Rethinking Women's and Gender Studies

Rethinking Women’s and Gender Studies re-examines the field’s foundational assumptions by identifying and critically analyzing eighteen of its key terms. Each essay investigates a single term (e.g., feminism, interdisciplinarity, intersectionality) by asking how it has come to be understood and mobilized in Women’s and Gender Studies and then explicates the roles it plays in both producing and shutting down possible versions of the field. The goal of the book is to trace and expose critical paradoxes, ironies, and contradictions embedded in the language of Women’s and Gender Studies—from its high theory to its casual conversations—that relies on these key terms. Rethinking Women’s and Gender Studies offers a fresh approach to structuring Feminist Theory, Senior Capstone, and introductory graduate-level courses in Women’s and Gender Studies.

CATHERINE M. ORR is Professor and Chair of Women’s and Gender Studies at Beloit College. Her work has been published in Women’s Studies Quarterly, Hypatia, NWSA Journal, and Feminist Collections. She served as National Conference Chair for the National Women’s Studies Association (2006-08).

ANN BRAITHWAITE is Associate Professor and Director of Women’s Studies at the University of Prince Edward Island. She is co-author of Troubling Women’s Studies (2004), co-editor of Atlantis: A Women’s Studies Journal, and former President of the Canadian Women’s Studies Association.

DIANE LICHTENSTEIN is Professor of English and former Chair of Women’s Studies as well as of Interdisciplinary Studies at Beloit College. She co-edited: a special issue of Women’s Studies Quarterly (1999) focused on feminist activism and Women’s Studies; and a cluster of essays on "locations" in the NWSA Journal (2005).