Knowing Feminisms: On Academic Borders, Territories and Tribes

Liz Stanley

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0803975414 ISBN 13: 9780803975415

Publisher: Sage Publications UK, 1997

Knowing Feminisms looks at feminism as a vital source of new knowledge and new ways of working throughout a range of disciplines. It also scrutinizes the sometimes highly problematic forms its presence within academia can take. The contributors, all well-known feminist academics, discuss the epistemological and ontological `borderlands' that feminisms inhabit, which although within, still remain `other' to, the academy.

The book addresses fundamentally important questions such as: Should feminists work within traditional disciplines or abandon them in favour of Women's Studies? Is the idea of feminist pedagogy as `empowerment' actually one which de-skills? Does the feminist transformation of some academic disciplines signify that these are no longer significant sites of knowledge and/or power? Do the essential organizational features of disciplines and institutions depend upon repressive means, or is it possible to transform these according to feminist principles? Are some disciplines and types of institutions particularly resistant to feminist ideas? Is an intellectual `home' for feminism ever possible or desirable within academia, or is critical thinking best done from the margins? Can Women's Studies as an organizational presence within the university encompass dissenting positions on these foundational questions, or will it contain and control what can be said and by whom?

Review:

`Knowing Feminisms is an analysis of the complex relationship of the feminist academic with her profession... This book is an excellent compilation of feminist critiques from the standpoint of women in seven academic disciplines' - NWSA Journal

`Stanley's collection aims to avert the feminist gaze away from those "others" who are its subject matter, "and a little towards this `gaze' itself, to the process of knowledge production"... a necessary read' - Feminist Magazine

About the Author:

Liz Stanley is Director of Women's Studies and Reader in Sociology at the University of Manchester. Her recent books include: The Auto/Biographical I : The Theory and Practice of Feminist Auto/Biography (Manchester University Press, 1992); Debates in Sociology (with David Morgan, Manchester University Press, 1992); Breaking Out Again: Feminist Ontology and Epistemology (with Sue Wise, Routledge, 1993) and Sex Surveyed 1949-1994 (Taylor and Francis, 1995). An edited collection, Borderlands: Feminisms in the Academy will be published by SAGE during 1996. Liz Stanley is also the editor of the journal Auto/Biography and co-editor of the new online web journal Sociological Research Online.

CONTRIBUTORS

Johanna Alberti Open University Northern Region Newcastle upon Tyne

Carol Brown University of Surrey

Chris Corrin University of Glasgow

Kathy Davis University of Utrecht

Mary Evans University of Kent

Elaine Graham University of Manchester

Uma Kothari University of Manchester

Gina Mercer James Cook University Townsville Australia

Angela Montgomery Northumbria Probational Service

Jean Orr Queens University Belfast

Anne Seller University of Kent

Ailbhe Smyth University College Dublin

Sue Wilkinson University of Loughborough

Sue Wise University of Lancaster