6 Paul Halsall Annotated Bibliography - Recent Trends in Feminist Historical Theory [This bibliography was compiled in 1988. Much further work has been done since then. Only use this as a starting point!] Alcoff, Linda, "Cultural Feminism versus Post-structuralism: The identity Crisis in Feminist Theory,", Signs 13:3 (1988), 405- 36. Alcoff distinguishes two dominant trends in contemporary feminist grapplings with the problem that self- definitions of the word `women' are loaded with patriarchal meanings. The `cultural' feminism of radical and psychoanalytic feminists locates the problem in the way men define women, but sees a real value in an essential femaleness. Post-structuralists, who see all definitions as linguistic constructs rather than real, have rejected the possibility of defining `woman' at all. Alcoff admits that gender is not a given thing, but proposes that its construction is formalized in a non-arbitrary way through a matrix of habits, practices, and discourses. This analysis allows Alcoff to reject the problematic idea of essential femininity, but to retain the validity of identity politics in contemporary feminism. Archer, John and Barbara Lloyd, Sex and Gender, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985) Ardener, Shirley, ed., Defining Females: The Nature of Women in Society, (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1978) The essays in this volume, well summarized by Ardener in the introduction, discuss the connection, if any, between women's biology and their position in various cultures. Some of the authors take a heavily biological approach, others insist that "biology and culture are mutually affecting spheres of reality." Auerbach, Judy et al., "Commentary on Gilligan's In a Different Voice", Feminist Studies 11:1 (Spring, 1985), 149-61 Carol Gilligan's view of women (see below) is criticized for its essentialist implications, and omission of consideration of other factors such as race, class, and religion in women's lives. Bennett, Judith, "Feminism and History", Gender and History 1:3 (1989), 251-72 Bennett argues that `women's history' is becoming separated from its roots as `feminist history'. This depoliticization is due to women's history's acceptance into the academic mainstream and is evidenced by the recent emphasis on describing women's lives and on women's agency. As a result history has yielded its importance in general feminist thought to disciplines such as literary criticism. To regain its wider feminist readership, Bennett insists that women's history must return to the analysis of the roots of women's oppression. Bock, Gisela, "Women's History and Gender History: Aspects of an International Debate", Gender and History 1 (1989) Boswell, John, "Revolution, Universals and Sexual Categories", in Martin Bauml Duberman et al, Hidden from History: Recovering the Gay and Lesbian Past, (New York: NAL, 1989), 17-36, prev. pub. in a different form in Salmagundi 58-59 (Fall 1982-Winter 1983), 89-113. Boswell defends himself against social constructionists' criticism that his work on the history of gay people is anachronistic since, they say, a modern gay identity has been constructed only in the last century. Putting aside ultimate questions about the formation of sexual identity, he argues that even without distinct labelling words, homosexuals, as well as homosexual acts, have existed across time and cultures in Mediterranean and western history. The article is a valuable response to constructionist theory by a more traditionally-minded historian. Bynum, Caroline Walker, Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987) Bynum's complex work is an important example of the application of new modes of thinking about women's history to their medieval experience. Rather than committing herself to any one feminist approach, she positions herself carefully in relation to several. For instance, one of her main points is that male saints tended to emphasize those aspects of life which differentiated themselves from the world, such as poverty and chastity, while female holiness preferred ascetic symbolism drawn from a women's connection with everyday life, such as fasting and sickness. This assessment ties in well with Gilligan's work (see below), but Bynum makes it clear that she does not think Gilligan can be used in a crude essentialist way and that her argument rests on medieval texts, not modern psychology. Cameron, Deborah, Feminism and Linguistic Theory, (London: Macmillan, 1985) Coole, Diana, Women in Political Theory, (1987) Culler, Jonathan, On Deconstruction, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982) Dubois, Ellen Carol et al, Feminist Scholarship: Kindling in the Groves of Academe, (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1985) Draine, Betsy, "Refusing the Wisdom of Solomon: Some Recent Feminist Literary Theory", Signs 15:1 (1989), 144-170 Epstein, Steven, "Gay Politics, Ethnic Identity: The Limits of Social Constructionism", Socialist Review 17:3/4, 9-54 Feminist Studies 14:1 (Spring, 1988). Special Issue on Deconstruction and its use in feminist research. Ferguson, Ann, "Patriarchy, Identity, and the Sexual Revolution", Signs 7:1 (1981), 159-72 Foucault, Michel, History of Sexuality, Vol. 1, trans. Robert Hurley, (New York: Random House: London, Allen Lane, 1978), trans. of La volonté de savoir. (Histoire de la Sexualité, Vol 1), (Paris: Gallimard, 1976) Of the modern French thinkers whose ideas form the basis of poststructuralism, Foucault is perhaps the most approachable. In this work he seeks to demonstrate that sexuality is constructed differently in each culture, indeed that the idea of sexuality itself is a product of nineteenth- century bourgeois self-concern. Foucault's ideas remain very influential, and here he addresses issues of immediate concern to feminist historians. Fraser, Nancy and Linda Nicholson, "Social Criticism without Philosophy: An Encounter between Feminism and Postmodernism", Theory, Culture and Society 5 (1988), 373-96 Fuss, Diana, Essentially Speaking: Feminism, Nature, and Difference, (New York: Routledge, 1989) An informed discussion from a poststructuralist perspective of essentialist and anti-essentialist trends in modern feminist theory. There is also an interesting chapter on the problems postmodern theories of analysis pose when used to analyse the construction of racial identity, as in some Afro-American literary theory. The point here is that these new forms of analysis are not restricted to gender issues. For Blacks in particular, a problem arises when such analyses seem to undermine the validity of politically important racial identities. Fuss also comments on the challenge of feminist theory to the practice of using participant experience as determinant of truth in women's studies courses. Gilligan, Carol, In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development, (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982) A stunning book, and an accessible presentation of psychoanalytic feminism. Drawing from her own research and the `object-relations' psychological theory of Nancy Chodorow, Gilligan argues that traditional psychological accounts of the inadequacy of women's moral development have seriously misunderstood and marginalized the value of women's moral perceptions. Because childrearing is almost universally done by women, Gilligan argues that female children are less concerned that boys with establishing their own egos and more concerned with attachment and preserving relationships. Gilligan disavows any claim that her observations are valid in other times or cultures, but her work has inspired many feminist historians to reevaluate the lives of historical women. Greene, Gayle and Coppelia Khan, eds., Making a Difference: Feminist Literary Criticism, (London: New York: Methuen, 1985) Greenberg, David F., The Construction of Homosexuality, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988) Grover, Jan Zita, "AIDS: Keywords", October 43 (1987), 17-30 Harrison, Brian and J. Macmillan, "Some Feminist Betrayals of Women's History", Historical Journal 26:2 (1983) The authors, two non-feminist male historians of women, respond to a critical review of their work by Patricia Hilden. In the process they discuss whether or not feminism is necessary, or indeed helpful, to produce women's history. They accuse some feminists of betraying an older tradition of women's history by denying its existence, by writing `combatant' history, and by projecting present political concerns on to the past. Although they tend, inaccurately, to talk about feminism as single approach, the authors do point out the necessity of comprehending women within the complexity of specific cultural contexts. Kelly, Joan, Women, History and Theory: The Essays of Joan Kelly, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984) Lerner, Gerda, The Creation of Patriarchy, (New Yorl: Oxford University Press, 1986) Levin, Eve, Sex and Society in the World of the Orthodox Slavs, 900-1700, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989) Lewis, Jane, "Women Lost and Found: The Impact of Feminism on History", in Dale Spender, ed., Men's Studies Modified, (New York: Pergamon, 1981) Nails, Debra et al., eds., Women and Morality, special issue of Social Research 50:3 (Autumn, 1983) An issue to discuss and criticise problems raised by Carol Gilligan' work. Nicholson, Linda, J., Gender and History: The Limits of Social Theory in the Age of the Family, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986) Ortner, Sherry and Harriet Whitehead, eds., Sexual Meaning: The Cultural Construction of Gender and Sexuality, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981) This collection consists of papers illustrating anthropological approaches to the social construction of gender. While the various approaches are anti-essentialist, they assume natural sexual processes are only an equivocal setting for gender constructions, the authors are less concerned with language than with analysing cultural symbols, for instance the various meanings given to "reproduction" in different cultures. The introductory essay gives a cross-cultural overview, illuminating, for example, the tendency for men to be defined in terms of roles or prestige (Brahmin, soldier, merchant, chief) and women in terms of relationships (mother, wife, daughter, consort). Padgug, Robert, "Sexual Matters: Rethinking Sexuality in History", in Martin Bauml Duberman et al, Hidden from History: Recovering the Gay and Lesbian Past, (New York: NAL, 1989), 54-64, prev. pub. in a different form in Radical History Review 20 (1979), 3-23 Radcliffe Richards, Janet, The Skeptical Feminist, (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980) Rapp, Rayna, Ellen Ross and Renate Bridenthal, "Examining Family History", Feminist Studies 5 (1979), 174-99 Sanday, Peggy Reeeves, Female Power and Male Dominance: On the Origins of Sexual Inequality, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981) Scott, Joan W., "Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis", American Historical Review 91:5 (1986), 1053-75 [repr. in following item] Scott gives a threefold classification and criticism of modern feminist historiography. The purely feminist attempt to analyse patriarchy in terms of reproduction issues, which she thinks fails to account both for change over time in the meaning of human biology, and for other social inequalities. Second, the Marxist-feminist endeavors first to equate "modes of reproduction" with "modes of production", and then to propose a dualism of economic and gender systems. Both efforts are ultimately problematic for Scott since gender can have no independent analytic status of its own in Marxism, a system committed to the centrality of economic structures. Finally, Scott considers two strands of psychoanalytic feminism. She objects strongly to the now popular Anglo-American historiography stemming from the object-relations psychology associated with Nancy Chodorow and Carol Gilligan. Her objection is that these theories depend on individual and family experience and are deficient in not allowing for connections to systems of politics, economics and power. It is French psychoanalytic theory, which is how she positions poststructuralism, that Scott finds most promising as a tool with which feminist historians can develop gender as an analytic category, and she indicates how this might be done in political history. Scott, Joan W., Gender and the Politics of History, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988) In her introduction, Scott defines gender as "knowledge about sexual difference", where knowledge means "the understanding produced by cultures and societies of human relationships", thus gender is "the social organization of sexual difference" which varies across cultures and is not produced by any one factor "including women's reproductive organs". Her book, a coherently organized collection of essays, explores what this understanding of gender means for history and historiography. She looks in particular at women's labour history in the 1800s, and women it the historical profession. The special value of this book lies in the writer's knowledge of both historical scholarship and feminist theory. Tong, Rosemarie, Feminist Thought: A Comprehensive Introduction, (Boulder, Col.: Westview, 1989). A recent survey of the spectrum of current feminist theory. Tong looks at the historical origins, vital concepts, and main critiques of the various feminisms, which she classes as Liberal, Marxist, Radical, Psychoanalytic, Socialist, Existentialist, and Postmodern. Since Tong tries to explain each theoretical approach sympathetically, and does not push any one view, her work is really a textbook, but as such it is an excellent introduction to feminist theory. The bibliography and notes are accessible and cover the field to 1987. Treichler, Paula A., "Aids, Homophobia, and Biomedical Discourse: An Epidemic of Signification", October 43 (1987), 31-70, orig. pub. in Critical Studies 1:3 (1987), 263-305 This issue of October was devoted to the cultural significance of AIDS. Treichler's case study of AIDS as a material reality, and a reality constructed by the discourses of science, the press, and the gay community, is an accessible example of what poststructuralists mean when they talk about language `constructing reality'. The feminist aspect here is that all three discourses excluded women, while AIDS spread to become the leading cause of death of young women in New York by 1989. Vance, Carole S., "Social Construction Theory: Problems in the History of Sexuality", in Dennis Altman et al, Which Homosexuality? International Conference on Gay and Lesbian Studies, (London: GMP Publishers; Amsterdam: Uitgerverij An Dekker/Schorer, 1989), 13-34 Social constructionism now dominates the historical study of homosexuality and proposes that the terms in which we customarily discuss sexuality, including the term sexuality itself, have no essential, or biological, meaning, but rather are constructed in significantly different ways in each society. Vance discusses common arguments for and against the use of social constructionist theory in the history of sexuality, and argues that it has real value in opening up new types of questions. Weedon, Chris, Feminist Practice and Poststructuralist Theory, (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987) Poststructuralism is one of the most important, and most complex, theories adopted by contemporary feminists. Its assertion that the interaction of personal subjectivity and larger social structures lies in language, by which is meant systems of meaning which precede actual speech, reading or writing, has proved compelling for many literary and social critics. Weedon clarifies the emergence of poststructuralism in the linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure, the criticism of Jacques Derrida, the psycho analysis of Jacques Lacan, the Marxism of Louis Althusser, and the historical constructionism of Michel Foucault. Weedon contends that the work of these male thinkers can contribute to feminist theory and the formation of an adequate feminist practice.