Women’s Studies: The Basics is an accessible introduction to the pathbreaking and cross-disciplinary study of women—past and present. Tracing the history of the field from its origins, this revised and updated text sets out the main topics making up the discipline, exploring its global development and its relevance to our own times. A new chapter on militarization and violence provides fresh insight into trends in the contemporary world and adds to curricular significance. Reflecting the diversity of the field, core themes include:
- The interdisciplinary nature of women’s studies
- Core feminist theories and the feminist agenda
- Issues of intersectionality: women, race, class, gender, ethnicity, and religion
- Violence, militarization, security, and peace
- Women, sexuality, and the body
Women’s Studies: The Basics provides an informed foundation for those new to the subject and is especially meant to guide undergraduates and postgraduates concentrating in women’s studies and gender studies. Those in related disciplines will find in it a valuable overview of and background to women-centered issues and concerns, including global ones. The work also provides an updated list of suggested reading to help in further study, classroom presentations, and written exercises.
1. The Invention of Women’s Studies
2. The Foundations of Interdisciplinarity
3. Intersectionality and Difference: Race, Class, and Gender
4. Global Agendas
5. Violence, Militarization, Security, and Peace
6. Women’s Studies and the Question of Gender
7. Feminist Theories and Methods
8. Embodiment, Sexuality, Identity
9. Classrooms, Controversies, and Citizenship
10. The Future of Women’s Studies in Our Information Age
Biography
Bonnie G. Smith is the author, editor, or co-author of more than twenty books and many essays in women’s and gender history, European and world history, and historiography. As Board of Governors Distinguished Professor at Rutgers University, she has taught women’s studies courses, including the comparative history of feminism.
