Everyday Women's and Gender Studies Introductory Concepts

Note to Instructors, Or, Is This the New Textbook For Your Intro Course? Introduction 1. Knowledges 2. Identities 3. Equalities 4. Bodies 5. Places 6. Representations 7. Conclusion: Now What? The (Anti) Conclusion

Biography

Ann Braithwaite is Professor and Coordinator of Diversity and Social Justice Studies at the University of Prince Edward Island. She is the co-author of Troubling Women’s Studies: Pasts, Presents, and Possibilities (Sumach Press, 2005) and co-editor (with Catherine M. Orr and Diane Lichtenstein) of Rethinking Women’s and Gender Studies (Routledge, 2012).

Catherine M. Orr is Professor and Chair of Critical Identity Studies at Beloit College. Her work has appeared in Feminist Studies, Women’s Studies Quarterly, Hypatia, and NWSA Journal. She is co-editor (with Ann Braithwaite and Diane Lichtenstein) of Rethinking Women’s and Gender Studies (Routledge, 2012). She lives in Madison, Wisconsin.

Everyday Women's and Gender Studies accomplishes what no one thought possible: it reinvents the introductory textbook form to reflect the field's intersectional commitments. Organized around key concepts -- from knowledges and identities to representation and places -- it provides a flexible format to engage students in the challenges and pleasures of thinking critically about gender, race, and sex today.

--Robyn Wiegman, Duke University

 

Orr and Braithwaite have given us that rare treat: an accessible, down-to-earth, yet still theoretically sophisticated guide to the ever-changing field of women’s and gender studies. By focusing on key concepts and not star theorists, ordinary life and not iconic examples, this book provides a welcome and innovative introduction to the twisted and all-too-everpresent ways in which gender exerts itself on our bodies, our minds, our ideas, our identities. A welcome addition to the literature!

--Suzanna Walters, Northeastern University

 

Everyday Women's and Gender Studies is an extremely welcome addition to the textbook landscape. Organized around key concepts rather than historical moments or cultural trajectories, it introduces students to the shifting, varied, and complicated discipline that is women’s and gender studies. My colleagues and I have been searching for a textbook that offers students an organized and purposeful entrance to the field without relying on constrictive foundational assumptions or falsely unifying narratives; I am pleased to say that, with the publication of Everyday Women's and Gender Studies , we may have finally found our answer.

--Tara Pauliny, John Jay College, CUNY

In Everyday Women's and Gender Studies, Ann Brathwaite and Catherine Orr take on the impossible—introduce, in very accessible language, first-time students, and quite possibly seasoned and new instructors to the vast and ever-evolving field of gender-based scholarly inquiries. In their organization by "concepts" rather than the conventional theoretical positions, historical periods, or cultural contexts, they succeed not only in providing information, but, importantly, modeling the field’s evolution through interrogating the very idea of how we come to know, and what we do with that knowledge. A must for every student and instructor both in and outside of Women's and Gender Studies!

--Sri Craven, Portland State University

This innovative textbook speaks directly to students and unpacks the knowledges, identities, bodies, representations, and places that motivate feminist pedagogy in women’s, gender, and sexualities studies (WGSS). Rarely have I seen a text that helps students imagine and then explore how WGSS is put together in theoretical and practical terms. The transparency and clarity of the text is impressive. This accessible resource will assist feminist instructors in reaching a broad audience and communicate the significance of the feminist "knowledge project" for a new generation of students.

--Nancy Naples, University of Connecticut

 

The authors have done something remarkable in creating Everyday Women’s and Gender Studies. They have written a text that deeply engages students about six core concepts in the field in a sophisticated yet accessible way. This invitational and streamlined approach makes this book a game changer for teaching women’s and gender studies undergraduates.

--Michele Tracy Berger, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill

 

Everyday Women’s and Gender Studies is a refreshing, provocative, and creative alternative to standard introductions to the field. Challenging predictable origin stories and disciplinary basics, the volume offers an accessible approach to the field even as it destabilizes its most stubborn dogmas. The result is an intellectually rigorous yet practical guide not only to rethinking women and gender but, more importantly, to reactivating, with a twist, that ancient ethical question: how are we to live?

--Lynne Huffer, Emory University

 

Written as a conversation with students about their everyday lives, Everyday Women’s and Gender Studies introduces core concepts of the field and demonstrates how these help us to come to a richer understanding of the world around us. The text is superbly accessible, while holding onto the the complexity of feminist thought, and it represents the very best of the lively debates that are the hallmark of Women’s and Gender Studies classrooms.

--Susanne Luhmann, University of Alberta