Synopses & Reviews
War affects women in profoundly different ways than men. Women play many roles during wartime: they are "gendered" as mothers, as soldiers, as munitions makers, as caretakers, as sex workers. How is it that womanhood in the context of war may mean, for one woman, tearfully sending her son off to war, and for another, engaging in civil disobedience against the state? Why do we think of war as "men's business" when women are more likely to be killed in war and to become war refugees than men?
The Women and War Reader brings together the work of the foremost scholars on women and war to address questions of ethnicity, citizenship, women's agency, policy making, women and the war complex, peacemaking, and aspects of motherhood. Moving beyond simplistic gender dichotomies, the volume leaves behind outdated arguments about militarist men and pacifist women while still recognizing that there are patterns of difference in men's and women's relationships to war.
The Women and War Reader challenges essentialist, class-based, and ethnocentric analysis. A comprehensive volume covering such regions as the former Yugoslavia, Northern Ireland, Israel and Palestine, Iran, Nicaragua, Chiapas, South Africa, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, South Korea, and India, it will provide a much-needed resource. The volume includes the work of over 35 contributors, including Cynthia Enloe, Sara Ruddick, V. Spike Peterson, Betty Reardon, April Carter, Leila J. Rupp, Harriet Hyman Alonso, Francine D'Amico, Nancy Scheper-Hughes, and Carolyn Nordstrom.
Review
"The editors. . . whose work also appears, have presented us with a valuable resource for years to come." -Peace News,
Review
"The strength of The Women and War Reader lies in its both interdisciplinary and geographically diverse approach. It confronts the devastating impact of wartime violence and militarized societies on women." -Iris,
Review
"Though the irony of his title refuses the explanatory totalization that would follow from taking it straight, Paul Morrison's dazzlingly ferocious new book explains beyond all doubt why those of us familiar with his wide-ranging work recognize him as the most profoundly and provocatively Wildean critic of his generation."-Lee Edelman,Tufts University
Review
"Why is it that our culture's explanation for everything is homosexuality? In this judiciously argued and brilliantly conceived study, Morrison offers a compelling explanation of his own. The specter of "the homosexual" provides the perfect political scapegoat for acts of injustice that are, in truth, systemic and social in nature. If there is a culprit in contemporary scientific and cultural explanations of modern villainy, it is the predilection of critics themselves to find latent homosexuality here, there, and everywhere. A shrewd, quick-witted, and penetrating book."-Diana Fuss,Princeton University
Review
"Paul Morrison brings a refreshing and unique style to the practice of queer theory. With his extravagant attitude, epigrammatic wit, and political drive, he unsettles the complacencies of heterosexual certainty and gay self-congratulation alike, while forcing us to confront the breadth and depth of homophobia in our culture. Whether he is exploding liberal pieties or exhorting us not to allow sex to degenerate into love, Morrison startles and instructs. A challenging and necessary book."-David M. Halperin,University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Synopsis
A comprehensive volume sweeping across geographies that brings together foremost scholars on war and women
War affects women in profoundly different ways than men. Women play many roles during wartime: they are gendered as mothers, as soldiers, as munitions makers, as caretakers, as sex workers. How is it that womanhood in the context of war may mean, for one woman, tearfully sending her son off to war, and for another, engaging in civil disobedience against the state? Why do we think of war as men's business when women are more likely to be killed in war and to become war refugees than men?
The Women and War Reader brings together the work of the foremost scholars on women and war to address questions of ethnicity, citizenship, women's agency, policy making, women and the war complex, peacemaking, and aspects of motherhood. Moving beyond simplistic gender dichotomies, the volume leaves behind outdated arguments about militarist men and pacifist women while still recognizing that there are patterns of difference in men's and women's relationships to war.
The Women and War Reader challenges essentialist, class-based, and ethnocentric analysis. A comprehensive volume covering such regions as the former Yugoslavia, Northern Ireland, Israel and Palestine, Iran, Nicaragua, Chiapas, South Africa, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, South Korea, and India, it will provide a much-needed resource. The volume includes the work of over 35 contributors, including Cynthia Enloe, Sara Ruddick, V. Spike Peterson, Betty Reardon, April Carter, Leila J. Rupp, Harriet Hyman Alonso, Francine D'Amico, Nancy Scheper-Hughes, and Carolyn Nordstrom.
Synopsis
"The claim 'I'm straight' is the psychosexual analogue of 'The check is in the mail': if you need to say it, your credit or creditability is already in doubt." So begins Paul Morrison's dazzling polemic, which takes as its point of departure Foucault's famous remark that sex is "the explanation for everything."
Combining psychoanalytic, literary, and queer theory, The Explanation for Everything seeks to account for the explanatory power attributed to homosexuality, and its relationship to compulsory heterosexuality. In the process, Morrison presents a scathing indictment of psychoanalysis and its impact on the study of sexuality. In bold but graceful leaps, Morrison applies his critique to a diversity of examples: subjectivity in Oscar Wilde, the cultural construction and reception of AIDS, the work of Robert Mapplethorpe, the practice of bodybuilding, and the contemporary reception of the sexual politics of fascism.
Analytical, witty and astute, The Explanation for Everything will challenge and amuse, establishing Paul Morrison as one of our most exciting cultural critics.
About the Author
Lois Ann Lorentzen is Associate Professor in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of San Francisco and Chair of the Ecology Section of the American Academy of Religion- Western Region.
Jennifer Turpin is Associate Professor, Chair of Sociology, and Coordinator of the Women's Studies Program at the University of San Francisco and the Chair of the American Sociology Association's Section on Peace and War.