In Black Feminist Thought, Patricia Hill Collins explores the words and ideas of Black feminist intellectuals as well as those African-American women outside academe. She not only provides an interpretive framework for the work of such prominent Black feminist thinkers as Angela Davis, Alice Walker, and Audre Lorde, but she shows the importance of self-defined knowledge for group empowerment. In the tenth anniversary edition of this award-winning work, Patricia Hill Collins expands the basic arguments of the first edition by adding (...) several important new themes. A new discussion of heterosexism as a system of power, an expanded treatment of images of Black womanhood, U.S. Black feminism's connections to Black Diasporic feminisms, and more attention to the importance of social class and nationalism all appear in the new edition. In addition, the new edition includes recent developments in black cultural studies, especially black popular culture, as well as recent events and trends such as the Anita Hill hearings and the backlash against affirmative action. (shrink)

Unruly Practices brings together a series of widely discussed essays in feminism and social theory. Read together, they constitute a sustained critical encounter with leading European and American approaches to social theory. In addition, Nancy Fraser develops a new and original socialist-feminist critical theory that overcomes many of the limitations of current alternatives. First, in a series of critical essays, she deploys philosophical and literary techniques to assess the work of Michael Foucault, the French deconstructionists, Richard Rorty, and Jürgen Habermas. (...) Then, in a group of constructive essays, she incorporates their respective strengths in a new critical theory of late-capitalist political culture. Fraser breaks new ground methodologically by integrating the previously divergent insights of poststructuralism, critical social theory, feminist theory, and pragmatism. Thematically, she deals with varied forms of dominance and subordination in modern, industrial, late-capitalist societies. These themes are integrated in an original theory of 'the politics of need interpretation.' This concept becomes the linchpin of the socialist-feminist critical theory. (shrink)

Why Women are Oppressed offers a much-needed radical feminist perspective on the "political conditions of sexual love." Recognizing that "sexual life always exists in definite socioeconomic contexts," Anna G. Jónasdóttir develops a theory that elucidates the question: Why does men's social and political power persist even in Western societies where women have socioeconomic equality? Throughout, Jónasdóttir gives empirical relevance to her theorizing. She cites situations in various spheres of society where men and women compete and where men come out as (...) "winners" for no obvious reason other than their malehood. Her account of women as loving caretakers "for" men, rather than desiring, interested subjects in reciprocally erotic relations stirs debate about women's needs and interests. Author note: Anna G. Jónasdóttir is Research Fellow in Gender Studies and Political Science at the Swedish Council for Research in the Humanities and the Social Sciences, University of Örebro, Sweden. (shrink)