Feminist Publishing Research Articles

Foundations for a New Field

Foundations for a New Field Mary E. Hunt (bio) Feminist studies in religion is still a new field in need of scholarly and organizational apparatus to sustain its work. Thanks to the genius, generosity, and tenacity of Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, many foundations upon which it is built are in place or in process. I focus this overview on how Feminist Studies in Religion, Inc. (FSR), has developed as the story of some of that infrastructure building. I conclude with some next steps to which I hope Elisabeth and colleagues will turn our attention. Scholarly work does not emerge out of the ether. Rather, it arises on the scaffolding of courses, departments, publications, conferences, prizes, fellowships, dissertation awards, collaborative projects, and the like. Absent such support, there may be a few contributions and momentary interest. But without infrastructure that sustains thinking over generations and mainstreams the material into larger fields, in this instance both religious studies and women's studies, there is little hope of establishing a new area of knowledge. From the outset, feminist studies in religion has been transdisciplinary and international, claiming explicit accountability to the academy and the feminist movement. As such, it fit no existing mold. Creativity was imperative. An outlet for publication was a clear need. Judith Plaskow and Elisabeth conceived the idea of a scholarly journal in 1982. They observed the difficulty of fitting round feminist work into square patriarchal journals. They saw feminists creating new ideas that old vehicles were inadequate to convey. They envisioned a space where feminists could have their work evaluated and encouraged on its own terms. They insisted on rigorous academic standards, and critical as well as constructive contributions. After discussing the matter for years, they invested their own money and time in getting it off the ground. Twenty-five years later, the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion is the peer-reviewed publication of record in the field. The JFSR—its articles, Roundtables, Living It Out, and special sections—is used throughout the world for teaching and research. It functions as a medium of communication as well as a springboard for developing ideas. The editorial board meets annually both for its own education and to discuss ideas for future issues. Members read and critique scores of submissions. Rather than a simple thumbs up or down, readers provide each author with a professional critique of each article and suggestions for its revision whether it is to be published in JFSR or not. Commitment to this kind of collegial work sets JFSR apart from many other journals. In time, the board became aware of the narrowness of its own composition in light of the broad base of the writers and readership. Gradually, an international board was established to expand the group's reach. Ideally, such boards [End Page 213] would be diverse in many ways. However, financial constraints prevent many colleagues from attending board meetings held in the United States or Canada in conjunction with the annual meetings of the American Academy of Religion and Society of Biblical Literature (AAR/SBL). Nonetheless, the expansion was a signal that JFSR means to be more than a Western publication even if internationalization is a slow process. Members are feminist scholars in religion capable of evaluating the wide variety of submissions the journal receives. The JFSR, like most scholarly publications, migrated online with the advent of the Internet in the late 1990s beginning with a modest Web site listing tables of contents, submission guidelines, and subscription information. Eventually, some articles were accessible online; now, entire issues can be accessed electronically. Web presence added readership as well as expectations; Web-based materials were increasingly used for teaching and research. After years of publication with Scholars Press, JFSR moved to Indiana University Press. This move beyond the religious academy put JFSR in the company of other feminist publications like Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy and Bridges: A Jewish Feminist Journal, inviting a broader scholarly audience. Electronic subscriptions gradually overtook print subscriptions though JFSR continues to be printed at a time when many journals are available only online, so that it is accessible to all. The JFSR offers a New Scholar Award "to encourage and...

In Their Own Voices: Women Redefine and Frame Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964

This article investigates how women-run newspapers and newsletters covered the sex amendment of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The study utilizes framing analysis to examine the editorial content of feminist publications from 1968, when the EEOC adopted regulations designed to implement the sex amendment of Title VII, until 1973, when the Supreme Court struck down First Amendment rights for commercial speech, which forced the restructuring of help-wanted classified advertising in daily newspapers. This time period also covers the beginnings of feminist journalism of the second wave of the women's movement. The study looks at two types of periodicals: NOW newsletters and news service and publications of the radical wing of the women's movement. This analysis reveals that NOW newsletters and news service framed the sex amendment of Title VII as a matter of justice and equality and, in the process, linked the matter to the broader civil rights movement through the rhetorical devices used. This article outlines the deep divisions within the women's movement of the time. The publications of the radical feminists covered the story but ignored NOW, its members and its activities, thus symbolically annihilating the organization and its involvement in the fight for implementing the sex amendment. Other radical publications concentrated on editorially disavowing NOW and its limited focus. Only the readers themselves—through letters to the editor—brought up the news of the sex amendment of Title VII.

Introduction to Focus: "This Instant and This Triumph": Women of Color Publishing

Page 4 American Book Review “This Instant and This Triumph”: Women of Color Publishing Introduction to Focus: Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Focus Editor Women of color in the US have been using the printed word as a medium for imagination and protest for more than a century. In the 1800s, novelist Pauline Hopkins was a co-founder of the collective Colored American Magazine, where she published short stories and serial novels that imagined the equality of the races as a rational and achievable future.Antilynching crusader Ida B. Wells co-founded her own newspaper, and when her offices were burned to the ground, she rallied black women and raised the funds to publish pamphlets on lynching and racist mob rule in theAmerican South. In the mid-twentieth century, Chicana feminists in the US invoked the memory of Las Hijas de Cuahtemoc, women who fought in the Mexican Revolution, as they created a network of campus-based newspapers and anthologies through which to theorize the relevance and contours of Chicana feminism. In the early 1980s, a group of women including Barbara Smith, Audre Lorde (from whose “Litany for Survival” the title of this piece comes), and Cherríe Moraga came together to found Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, which published Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology (1983) and kept This Bridge Called My Back: Writing by Radical Women of Color (1983) in print for more than a decade. Though women of color sustained publishing initiatives before and throughout the twentieth century , the very act of what this section calls “Women of Color Publishing” is embattled and almost counter-intuitive. The dominant narratives of state policy and the cherished “great work” of American literature have not characterized women of color as intellectuals or important cultural producers. Instead, women of color have been caricaturized as reproducers of domestic stability in the homes of the literarily relevant, and deviant reproducers of pathological cultures of poverty at worst. And further, as the selfproclaimed “third world feminists” in the US asserted in the 1980s, neither the seeming refuges of feminist publishing or third-world publishing supported the critical voices of women of color. Women of color producing literary texts (or anything else) on their own terms smacks of danger. In the 1970s when eventual Nobel laureate Toni Morrison used her tokenized role within a mainstream publishing house to encourage the work of black women writers such as Alice Walker and Ntozake Shange, their work was met with an intense critical backlash from black male critics who attacked , not the literary merit of Walker’s The Color Purple (1982) or Shange’s For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf (1975), but rather the supposedly “divisive” audacity of the authors in representing and responding to rape and domestic violence against women in their texts. Morrison and other black women writers working in that time period, including Walker, Shange, June Jordan, VèVè Clark, and others, realized that autonomous publishing was the only way to create space for their voices. In a collective called “The Sisterhood,” these women envisioned a publishing company called Kizzy Enterprises that would have operated out of Shange’s house, funded on a profitless basis and through which they intended to keep texts that they deemed crucial in print and available. When Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa brought together writings by radical women of color to protest the abusive tokenization of women of color in the mainstream feminist movement and to create a viable network for women of color, the feminist publisher Persephone Press was not willing or able color presses in this moment reaches beyond the publication of women of color by women of color for women of color; this section features work that ranges from essays, critical analysis, poetry, fiction, interactive art and work authored by multi-racial groups of women, women of color collectives, men of color, and like-minded people of many genders and backgrounds. However, these works are far from generalist, and each creates an intimate relationship that assumes the participation of readers in a shared project of transformation. RedBone Press Lisa Moore founded RedBone Press after successfully publishing the groundbreaking anthology Does...

‘The Bloodless Revolution’: Feminism, Publishing and the Mass Media in Weldon's Big Women (1997)

This essay looks at Fay Weldon's Big Women (1997),1 which is about the rise of feminist publishing house Medusa and the clash of two generations of women—those who tried to change women's lives by ...

The Journal of Women's History : Forerunner of the Future

The Journal of Women's History:Forerunner of the Future Christie Anne Farnham (bio) I remember becoming aware of the existence of a new periodical, The Journal of the New Republic, in the summer of 1986 and thinking, "golly, a journal devoted to only a few decades of one country's experience!" Ruminating further led me to wonder why women's history, by then almost twenty years old, had not a single journal devoted to its practice even though its focus is on over half the population in all geographical areas and periods. I was then a member of the faculty of Indiana University, which houses two of history's most important journals (the American Historical Review and the Journal of American History) and whose press published journals, and I realized that all of the resources necessary for starting a new publication were at hand. Undeterred by lack of expertise, I decided to establish a feminist journal devoted to women's history. Most helpful was Joan Catapano, who, as an acquisitions editor, was responsible for Indiana University Press's rising reputation as a publisher of scholarly work on women. As Executive Director of the Organization of American Historians, Joan Hoff was well–placed to be editor. A full professor with national name recognition, she would have the influence that I, as an assistant professor in the Afro–American Studies Department (a discipline many deemed insufficiently rigorous), would not. Furthermore, I knew Joan from our work together on the board of the Women's Studies Program when I was director. Although we did not share the same rank (I had dropped out of graduate school to have four children and was "slow" getting going on my academic career), being close in age meant that we shared many ideas about feminism. Not having to debate issues saved time. And time was an issue for both of us. At first Joan refused the position, because her work with the OAH, research, and fellowships kept her out of town much of the time. She finally agreed, however, after I offered to co–edit with her to get started. We incorporated as a nonprofit and brought in Hilda Smith, since three people were the minimum required by the state for the board of directors. Joan and I were the beneficiaries of this regulation, for without it we would not have had the sage advice, wit, and support of Hilda. As the Europeanist she had a somewhat different perspective that always proved helpful. Her common–sense feminism unerringly went to the heart of gender discrimination. Living in Ohio she did not share in the day–to–day workings of [End Page 14] the journal, but she made many trips to Bloomington and handled various onerous tasks we sent her way. My desire to establish the journal as an entity entirely separate from the university and the press was central to my vision of a feminist publication that would not reflect the views of any one group or region. From the beginning we anticipated that the journal would move periodically when new editors were selected, providing fresh perspectives and different subject matter in the process. From among the presses we contacted, two offers were forthcoming; we selected Indiana University Press, partially on the basis of proximity. John Gallman, then director, met with us many times to work out details, and he worded the original agreement, to which a few amendments were subsequently added, as changing conditions warranted. However odd it may seem today, Gallman's primary concern was whether there was enough research to fill a journal, and the founding editor of the forthcoming Gender and History implored us to abandon the project, fearing the field could not support two such journals. As it turned out we never lacked for submissions, and the journal was an instant success. Our biggest problem was finding sufficient funding to operate the office. Almost all grant agencies prohibited the funding of journals. Fortunately, the Bingham Foundation was willing to approve a grant for computers and printers. Joan successfully negotiated for graduate assistants and a little more space. Initially, however, with Joan away I handled everything from my office. The sheer volume...

‘Half the World is Not So Narrow’: Feminist Publishing In India

‘Half the World is Not So Narrow’: Feminist Publishing In India

Selling Modern Femininity: Femina, a Forgotten Feminist Publishing Success in Belle Epoque France

Selling Modern Femininity: <i>Femina</i>, a Forgotten Feminist Publishing Success in Belle Epoque France

Dialogue and participation—an essential part of leadership

(2007). Dialogue and participation—an essential part of leadership. Agenda: Vol. 21, Anniversary - Two Decades of African Feminist Publishing, pp. 4-13.

Agenda—a 20-year history of feminist publishing in quotes

Agenda—a 20-year history of feminist publishing in quotes

Gendered citizenship, race and women's differentiated access to power in the new South Africa

(2007). Gendered citizenship, race and women's differentiated access to power in the new South Africa. Agenda: Vol. 21, Anniversary - Two Decades of African Feminist Publishing, pp. 187-196.

Understanding the place of women workers in the ‘Fourth World’

(2007). Understanding the place of women workers in the ‘Fourth World’. Agenda: Vol. 21, Anniversary - Two Decades of African Feminist Publishing, pp. 111-122.

Feminism and the radical imagination

(2007). Feminism and the radical imagination. Agenda: Vol. 21, Anniversary - Two Decades of African Feminist Publishing, pp. 18-31.

‘In the beginning things are always hard’

(2007). ‘In the beginning things are always hard’. Agenda: Vol. 21, Anniversary - Two Decades of African Feminist Publishing, pp. 150-153.

Ekklesial Work: Toward A Feminist Public Theology

Religion is deeply implicated in contemporary U.S. public life, as demonstrated in the increasing analysis of faith in any given presidential, congressional, or judicial candidate's political viewpoints; in ongoing presidential executive orders that approve government support and funding for faith-based initiatives; and in the continued lobbying by religious groups about a variety of moral and social justice issues such as euthanasia and immigration, to name a sample of recent flashpoint issues. What role do religious claims play in U.S. public life? How does Christian theology help clarify that role? What is the particular contribution of Christian feminist theology to understanding and rethinking that role?

Reviews

Entertaining the Citizen: When Politics and Popular Culture Converge, Liesbet van Zoonen, (2004) Lanham, MD: Rowman &amp; Littlefield, 181 pp., ISBN 0742529061 (hbk), 69.00; ISBN 074252907X (pbk), 26.95. Courting The Abyss: Free Speech and the Liberal Tradition, John Durham Peters, (2005) Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 316 pp., ISBN 0226662748 (hbk), 29.00. Mixed Media: Feminist Presses and Publishing Politics, Simone Murray, (2004) London: Pluto Press, 260 pp., ISBN 0745320163 (hbk), 55.00; ISBN 0745320155 (pbk), 16.99. Simone Murray's book looks at the contribution of the second wave feminist presses to the advancement of feminist ideas in the United Kingdom from the early 1970s to the first years of the twenty-first century. These presses, she claims, have profoundly reshaped the publishing industries and the wider literary culture and education. To appreciate the complex interrelations between feminist politics, feminist presses, mainstream publishers, academic feminist publishing, and feminist bestsellers, Murray argues for the development of a publishing centred analysis. This approach enables movement beyond a focus on individual texts so as to contextualize them within the dynamics of the broader publishing industry. Such presses have experienced great difficulties (most are now defunct). Moreover, many mainstream publishers now have extensive gender lists. Nevertheless, Murray argues that feminist presses continue to be a crucial safeguard, against the vagaries of a publishing industry whose interest in feminist texts lies in their ability to generate profit rather than in any real commitment to a feminist political agenda.

Preface for volume 61

This volume features library and Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, history in the lead article and, in five other articles, profiles three special collections in the Rutgers University Libraries: a historical dictionary collection; an almost complete inventory of the British feminist publisher Virago Press; and materials documenting the history of temperance and alcohol.

";What Women Can Do When They Put Their Minds To It";: Elaine Showalter And Virago Press

The distinguished literary critic Elaine Showalter made a new contribution to the universe of feminist scholarship during the summer of 2003. Showalter's previous contributions to the field include, of course, the groundbreaking books A Literature of Their Own , Sexual Anarchy , and Inventing Herself , as well as dozens of articles and essays. This particular contribution, however, was in the form of a noteworthy book collection: a nearly complete set of first editions from the London-based, feminist publisher Virago Press. The Virago collection is not Showalter's first gift to Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey; in 2002, she gave Rutgers her collection of nineteenth-century Victorian women's novels and writings amassed when she was starting out as a young scholar. Speaking at the Fifteenth Annual Louis Faugeres III Bishop Lecture at the time of this earlier gift, Showalter expressed the hope that others would follow her lead: Indeed, I want to encourage everyone to enjoy the satisfactions of giving away their books while they are still alive.

Don't be afraid of the F-Word: Feminism, Fun, and the Future

In preparation for this panel celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the Journal of Studies Religion, I scouted around for some data on the current health of feminist publishing. On the one hand, there were notables such as Ritu Menon, founding editor of the press Kali for Women, and the ed itors of the newsmagazine off our backs, who declared feminist publishing to be in crisis.' Surely this is strong language. But the near termination of the Women's Review of Books is certainly troubling, as is Marlie Wasserman's re port that sales of gender studies books are decreasing at academic presses.2 On the other hand, there was the glowing 2003 report Publishers Weekly about the Press titled Feminist Publishing for and Profit. The Press saw a 75 percent boost sales revenue when it introduced the new series Femmes Fatales: Women Write Pulp. The success of the series gar nered the attention of bookstore conglomerates; Virgin Megastores placed its first order with the press. The editorial director of the Press, Jean Casella, attributes the success of the press to a new publishing strategy that cludes the admonition Don't be afraid of the F-word. Now, it seems reason able to conclude that Casella meant feminism; but others quoted the article stressed another F-word, declaring simply, Fun sells.3 I am not sure I know what to make of my conflicting data. Apparently some feminists are having fun and some are not. Part of me wants to ask all of us gathered here tonight, Are we having fun yet? After twenty successful years for the JFSR, I think it is safe to say we've had some fun. But what about that other F-word, the future? What of the future of the JFSR? Gazing into my crystal ball, I can confidently say there is a future JFSR's future. I say this based on my assessment ofJFSR's past five years. Five years ago I participated the celebration of the journal's fifteenth anniversary. The cel ebration consisted, part, of an AAR panel that was subsequently published as a Living It Out section entitled Publish Not Perish, the Spring 2000

A Feminist Public Sphere? Virginia Woolf's Revisions of the Eighteenth Century

A Feminist Public Sphere? Virginia Woolf's Revisions of the Eighteenth Century

Suffrage and Virginia Woolf: 'The Mass Behind the Single Voice'

Virginia Woolf is now widely accepted as a 'mother' through whom twenty-firstcentury feminists think back, but she was ambivalent towards the suffragette movement. Feminist readings of the uneasy relation between Woolf and the women's movement have focused on her practical involvement as a short-lived suffrage campaigner or as a feminist publisher, and have tended to interpret her disapproving references to contemporary feminists as redemptive self-critique. Nevertheless the apparent contradictions remain largely unresolved. By moving away from Woolf in suffrage to suffrage in Woolf, this article argues that her work was in fact deeply rooted at the intellectual centre of the suffrage movement. Through an examination of the ideas expressed in A Room of One' Own and Three Guineas and of two suffrage characters, Mary Datchet in Night and Day and Rose Pargiter in The Years, it establishes how Woolf's feminist ideas were informed by suffrage politics, and illuminates connections and allegiances as well as highlighting her passionate resistance to a certain kind of feminism.