Professing Feminism

Feminists have often called Women's Studies the 'academic arm of the women's movement.' But Daphne Patai and Noretta Koertge charge that the attempt to make Women's Studies serve a political agenda has led to deeply problematic results: dubious scholarship, pedagogical practices that resemble indoctrination more than education, and the alienation of countless potential supporters. In this new and expanded edition of their controversial 1994 book, the authors update their analysis of what's gone wrong with Women's Studies programs. Original chapters feature interviews with professors, students, and staffers who invested much time and effort in Women's Studies, and new chapters look primarily at documents recently generated from within Women's Studies itself. Through critiques of actual program mission statements, course descriptions, newsletters, and e-mail lists devoted to feminist pedagogy and Women's Studies, and, not least, the writings of well-known feminist scholars, Patai and Koertge provide a detailed and devastating examination of the routine practices found in feminist teaching and research.

Autorentext
Daphne Patai's most recent book is Heterophobia: Sexual Harassment and the Future of Feminism. She is Professor of Spanish and Portuguese and Adjunct Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Noretta Koertge, the author of A House Built on Sand: Exposing Postmodernist Myths about Science, is Professor Emerita of History and Philosophy of Science at Indiana University.

Inhalt

Chapter 1 Introduction to the New Expanded Edition
Chapter 2 Cautionary Tales from the Strange World of Women's Studies
Chapter 3 Prologue: On Airing Dirty Linen
Chapter 4 Introduction to the World of Women's Studies
Chapter 5 Cautionary Tales from Women Who Walked Away
Chapter 6 Ideology and Identity: Playing the Oppression Sweepstakes
Chapter 7 Proselytizing and Policing in the Feminist Classroom
Chapter 8 Semantic Sorcery: Rhetoric Overtakes Reality
Chapter 9 BIODENIAL and Other Subversive Stratagems
Chapter 10 Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: Feminist Self-Scrutiny
Chapter 11 Cults, Communes, and Clicks
Chapter 12 From Dogma to Dialogue: The Importance of Liberal Values
Chapter 13 Women's Studies in the New Millennium
Chapter 14 Rhetoric and Reality in Women's Studies
Chapter 15 Policing the Academy
Chapter 16 Feminists Take on Science: Tilting with the Evil Empire
Chapter 17 Conclusion