In this article, we advance a new understanding of “difference” as an ongoing interactional accomplishment. Calling on the authors' earlier reconceptualization of gender, they develop the further implications of this perspective for the relationships among gender, race, and class. The authors argue that, despite significant differences in their characteristics and outcomes, gender, race, and class are comparable as mechanisms for producing social inequality.

One of the most talked-about scholarly works of the past fifty years, Judith Butler’s _Gender Trouble_ is as celebrated as it is controversial. Arguing that traditional feminism is wrong to look to a natural, 'essential' notion of the female, or indeed of sex or gender, Butler starts by questioning the category 'woman' and continues in this vein with examinations of 'the masculine' and 'the feminine'. Best known however, but also most often misinterpreted, is Butler's concept of gender as a reiterated (...) social _performance _rather than the expression of a prior reality. Thrilling and provocative, few other academic works have roused passions to the same extent. (shrink)

Feminist Practice and Poststructuralist Theoryd offers a clear and accessible introduction to poststructuralist theory, focusing on questions of language, subjectivity and power.

This Bridge Called My Back - writings by radical women of color, is an anthology that two decades ago, called for 'a radical restructuring of this country' [ie the United States of America]. On the afternoon of September 11, 2001, Cherríe Moraga began her task of composing the foreword to the book's third edition. The bombing of America's World Trade Centre reminded her of the extent to which invasion and terrorism have, for five centuries, been a part life for Third (...) World people living in America, and in her essay she reflects that although the September Eleventh attacks shattered for the white residents of that country, their illusions of safety within its borders, that for the residents of colour, such illusions had rarely even existed. She draws analogies too, between the way that white middle-class American life style is lived, both on a national level and on an international one at the expense of people of colour, and she reiterates her plea of twenty years earlier, that the United States must cure itself of its racism and its sexism so that it can grow into wholeness. -/- -/- -/- This widely acclaimed and ground-breaking anthology comprises various sections of such dense and such diverse writing - poetry, free prose, academic essay - that I found it impossible to condense my thoughts about it into the few words of a book review. It includes the current, the 1983 and the 1981 forewords, prefaces and introductions. It contains also, a number of colour and monochrome reproductions of resistance, protest and subversive artwork from the 1970's that are intended as more 'words' for the reader to mull over (with a little help from Celia Herrera Rodríguez's explanatory curatorial statement.) So one can look at and learn some background to images of protest such as Betye Saar's 'The Liberation of Aunt Jemima' (a black nanny depicted with squalling white babe tucked under one arm whilst she brandishes a large gun in the other hand) or the energisingly subversive depiction of Yolanda López's 'Portrait of the Artist as the Virgen de Guadalupe.' . (shrink)

This book aims to productively engage the pioneering work of Queer theorists and point toe way towards a new sociological Queer studies.

This book reformulates the sociological subdiscipline known as the sociology of knowledge. Knowledge is presented as more than ideology, including as well false consciousness, propaganda, science and art.

The term queer has recently come into wide use to designate distinctive emphases in the politics and the intellectual study of sexuality. This article explores the unfortunate irony that most work falling under the rubric of queer theory has been undertaken largely at some remove from the discipline of sociology, despite the pioneering role that an earlier generation of sociologists played in formulating influential conceptions of the social construction of sexuality. The article suggests important continuities between the earlier sociological theories (...) and recent queer theory, but also analyzes the new challenges that queer theorists have posed by insisting on the indispensability of questions of sexual "marginality" to the larger understanding of social and cultural organization. The article concludes by suggesting how sociologists might engage with such a project. (shrink)

Ever since feminist theory introduced the distinction between sex and gender, the question of what it means to be a woman has preoccupied feminist thought. In ____Gender__ ____Trouble ____ Judith Butler questions whether it is possible to "be" a woman at all or, for that matter, any gender.

Borderlands/La Frontera deals with the psychology of resistance to oppression. The possibility of resistance is revealed by perceiving the self in the process of being oppressed as another face of the self in the process of resisting oppression. The new mestiza consciousness is born from this interplay between oppression and resistance. Resistance is understood as social, collective activity, by adding to Anzaldúa's theory the distinction between the act and the process of resistance.

Katie King examines the development of U.S. feminist theory, tracing its inception, rocky development, and internecine struggles. She argues that the subject matter of women's studies is cultural studies. "This book should definitively alter the map of contemporary feminist theory in the U.S. and abroad... " --Donna Landry.

In a unique rethinking of political transformation, Drucilla Cornell argues for the crucial role of psychoanalysis in social theory in voicing connection between our constitution as gendered subjects and social and political change.

'The problem of the twentieth-century is the problem of the color-line.' Originally published in 1903, The Souls of Black Folk is a classic study of race, culture, and education at the turn of the twentieth century. With its singular combination of essays, memoir, and fiction, this book vaulted W. E. B. Du Bois to the forefront of American political commentary and civil rights activism. The Souls of Black Folk is an impassioned, at times searing account of the situation of African (...) Americans in the United States. Du Bois makes a forceful case for the access of African Americans to higher education, memorably extols the achievements of black culture (above all the spirituals or 'sorrow songs'), and advances the provocative and influential argument that due to the inequalities and pressures of the 'race problem', African American identity is characterized by 'double consciousness'. This edition includes a valuable appendix of other writing by Du Bois, which sheds light on his attitudes and intentions. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more. (shrink)

Social theorists speculate about large-scale social questions, asking of any phenomenon, how is it possible? This book addresses how various social theories contribute key insights into the nature of organizations and management. The cast of characters to be found in this book have had a transcendental impact, including on the practices of the management and organization disciplines. For students, however, engaging with social theory in a conversation that is much broader and potentially richer than those that may have been previously (...) encountered is not at first easy. The question is where to begin: this book provides answers. Drawing on research from international contributors, this valuable textbook is an essential resource for students and introduces key social theories and theorists making them accessible to a management audience. The chapters include objectives and end-of-chapter reflective questions, as well as a glossary for readers grapping with new terms, available in the book and as a downloadable document. (shrink)

Rooted in Gloria Anzaldúa's experience as a Chicana, a lesbian, an activist, and a writer, the essays and poems in this volume profoundly challenged, and continue to challenge, how we think about identity.Borderlands / La Frontera remaps our understanding of what a "border" is, presenting it not as a simple divide between here and there, us and them, but as a psychic, social, and cultural terrain that we inhabit, and that inhabits all of us. This twenty-fifth anniversary edition features a (...) new introduction by scholars Norma Cantú and Aída Hurtado as well as a revised critical bibliography. Gloria Anzaldúa was a Chicana-tejana-lesbian-feminist poet, theorist, and fiction writer from south Texas. She was the editor of the critical anthologyMaking Face/Making Soul: Haciendo Caras, co-editor ofThis Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, and winner of the Before Columbus Foundation American Book Award. She taught creative writing, Chicano studies, and feminist studies at University of Texas, San Francisco State University, Vermont College of Norwich University, and University of California Santa Cruz. Anzaldúa passed away in 2004 and was honored around the world for shedding visionary light on the Chicana experience by receiving the National Association for Chicano Studies Scholar Award in 2005. Gloria was also posthumously awarded her doctoral degree in literature from the University of California, Santa Cruz. A number of scholarships and book awards, including the Anzaldúa Scholar Activist Award and the Gloria E. Anzaldúa Award for Independent Scholars, are awarded in her name every year. (shrink)

In a unique rethinking of political transformation, Drucilla Cornell argues for the crucial role of psychoanalysis in social theory in voicing connection between our constitution as gendered subjects and social and political change.

A critical analysis of Diana Fuss's Essentially Speaking: Feminism, Nature, and Difference and Elizabeth Grosz's Sexual Subversions: Three French Feminists.