5th Edition
Feminist Theory Reader Local and Global Perspectives
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.
Preface to the Fifth Edition Acknowledgements Feminist Theory: Local and Global Perspectives – Introduction Section 1: Theorizing Feminist Times and Spaces Box 1 - Simone De Beauvoir – The Other Box 2 - Gayle Rubin – Sex/Gender System Box 3 - Joan Scott – Dimensions of Gender Box 4 - Audre Lorde – Poetry is Not a Luxury & Transformation of Silence Box 5 - Kimberly Crenshaw – Intersectionality Part 1: Mid-twentieth Century Foundations 1. The Day the Mountains Move Yosano Akiko 2. Women’s Liberation: Seeing the Revolution Clearly Sara M. Evans 3. Lost Visions of Equality: The Labor Origins of the Next Women’s Movement Dorothy Sue Cobble 4. Globalization of the Local/Localization of the Global: Mapping Transnational Women’s Movements Amrita Basu 5. A Black Feminist Statement The Combahee River Collective 6.La Chicana Elizabeth Martinez 7. Lesbianism: An Act of Resistance Cheryl Clarke 8. Bargaining with Patriarchy Deniz Kandiyoti Part 2: Moving Beyond Binaries and Borders 9. Lost (And Found?) in Translation: Feminisms in Hemispheric Dialogue Claudia de Lima Costa 10. Reweaving the World, Introduction Irene Diamond and Gloria Feman Orenstein 11. Understanding Reproductive Justice Loretta Ross 12. The Transfeminist Manifesto Emi Koyama 13. Reckoning with the Silences of #MeToo Ashwini Tambe Section 2: Theorizing Intersectionality and Difference Box 6 - Adrienne Rich – The Politics of Location Box 7 - Gloria Anzaldúa – Mestiza Consciousness Box 8 - Karl Marx – Historical Materialism Box 9 - Edward Said – Orientalism Box 10 - Walter Mignolo – Decolonization Box 11 - Monique Wittig – The Myth of Woman Part 1: Intersectionality 14. Critical Thinking about Inequality: An Emerging Lens Bonnie Thornton Dill and Ruth Enid Zambrana 15. Jennifer C. Nash, Re-thinking Intersectionality 16. Vrushali Patil, From Patriarchy to Intersectionality: A Transnational Feminist Assessment of How Far We’ve Really Come Part 2: Configurations of Difference 17. Heidi Hartmann, The Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism: Towards a More Progressive Union 18. Andrea Smith, Heteropatriarchy and the Three Pillars of White Supremacy: Rethinking Women of Color Organizing 19. Lila Abu-Lughod, Orientalism and Middle East Feminist Studies 20. Mrinalini Sinha, Gender and Nation 21. Maile Arvin, Eve Tuck, and Angie Morrill, Decolonizing Feminism: Challenging Connections Between Settler Colonialism and Heteropatriarchy 22. Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Integrating Disability, Transforming Feminist Theory 23.Raewyn Connell, The Social Organization of Masculinity Part 3. Boundaries and Belongings 24. Donna Kate Rushin, The Bridge Poem 25. June Jordan, Report from the Bahamas 26. Minnie Bruce Pratt, Identity: Skin, Blood, Heart 27. Audre Lorde, I am Your Sister: Black Women Organizing Across Sexualities 28. Lionel Cantú with Eithne Luibheid and Alexandra Minna Stern, Well Founded Fear: Political Asylum and the Boundaries of Sexual Identity in the U.S.–Mexico Borderlands 29. Simone Chess, Alison Kafer, Jessi Quizar, and Mattie Udora Richardson, Calling All Restroom Revolutionaries! 30. Leila Ahmed, The Veil Debate –Again 31. Obioma Nnaemeka, Captured in Translation: Africa and Feminisms in the Age of Globalization 32. Aimee Carrillo Rowe, Settler Xicana: Postcolonial and Decolonial Reflections on Incommensurability SECTION III: Theorizing Feminist Knowledge and Agency Box 12 - Patricia Hill Collins – Matrix of Domination Box 13 - Chandra Talpade Mohanty – "Under Western Eyes" Box 14 - Chela Sandoval – Oppositional Consciousness Box 15 - Michel Foucault – Normalization Box 16 - Judith Butler – The Gender Binary Part One: Standpoints and Situated Knowledges 33. Nancy C.M. Hartsock, The Feminist Standpoint: Toward a Specifically Feminist Historical Materialism 34. Patricia Hill Collins, Defining Black Feminist Thought 35. Chandra Talpade Mohanty, "Under Western Eyes" Revisited: Feminist Solidarity through Anticapitalist Struggles 36. Donna Haraway, Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective 37. Cathy J. Cohen, Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens: The Radical Potential of Queer Politics 38. Sandra Harding, Standpoint Theories: Productively Controversial 39. Cherríe Moraga, The Welder Part Two: Subject Formation and Performativity 40. Lata Mani, Multiple Mediations: Feminist Scholarship in the Age of Multinational Reception 41. Sandra Lee Bartky, Foucault, Femininity, and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power 41. Judith Butler, Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory Part Three: Embodied and Affective Knowledge 42. Alison M. Jaggar, Love and Knowledge: Emotion in Feminist Epistemology 43. Sara Ahmed, Multiculturalism and the Promise of Happiness 44. Kathy Davis, Reclaiming Women’s Bodies: Colonialist Trope or Critical Epistemology? 45. Bettina Judd, In 2006 I Had an Ordeal with Medicine SECTION IV: Imagine Otherwise/Solidarity Reconsidered Box 17 - Avery Gordon – Imagine Otherwise Box 18 - Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing – Friction Box 19 - Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak – The Politics of Translation Box 20 - Vandana Shiva – Women’s Ecological Struggles Imagine Otherwise 46. Jasbir K. Puar, "I Would Rather be a Cyborg than a Goddess": Becoming-Intersectional in Assemblage Theory 47. Viviane Namaste, Undoing Theory: The ‘Transgender Question’ and the Epistemic Violence of Anglo-American Feminist Theory 48. AnaLouise Keating, "I’m a Citizen of the Universe": Gloria Anzaldua’s Spiritual Activism as Catalyst for Social Change 49. Nirmala Erevelles, The Color of Violence: Reflecting on Gender, Race, and Disability in Wartime Solidarity Reconsidered 50. Breny Mendoza, Transnational Feminisms in Question 51. Na-Young Lee, The Korean Women’s Movement of Japanese Military ‘Comfort Women’: Navigating between Nationalism and Feminism 52. Niamh Moore, Eco/Feminism and Rewriting the End of Feminism: From the Chipko Movement to Clayoquot Sound 53. Eileen Boris and Rhacel Salazar Parreñas, Intimate Labors, Introduction 54. Malika Ndlovu, Out of Now-Here Works Cited Credits Index
Biography
Carole R. McCann is Professor and Chair of the Department of Gender, Women’s, + Sexuality Studies, University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). She is the author most recently of Figuring the Population Bomb: Gender and Demography in the Mid-Twentieth Century.
Seung-kyung Kim is Korea Foundation Chair in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures; Director of the Institute for Korean Studies in the School of Global and International Studies; and Affiliate Faculty of the Gender Studies Department at Indiana University Bloomington.
Emek Ergun is an Assistant Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies and Global Studies at UNC Charlotte. She is also the co-editor of Feminist Translation Studies (Routledge, 2017). She is an activist feminist translator and her most recent translation is of Octavia Butler’s Kindred, published in Turkey in 2019.
Remarkably rich in its selection and insightful in its execution, the fifth edition of Feminist Theory Reader: Local and Global Perspectives, edited by Carole McCann, Seung-Kyung Kim, and Emek Ergun is a significant resource for all feminist readers, including students, teachers, and activists. In attending to key recent debates and the dynamism and vibrancy of feminist scholarship, this anthology covers an impressive terrain from the intimate to the global and provides a terrific introduction to a wide range of frameworks and perspectives, including intersectional queer theories of performativity, postcolonial and decolonial theories of subjectivity, indigenous feminist studies, translation studies, and disability studies.
Richa Nagar, Professor of the College, College of Liberal Arts, University of Minnesota
Building on the rich cross-border engagements that characterized previous editions of the Feminist Theory Reader, the fifth edition of this now-classic collection includes new works on decolonial feminism, indigenous feminism, feminisms in translation, spiritual activism and more to help readers negotiate contemporary debates within the field. This is an ideal text for anyone seeking to become an informed, critical, and reflexive thinker and activist for social justice.
Suzanne Bergeron, Helen Mataya Graves Collegiate Professor of Women’s Studies and Social Sciences at University of Michigan-Dearborn
