Summary

This breathtakingly broad, interdisciplinary reader demonstrates how widely feminist thinking has spread, how deeply it has shaken settled assumptions in the disciplines and how much new light it throws on contemporary controversies. - Myra Marx Ferree, University of Wisconsin-Madison

"A timely intervention and highly engaged, thoughtful and scholarly analysis of the state of gender and women′s studies in the West by three eminent feminist scholars... Highly cognisant of the central issues that have fractured, blocked and enhanced western feminism." - Bev Skeggs, Goldsmiths

"The comprehensiveness and the interdisciplinary range of themes are impressive, and they make the Handbook into a wonderful tool for teachers and students of women′s and gender studies." - Nina Lykke, Linkoeping University

Gender and women′s studies is one of the most challenging fields within the social sciences - the dynamics of gender relations and the social and cultural implications of gender constructions offer a lively forum of debate.

The Handbook of Gender and Women′s Studies presents a comprehensive and engaging review of the most recent developments within the field, including the study of masculinity, the feminist implications of postmodernism, the ′cultural turn′ and globalization. The authors review current research and offer critical analyses of women′s and gender studies in work, the welfare state, family, education, religion, violence and war and feminist global politics.

Edited by three leading academics from Europe and the United States, and with 25 chapters written by scholars based throughout the world, the Handbook situates the most important debates in the field within a uniquely international and interdisciplinary context. The Handbook is a useful introduction to gender theory and an exciting starting-point for fresh debates.

Choice Review

This impressive collection of articles about the state of gender and women's studies encompasses a range of intellectual perspectives and suggests new directions for feminist theory, analysis, and research in the 21st century. Grouped in eight sections, the articles offer a cross-disciplinary "state of the field(s)" for feminist scholarship and critique, with a heavy emphasis on questions of epistemology and philosophy. The sections survey the major insights of feminist analysis in the sex/gender debate, the gendering of culture and knowledge, the tension between agency and oppression, and the implications of the gendered workplace on individuals and families. A profound sensitivity to the ways in which gender intersects with the particularity of lived experiences permeates the collection with respect to questions of gender, sexuality, and identity, and the role of gender in transnational and multicultural understandings arising in a global society. These challenging essays engage scholars in a lively debate that calls for recognition of the revolutionary impact of feminist thought on the academy, with particular emphasis on its disruption of traditional ways of knowing, analyzing, and understanding. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. Graduate students/faculty. A. K. Frisken SUNY College at Old Westbury