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Product: Book
ISBN-10: 0-520-20208-2
ISBN-13: 9780520202085
Publisher: University of California Press
Country:
Year: January 5, 1996
Size: 16.00 x 22.35 x 3.30cm
Number of pages: 470
Weight: 771gr
Binding: Paperback
ISBN-10: 0-520-20208-2
ISBN-13: 9780520202085
Publisher: University of California Press
Country:
Year: January 5, 1996
Size: 16.00 x 22.35 x 3.30cm
Number of pages: 470
Weight: 771gr
Binding: Paperback
editions
0.) Women Writing Culture
Ruth Behar (Eds.), Deborah A. Gordon (Eds.)
University of California Press; 1996
Hardcover
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Product Description
In this collection of new reflections on the sexual politics, racial history, and moral predicaments of anthropology, feminist scholars explore a wide range of visions of identity and difference. How are feminists redefining the poetics and politics of ethnography? What are the contradictions of women studying women? How have gender, race, class, and nationality been scripted into the canon? Through autobiography, fiction, historical analysis, experimental essays, and criticism, the contributors offer exciting responses to these questions. Several pieces reinvestigate the work of key women anthropologists like Elsie Clews Parsons, Margaret Mead, and Ruth Benedict, while others reevaluate the writings of women of color like Zora Neale Hurston, Ella Deloria, and Alice Walker. Some selections explore how sexual politics help to determine what gets written and what is valued in the anthropological canon. Other pieces explore new forms of feminist ethnography that 'write culture' experimentally, thereby challenging prevailing, male-biased anthropological models.
In this collection of new reflections on the sexual politics, racial history, and moral predicaments of anthropology, feminist scholars explore a wide range of visions of identity and difference. How are feminists redefining the poetics and politics of ethnography? What are the contradictions of women studying women? How have gender, race, class, and nationality been scripted into the canon? Through autobiography, fiction, historical analysis, experimental essays, and criticism, the contributors offer exciting responses to these questions. Several pieces reinvestigate the work of key women anthropologists like Elsie Clews Parsons, Margaret Mead, and Ruth Benedict, while others reevaluate the writings of women of color like Zora Neale Hurston, Ella Deloria, and Alice Walker. Some selections explore how sexual politics help to determine what gets written and what is valued in the anthropological canon. Other pieces explore new forms of feminist ethnography that 'write culture' experimentally, thereby challenging prevailing, male-biased anthropological models.
Amazon.com Review
Conceived partly in homage to the diversity of This Bridge Called Our Backs and partly in umbrage at the mostly male musings on anthropology in Writing Culture, this rewarding collection redefines anthropology through feminist and multicultural eyes. At its heart is the "poetics and politics» of ethnography, an uneasy marriage of art and science that attempts to distill the essence of another person's culture.
Conceived partly in homage to the diversity of This Bridge Called Our Backs and partly in umbrage at the mostly male musings on anthropology in Writing Culture, this rewarding collection redefines anthropology through feminist and multicultural eyes. At its heart is the "poetics and politics» of ethnography, an uneasy marriage of art and science that attempts to distill the essence of another person's culture.
Editor Ruth Behar, who wrote in depth about her comadre Esmeralda (and more fleetingly of her own father's rage) in Translated Woman, contributes a wrenching piece on the betrayal implicit in marking down another person's life. «Foolish, foolish is the anthropologist who mixes up the field with her life,» she mourns. Other essays consider such issues as how gender and racism play out in anthropology, how women in the field undermine themselves, and what women bring to the odd dance between narrator and observer. In a light essay that contrasts cultures, Lila Abu-Lighod, who researched the lives of Bedouin women, speaks of their pity for her childless state. While they assume she is «searching for children" unsuccessfully, she assumes their infertility remedies are wondrous fodder for field notes. --Francesca Coltrera
reviews
must read for feminist anthropologists 
An inspired and insightful book! Women Writing Culture is a must read for feminist anthropologists. This book provides a wealthy historical base imperative to new up and comings in academia. The biographical pieces offer a sense of community to anthropologists and gender studies majors and the fresh, new voices offer a challenge to take feminist anthropology and gender studies to the next level. Additional to the many perks this book offers to students and others surviving in academia, it is also written in accecible language so that the general public reading for pleasure may understand and enjoy it as well. Ruth Behar and Deborah Gordan challege their readers to think outside of the popularly accepted boundaries of women's studies, feminist studies, and cultural studies. Stepping outside of this box can be uncomfortable, but I'll guess that you'll find that »uncomfortable« is where you'll rather be.
An inspired and insightful book! Women Writing Culture is a must read for feminist anthropologists. This book provides a wealthy historical base imperative to new up and comings in academia. The biographical pieces offer a sense of community to anthropologists and gender studies majors and the fresh, new voices offer a challenge to take feminist anthropology and gender studies to the next level. Additional to the many perks this book offers to students and others surviving in academia, it is also written in accecible language so that the general public reading for pleasure may understand and enjoy it as well. Ruth Behar and Deborah Gordan challege their readers to think outside of the popularly accepted boundaries of women's studies, feminist studies, and cultural studies. Stepping outside of this box can be uncomfortable, but I'll guess that you'll find that »uncomfortable« is where you'll rather be.
keywords
- Anthropology
- Attitudes
- Authorship
- Cultural studies
- Ethnology
- Feminism & Feminist Theory
- Gender Studies – Gay & Lesbian Studies
- Philosophy
- Social Science
- Social Science – Feminism & Feminist Theory
- Social Science – Gender Studies
- Social Science – Women's Studies
- Sociology
- Sociology, Social Studies
- Women anthropologists
- Women anthropologists – Attitudes.
- Women's studies
- Women's Studies – General
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© 1994–2010 Sascha Hendel
last update: 3/21/2010
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