Synopses & Reviews
Over the past decade, mainstream feminist theory has repeatedly and urgently cautioned against arguments which assert the existence of fundamentalor essentialdifferences between men and women. Any biological or natural differences between the sexes are often flatly denied, on the grounds that such an acknowledgment will impede women's claims to equal treatment.
In Caring for Justice, Robin West turns her sensitive, measured eye to the consequences of this widespread refusal to consider how women's lived experiences and perspectives may differ from those of men. Her work calls attention to two critical areas in which an inadequate recognition of women's distinctive experiences has failed jurisprudence. We are in desperate need, she contends, both of a theory of justice which incorporates women's distinctive moral voice on the meaning of justice into our discourse, and of a theory of harm which better acknowledges, compensates, and seeks to prevent the various harms which women, disproportionately and distinctively, suffer.
Providing a fresh feminist perspective on traditional jurisprudence, West examines such issues as the nature of justice, the concept of harm, economic theories of value, and the utility of constitutional discourse. She illuminates the adverse repercussions of the anti-essentialist position for jurisprudence, and offers strategies for correcting them. Far from espousing a return to essentialism, West argues an anti- anti-essentialism, which greatly refines our understanding of the similarities and differences between women and men.
Review
"Starkly essentialist reasoning sounds almost quaint by today's standards of gender equality. So it is with some surprise that general readers will encounter an intense and carefully reasoned defense of essentialism from the pen of one of America's best-known feminist legal theorists."
"By critiquing traditional ideas about 'justice,' including economic theories about value, this provocative feminist jurisprudential scholar advances what she calls an 'ethic of care' and argues that 'if adjudication is to be just, then the goal of good judging must be both justice and care.'"
Review
"More important than merely rescuing Gross from obscurity, however, Kelman provides important context for Gross's work, and in the process reminds us that history has more than a written and visual dimension."-H-Net ReviewsH-Net Reviews,
Review
"Kelman's 50-page introduction is an indispensable guide to the personal, cultural, and sociological context that produced these hybrid works that are still entertaining today."-Jewish Book World,
Review
"Highly recommended for the 'Jewish comics' or 'Jewish Americana' collections in academic, public, and synagogue libraries."-Association of Jewish Libraries Newsletter,
Review
"Kelman adeptly introduces Gross's work, providing "translations" of Gross's fabricated English-Jewish speech, contextual information on related cultural forms and other ethnic portrayals of the period, and footnotes detailing personalities and events mentioned. He also provides brief introductions to the five reproduced works. Augmented by the editor's careful, concise explanatory text, this welcome book puts a scholarly focus on aspects of cartooning normally ignored--comic strips and gag cartoons."-CHOICE,
Review
"NYU Press' is a very welcome reprint of some of [Gross'] best work. Dazzling stuff."-Chattanooga Free Press,
Synopsis
Over the past decade, mainstream feminist theory has repeatedly and urgently cautioned against arguments which assert the existence of fundamentalor essentialdifferences between men and women. Any biological or natural differences between the sexes are often flatly denied, on the grounds that such an acknowledgment will impede women's claims to equal treatment.
In Caring for Justice, Robin West turns her sensitive, measured eye to the consequences of this widespread refusal to consider how women's lived experiences and perspectives may differ from those of men. Her work calls attention to two critical areas in which an inadequate recognition of women's distinctive experiences has failed jurisprudence. We are in desperate need, she contends, both of a theory of justice which incorporates women's distinctive moral voice on the meaning of justice into our discourse, and of a theory of harm which better acknowledges, compensates, and seeks to prevent the various harms which women, disproportionately and distinctively, suffer.
Providing a fresh feminist perspective on traditional jurisprudence, West examines such issues as the nature of justice, the concept of harm, economic theories of value, and the utility of constitutional discourse. She illuminates the adverse repercussions of the anti-essentialist position for jurisprudence, and offers strategies for correcting them. Far from espousing a return to essentialism, West argues an anti- anti-essentialism, which greatly refines our understanding of the similarities and differences between women and men.
Synopsis
Milt Gross (1895-1953), a Bronx-born cartoonist and animator, first found fame in the late 1920s, writing comic strips and newspaper columns in the unmistakable accent of Jewish immigrants. By the end of the 1920s, Gross had become one of the most famous humorists in the United States, his work drawing praise from writers like H. L. Mencken and Constance Roarke, even while some of his Jewish colleagues found Gross extreme renderings of Jewish accents to be more crass than comical.
Working during the decline of vaudeville and the rise of the newspaper cartoon strip, Gross captured American humor in transition. Gross adapted the sounds of ethnic humor from the stage to the page and developed both a sound and a sensibility that grew out of an intimate knowledge of immigrant life. His parodies of beloved poetry sounded like reading primers set loose on the Lower East Side, while his accounts of Jewish tenement residents echoed with the mistakes and malapropisms born of the immigrant experience.
Introduced by an historical essay, Is Diss a System? presents some of the most outstanding and hilarious examples of Jewish dialect humor drawn from the five books Gross published between 1926 and 1928—Nize Baby, De Night in de Front from Chreesmas, Hiawatta, Dunt Esk, and Famous Fimmales—providing a fresh opportunity to look, read, and laugh at this nearly forgotten forefather of American Jewish humor.
About the Author
Hailed by the Michigan Law Review as one of our most creative legal thinkers, Robin West is Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center and the author of Progressive Constitutionalism and Narrative, Authority and Law.