Table of Contents

Introduction: On Location / Robyn Wiegman 1
I: Histories of the Present
Feminist Cultural Literacy: Translating Differences, Cannibal Options / Sneja Gunew 47
Transnational Practices and Interdisciplinary Feminist Scholarship: Refiguring Women's and Gender Studies / Caren Kaplan and Inderpal Grewal 66
Notes from the (Non)Field: Teaching and Theorizing Women of Color / Rachel Lee 82
The Progress of Gender: Whither "Women"? / Robyn Wiegman 106
The Present and Our Past: Simone de Beauvoir, Descartes, and Presentism in the Historiography of Feminism / Jane O. Newman 141
II: Institutional Pedagogies (A Forum)
Contending with Disciplinarity / Kathleen M. Blee 177
The Past in Our Present: Theorizing the Activist Project of Women's Studies / Bonnie Zimmerman 183
Rethinking Collectivity: Chicago Feminism, Athenian Democracy, and the Consumer University / Judith Kegan Gardiner 191
From Politics to Professionalism: Cultural Change in Women's Studies / Jean C. Robinson 202
Battle-Weary Feminists and Supercharged Grrls: Generational Differences and Outsider Status in Women's Studies Administration / Devoney Looser 211
Taking Account of Women's Studies / Diane Elam 218
Nice Work, If You Can Get It---and If You Can't? Building Women's Studies Without Tenure Lines / Robyn R. Warhol 224
The Politics of "Excellence" / Jeanette McVicker 233
III. In the Shadow of Capital
Academic Housework: Women's Studies and Second Shifting / Dale M. Bauer 245
(In)Different Spaces: Feminist Journeys from the Academy to the Mall / Sivagami Subbaraman 258
Analogy and Complicity: Women's Studies, Lesbian/Gay Studies, and Capitalism / Miranda Joseph 267
Institutional Success and Political Vulnerability: A Lesson in the Importance of Allies / Marcia Westkott 293
Life After Women's Studies: Graduates and the Labor Market / Maryanne Dever, Denise Cuthbert, and Lindsey Pollak 312
IV: Critical Classrooms
Strangers in the Classroom / Sabina Sawhney 341
"Women of Color in the U.S.": Pedagogical Reflections on the Politics of "the Name" / Minoo Moallem 368
Negotiating the Politics of Experiential Learning in Women's Studies: Lessons from the Community Action Project / Nancy A. Naples 383
What Should Every Women's Studies Major Know? Reflections on the Capstone Seminar / Susan Stanford Friedman 416
Subversive Couplings: On Antiracism and Postcolonialism in Graduate Women's Studies / Laura E. Donaldson, Anne Donadey, and Jael Silliman 438
Afterword: Continuity and Change in Women's Studies / Gloria Bowles 457
Bibliography: Locating Feminism 465
Contributors 491
Index 499

Promotional Information

The future of a retheorized women's studies in an increasingly institutionalized context.

About the Author

Robyn Wiegman is Associate Professor of Women’s Studies and the Margaret Taylor Smith Director of Women’s Studies at Duke University. She is the author of American Anatomies: Theorizing Race and Gender and coeditor of The Futures of American Studies, both published by Duke University Press.

Reviews

"From the wealth of material and argument in the book, it is possible to construct a model women's studies program... Women's Studies on Its Own offers much to 'change life.'..."--David L. Sterling, History: Review of New Books "[T]his volume provides a rich body of knowledge about the current state of women's studies that increases our understanding of its institutionalization, and simultaneously serves as a source of constructive ideas for how the field can overcome its problems and continue as an academic site of radical politics. I recommend Women's Studies on Its Own not only to all the people involved in women's studies, but to anyone interested in important current issues in higher education."--Jill M. Bystydzienski, Contemporary Sociology Abstract in On Campus with Women, AACU newsletter, Feminist Academic Press column, and American Literature. Listed in Cultural Critique, Women's Review of Books, TLS Book Alert email, Women's Studies, Library Journal, College Literature, Critical Inquiry, Journal of the History of Ideas, and boundary 2. Negative review in Mississippi Quarterly