In this now established text the author presents her analysis of the power of law and argues for a feminist post-structuralist approach. She comments on pornography, as well as discussing recent research on rape trials and abortion legislation.

The first detailed study of the effect of provocation on culpability in morality and law, this book traces the fascinating history of the legal doctrine of provocation, right up to present-day controversies over the scope of the doctrine's application in murder cases.

Over the past twenty-five years, a range of critical - that is, Marxist, poststructuralist and, less frequently, feminist - perspectives has been brought to bear on the subject of punishment and, in particular, on the question of imprisonment in Western capitalist societies. Considered together, these critical views constitute a formidable challenge to traditional ways of conceptualising punishment. Yet, for all the advances made, the new critical perspectives remain deeply flawed in a significant, but as yet barely acknowledged, way - with (...) very few exceptions they are profoundly masculinist. Punish and Critique begins the task of exploring what a theoretically-informed feminist analysis of penality might look like and, in the process, uncovers a series of disjunctions in the recent critical analyses - for example, disjunctions between 'social histories' of prison regimes on men and feminist histories of the imprisonment of women. Most crucially, the book unveils a radical disengagement between two current critical theoretical projects: masculinist studies of the emergence of punishment regimes in the context of the state's power to punish, and feminist studies, which map the differential impact of disciplinary power on lived female bodies. In Punish and Critique Adrian Howe argues that a more fully social understanding of punishment must be informed by feminist research on women's imprisonment and by poststructuralist studies of the disciplining of women's bodies. Punish and Critique will be invaluable reading to all students, lecturers and professionals in criminology, women's studies and sociology as well as to those working in prisons and the probation service. (shrink)

This new edition of Drucilla Cornell's highly acclaimed book includes a substantial new introduction by the author, which situates the book within current feminist debates. In Beyond Accommodation, Drucilla Cornell offers a highly original vision of what feminist theory can give contemporary women. She challenges essentialist and naturalist accounts of feminine sexuality, arguing that any attempt to affirm woman's value and difference by either emphasizing her maternal role or repudiating the feminine only entraps women, once again, in a container that (...) curtails feminine sexual difference, legitimates the masculine fantasy of woman, and reinstates, rather than dismantles, the gender hierarchy. (shrink)

Relating Narratives is a major new work by the philosopher and feminist thinker Adriana Cavarero. First published in Italian to widespread acclaim, Relating Narratives is a fascinating and challenging new account of the relationship between selfhood and narration. Drawing a diverse array of thinkers from both the philosophical and the literary tradition, from Sophocles and Homer to Hannah Arendt, Karen Blixen, Walter Benjamin and Borges, Adriana Cadarero's theory of the `narratable self' shows how narrative models in philosophy and literature can (...) open new ways of thinking about formation of human identities. By showing how each human being has a unique story that can be told about them, Adriana Cavarero inaugurates an important shift in thinking about subjectivity and identity which relies not upon categorical or discursive norms, but rather seeks to account for `who' each one of us uniquely is. (shrink)