Synopses & Reviews
Gender systems pervade and regulate human livesin law courts and operating rooms, ballparks and poker clubs, hair-dressing salons and kitchens, classrooms and playgroups. . . . Exactly how gender works varies from culture to culture, and from historical period to historical period, but gender is very rarely
not at work. Nor does gender operate in isolation. It is linked to other social structures and sources of identity.”
So write womens studies pioneer Catharine R. Stimpson and anthropologist Gilbert Herdt in their introduction to Critical Terms for the Study of Gender, laying out the wide-ranging nature of this interdisciplinary and rapidly changing field. The sixth in the series of Critical Terms” books, this volume provides an indispensable introduction to the study of gender through an exploration of key terms that are a part of everyday discourse in this vital subject.
Following Stimpson and Herdts careful account of the evolution of gender studies and its relation to womens and sexuality studies, the twenty-one essays here cast an appropriately broad net, spanning the study of gender and sexuality across the humanities and social sciences. Written by a distinguished group of scholars, each essay presents students with a history of a given termfrom bodies to utopiaand explains the conceptual baggage it carries and the kinds of critical work it can be made to do. The contributors offer incisive discussions of topics ranging from desire, identity, justice, and kinship to love, race, and religion that suggest new directions for the understanding of gender studies. The result is an essential reference addressed to students studying gender in very different disciplinary contexts.
Review
“This modest title belies an extraordinary collection. Featuring not only leading but founding scholars in the interdisciplinary field of womens, gender, and sexuality studies, Critical Terms for the Study of Gender provides sophisticated genealogies of concepts that have transformed scholarship in the humanities and social sciences over the past four decades. Illuminating conceptual limitations of traditional approaches to these topics, this volume demonstrates the importance of feminist and queer scholarship to an adequate understanding of the complexities of contemporary life.”
Synopsis
This award-winning classic examines the construction of sexual identity in biology, society, and history.
Why do some people prefer heterosexual love while others fancy the same sex? Is sexual identity biologically determined or a product of convention? In this brilliant and provocative book, the acclaimed author of Myths of Gender argues that even the most fundamental knowledge about sex is shaped by the culture in which scientific knowledge is produced.
Drawing on astonishing real-life cases and a probing analysis of centuries of scientific research, Fausto-Sterling demonstrates how scientists have historically politicized the body. In lively and impassioned prose, she breaks down three key dualisms -- sex/gender, nature/nurture, and real/constructed -- and asserts that individuals born as mixtures of male and female exist as one of five natural human variants and, as such, should not be forced to compromise their differences to fit a flawed societal definition of normality.
Synopsis
Why do some people prefer heterosexual love while others fancy the same sex? Is sexual identity biologically determined or a product of convention? In this brilliant and provocative book, the acclaimed author of Myths of Gender argues that even the most fundamental knowledge about sex is shaped by the culture in which scientific knowledge is produced.Drawing on astonishing real-life cases and a probing analysis of centuries of scientific research, Fausto-Sterling demonstrates how scientists have historically politicized the body. In lively and impassioned prose, she breaks down three key dualisms - sex/gender, nature/nurture, and real/constructed - and asserts that individuals born as mixtures of male and female exist as one of five natural human variants and, as such, should not be forced to compromise their differences to fit a flawed societal definition of normality.
Synopsis
This path-breaking study of gender and sexuality is the first to go beyond the nature/nurture debate to offer an alternate framework for considering questions of sex and sexuality.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. [381]-449) and index.
About the Author
Catharine R. Stimpson is University Professor and dean emerita of the Graduate School of Arts and Science at New York University. She is the founding editor of Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society and the author or editor of many books.Gilbert Herdt is professor and director of the Graduate Program in Human Sexuality at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco and director emeritus of the National Sexuality Resource Center at San Francisco State University. His books include Sambia Sexual Culture: Essays from the Field, also published by the University of Chicago Press.
Table of Contents
Introduction * Catharine R. Stimpson and Gilbert Herdt
1 Bodies * Carroll Smith- Rosenberg
2 Culture * Kate Crehan
3 Desire * Lauren Berlant
4 Ethnicity * Anna Sampaio
5 Globalization * Carla Freeman
6 Human Rights * Elizabeth Swanson Goldberg
7 Identity * Raewyn Connell
8 Justice * Jane Mansbridge
9 Kinship * Janet Carsten
10 Language * Deborah Cameron
11 Love * Lauren Berlant
12 Myth * Wendy Doniger
13 Nature * Anne Fausto- Sterling
14 Posthuman * Ruth A. Miller
15 Power * Wendy Brown and Joan W. Scott
16 Public / Private * Michael Warner
17 Race * Hortense Spillers
18 Regulation * Judith Butler
19 Religion * Regina M. Schwartz
20 Sex / Sexuality / Sexual Classification * David M. Halperin
21 Utopia * Sally L. Kitch
Contributors
Index