new book, Sneja Gunew sets out to interrogate the ways in which the transnational discourse of multiculturalism may be related to the politics of race and indigeneity, grounding her discussion in a variety of national settings and a variety of literary, autobiographical and theoretical texts. Using examples from marginal sites - the "settler societies" of Australia and Canada - to cast light on the globally dominant discourses of the US and the UK, Gunew analyses the political ambiguities and the pitfalls involved in a discourse of multiculturalism haunted by the opposing spectres of anarchy and assimilation.

Class, Self, Culture puts class back on the map in a novel way by taking a new look at how class is made and given value through culture. It shows how different classes become attributed with value, enabling culture to be deployed as a resource and as a form of property, which has both use-value to the person and exchange-value in systems of symbolic and economic exchange.The book shows how class has not disappeared, but is known and spoken in a myriad of different ways, always working through other categorisations of nation, race, gender and sexuality and across different sites: through popular culture, political rhetoric and academic theory. In particular attention is given to how new forms of personhood are being generated through mechanisms of giving value to culture, and how what we come to know and assume to be a 'self' is always a classed formation. Analysing four processes: of inscription, institutionalisation, perspective-taking and exchange relationships, it challenges recent debates on reflexivity, risk, rational-action theory, individualisation and mobility, by showing how these are all reliant on fixing some people in place so that others can move.

Class, Self, Culture puts class back on the map in a novel way by taking a new look at how class is made and given value through culture. It shows how different classes become attributed with value, enabling culture to be deployed as a resource and as a form of property, which has both use-value to the person and exchange-value in systems of symbolic and economic exchange.The book shows how class has not disappeared, but is known and spoken in a myriad of different ways, always working through other categorisations of nation, race, gender and sexuality and across different sites: through popular culture, political rhetoric and academic theory. In particular attention is given to how new forms of personhood are being generated through mechanisms of giving value to culture, and how what we come to know and assume to be a 'self' is always a classed formation. Analysing four processes: of inscription, institutionalisation, perspective-taking and exchange relationships, it challenges recent debates on reflexivity, risk, rational-action theory, individualisation and mobility, by showing how these are all reliant on fixing some people in place so that others can move.

This book outlines a compelling new agenda for feminist theories of identity and social relations. Using Lacanian psychoanalysis with feminist epistemology, the author sets out a groundbreaking psychoanalytic social theory. Campbell's work offers answers to the important contemporary question of how feminism can change the formation of gendered subjectivities and social relations. Drawing on the work of third wave feminists, the book shows how feminism can provide new political models of knowing and disrupt foundational ideas of sexual identity.Kirsten Campbell engages the reader with an original intepretation of Lacanian psychoanalysis and offers a compelling argument for a fresh commitment to the politics of feminism. Jacques Lacan and Feminist Epistemology will be essential reading for anyone with interests in gender studies, cultural studies, psychoanalytic studies or social and political theory.

This book outlines a compelling new agenda for feminist theories of identity and social relations. Using Lacanian psychoanalysis with feminist epistemology, the author sets out a groundbreaking psychoanalytic social theory. Campbell's work offers answers to the important contemporary question of how feminism can change the formation of gendered subjectivities and social relations. Drawing on the work of third wave feminists, the book shows how feminism can provide new political models of knowing and disrupt foundational ideas of sexual identity.Kirsten Campbell engages the reader with an original intepretation of Lacanian psychoanalysis and offers a compelling argument for a fresh commitment to the politics of feminism. Jacques Lacan and Feminist Epistemology will be essential reading for anyone with interests in gender studies, cultural studies, psychoanalytic studies or social and political theory.

Art, value, law - the links between these three terms mark a history of struggle in the cultural scene. Studies of contemporary culture have thus increasingly turned to the image as central to the production of legitimacy, aesthetics and order. Judging the Image extends the cultural turn in legal and criminological studies by interrogating our responses to the image. This book provides a space to think through problems of ethics, social authority and the legal imagination. Concepts of memory and interpretation, violence and aesthetic, authority and legitimacy are considered in a diverse range of sites, including:* body, performance and regulation * judgment, censorship and controversial artworks* graffiti and the aesthetics of public space* HIV and the art of the disappearing body* witnessing, ethics and the performance of suffering* memorial images - art in the wake of disaster.

Art, value, law - the links between these three terms mark a history of struggle in the cultural scene. Studies of contemporary culture have thus increasingly turned to the image as central to the production of legitimacy, aesthetics and order. Judging the Image extends the cultural turn in legal and criminological studies by interrogating our responses to the image. This book provides a space to think through problems of ethics, social authority and the legal imagination. Concepts of memory and interpretation, violence and aesthetic, authority and legitimacy are considered in a diverse range of sites, including:* body, performance and regulation * judgment, censorship and controversial artworks* graffiti and the aesthetics of public space* HIV and the art of the disappearing body* witnessing, ethics and the performance of suffering* memorial images - art in the wake of disaster.