Material Feminisms

by Stacy Alaimo (Editor), Susan J. Hekman (Editor), Elizabeth Grosz (Contributor)

Harnessing the energy of provocative theories generated by recent understandings of the human body, the natural world, and the material world, Material Feminisms presents an entirely new way for feminists to conceive of the question of materiality. In lively and timely essays, an international group of feminist thinkers challenges the assumptions and norms that have previously defined studies about the body. These wide-ranging essays grapple with topics such as the material reality of race, the significance of sexual difference, the impact of disability experience, and the complex interaction between nature and culture in traumatic events such as Hurricane Katrina. By insisting on the importance of materiality, this volume breaks new ground in philosophy, feminist theory, cultural studies, science studies, and other fields where the body and nature collide.

Genres: Feminism, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Theory, Feminist Theory, Gender Studies, Essays

434 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Miriam · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best scholarly books I have read so far on my thesis reading list. Great and inspiring essays.

[Ruby · Rating 4 out of 5]

haven't read everything in here, but what I've read is v. important and I'm sure I'll keep returning to this. Susan Bordo's piece is brilliant.

[Anabel Giacobbi]

Absolutely hilarious that this book is winding up on my Goodreads. I need a site where I can shelf and review academic articles. Anyway. A useful read and really thoughtful. I picked this book up from the library for a paper I was writing about the Garden of Adonis in FQ III.vi and it gave me a lot about body and 'nature' and so forth. Also pointed me toward Ladelle McWhorter's writing, which was nice to thumb through as well.

[Zuzia M · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fav authors, fabulous content, marvellous read. Hard to believe it was published 17 years ago. -1 star for a slightly too fragile white-woman-adopting-a-biracial-child piece by Bordo. But again. It was 2008.

[B.D.N. · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5

[and]

read only chapter 8, "Trans-corporeal Feminisms and the Ethical Space of Nature" by Stacy Alaimo

"If one cannot presume to master one’s own body, which has 'its' own forces, many of which can never fully be comprehended, even with the help of medical knowledge and technologies, one cannot presume to master the rest of the world."

[Eugenia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent collection -- each of the essays was useful in a different way. I wound up reading each of them because I was stranded in the bookstore where I'd just bought it. Elizabeth Grosz's essay on Darwinism and feminism is interesting and succeeded in making me want to go back and read Darwin. Tobin Siebers' discussion of disabilities studies, feminism, and sexuality is provocative and original. Susan Bordo's biographical essay about braiding and straightening hair taught me something new about what I had thought was a tired-to-death discussion. If I were critiquing the collection it would be for the fact that it doesn't include an analysis of poverty (in either a local or a global sense). Chen's _Animacies_ (which I read at the same time) does a better job at analyzing the intersections of large scale economics, globalization, sexuality, and identity politics.

[Kandice · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought the combination of literature and science was enlightening and brought a new perspective to issues to the day and the way in which we perceive what is feminism. Stacy Alaimo herself is brilliant, and this is well worth the read, particularly if you are working the field of eco-criticism.

[Alison · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wanted more from this book, but only because it's focused on useful lines of thinking and I wanted it to move the field more quickly. It kept my interest.