Feminism (s)

Yaoi/BL Fandom Survey (only takes 10 mins to complete): https://leeds.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/blfandomsurvey
Male–male sexuality is the central trope of Boys’ Love (BL) manga with stories tending to revolve around a central uke-seme (‘bottom’–‘top’) pair. Although focused on men, BL is produced and consumed primarily by women. This article presents, from an anglophone British perspective, analysis of age-stratified male–male romance – paederasty – as portrayed in BL. My corpus consists of 234 commercially-translated original Japanese BL manga stories, created by 100 different mangaka (author-artists), published commercially in English between 2003 and 2012. A total of 68 (30%) of these stories were identified as involving agestratified relationships, eight of which were selected for detailed analysis. Seven were selected for typicality: Waru (2007) by Yukari Hashida deemed the most typical. Fangs (2008) by Hiroki Kusumoto was also included in analysis as the most atypical age-stratified story in order to test the robustness of identified patterns. I argue that that, from an anglophone perspective, the characteristic themes of age-stratified BL map surprising well onto the eroticised intra-familial dynamics of Freud and the intra- and inter-familial economics of Lévi-Strauss. The patterns identified are evidenced and discussed under the following headings: the mother identified son, the doubly divested man, the castrated father, men on the market and the mother with the phallus. These themes help build and substantiate my argument that age-stratified BL might work, within an anglophone context at least, as a feminist critique of patriarchy through the mechanism of phallic divestiture.

Recently, various fields, including Political Science and International Studies, have embraced insights from the literature on intersectionality. With its origins in feminist studies, this literature explores how numerous variables such as linguistic differences, ethnicity, gender or national identity combine to determine an individual's fate in a global context. How can the insights from this rich literature be applied to the contemporary Political Science and International Studies classrooms? Are they likely to change the ways in which fundamental political concepts such as power, rights, security, freedom and democracy are conceptualized and taught? This paper attempts to apply the theoretical insights from the literature on intersectionality to "real world" situations in the classroom, thus demonstrating the ways in which this literature can enrich teaching. For example, intersectional approaches to the study of legal documents, such as international treaties, constitutions or administrative decisions mandates that the institutionalized framework connecting "real" people, concepts and events are explored. It is argued that intersectional approaches offer valuable insights into the study of social movements (including feminisms) and their exclusions, as well as civil rights and human rights.

ABSTRACT Photographs of female clergy conducting Jewish ceremonies in Reform synagogues are considered highly controversial by Ultra-Orthodox Judaism in Israel. Such photographs appear on social media of Reform Judaism, which advocates egalitarianism in religion. Beit Daniel synagogue in Tel Aviv is active in this realm, introducing images of diversity and inclusion in their social networks. The study presents an analysis of forms photographic documentation of ceremonies in and outside the synagogue, posted on Facebook and websites. This study engages in a visual analysis of the images. It decodes the visual elements that participate in a struggle for visual cultural normalization of gender egalitarianism. Concepts of religious viewing and critical viewing of images on social media are discussed.

Resumen El objetivo de este artículo es reflexionar sobre la investigación neurocientífica en relación con la diferencia sexual. El interés en esta reflexión es abordar el debate sobre coeducación. La metodología empleada se basa fundamentalmente en la revisión y contrastación de los textos y teorías que han protagonizado el debate en la última década. En ese tiempo ha surgido con fuerza una controversia, ya planteada en momentos pasados, sobre la pertinencia de proponer de nuevo una educación segregada por sexos frente a la coeducación. Para deshacer este nudo se verá que, no solo las neurociencias serán importantes en lo que dicen sobre los cerebros, sino también será necesaria una mirada crítica que ha de proceder, tanto desde una autocrítica de las mismas neurociencias, como de otras disciplinas, y muy especialmente desde la filosofía de la educación. En este sentido, el conjunto de teorías cognitivas habrán de estar en un diálogo abierto y constante para conocer aspectos importantes que las neurociencias por sí solas no pueden responder. Una propuesta desde la llamada neuroeducación no solo no puede obviar este diálogo transdisciplinario, sino que debería, de alguna forma, poder liderarlo. La cuestión finalmente será ver qué se entiende por educación y qué filosofía de la educación defendemos. Es precisamente esta mirada transdisciplinar, más que un discurso unidireccional de las neurociencias o de una neuroeducación determinada por la jerga de lo neuro, lo que nos hará apostar por la coeducación. Palabras clave Coeducación, ciencias cognitivas, neuroeducación, diferencia sexual, sexismo, educación. Forma sugerida de citar: Reverter, Sonia (2021). El diálogo en las ciencias cognitivas frente a la controversia de la coeducación. Sophia, colección de Filosofía de la Educación, 30, pp. 71-93.

This text is an analysis of Krzysztof Warlikowski’s 2011 production, African Tales by Shakespeare, tracing the project of community taken up in the performance. The central thesis takes this to be neither a national community nor a dispersed, intersectional coalition, as Bryce Lease has formulated the difference between Polish political and traditional theater, but rather a transitional community—unstable, unsuccessful, and rooted in the experience of political transition. The author, by invoking references to the visual arts present in the performance, points to other community projects emerging from the experience of transition while showing how, when appropriated for the purposes of performance, their meanings change radically. In the masculine, phallic, and violent world of African Tales, art and philosophy born of the experience of femininity are lost, twisted, and forgotten. Among the most important threads of analysis, however, is the way racialization and racism function in ...

El presente trabajo tiene como objetivo servir de introducción a la producción teórica del filósofo Paul B. Preciado en el marco de la teoría queery los feminismos actuales. En lo siguientes apartados articularemos el diálogo intertextual entre la producción de Preciado y las retóricas y prácticas mencionadas que, de forma dispersa, se habría ido generado a lo largo de las distintas obras del autor. Nos proponemos mostrar cómo sus principales tesis surgen de la experiencia de tráfico y reformulación de una serie de herramientas analíticas extraídas del contexto de los estudios postfeministas, postestructuralistas y queer, tales como la genealogía foucaultiana, la noción wittigniana de heterosexualidad como régimen político, el análisis butleriano de la identidad performativa, la concepción del género como tecnología ideado por de Lauretis o la política del ciborg diseñada por Haraway. Simultáneamente, expondremos cuáles son las aportaciones fundamentales del autor en tanto en cuanto...

Focusing on the lineage of pivotal African American and Irish women writers, Jacqueline Fulmer argues that these authors often employ strategies of indirection, via folkloric expression, when exploring unpopular topics. This strategy holds the attention of readers who would otherwise reject the subject matter.

Fulmer traces the line of descent from Mary Lavin to Éilís Ní Dhuibhne and from Zora Neale Hurston to Toni Morrison, showing how obstacles to free expression, though varying from those Lavin and Hurston faced, are still encountered by Morrison and Ní Dhuibhne. The basis for comparing these authors lies in the strategies of indirection they use, as influenced by folklore. The folkloric characters these authors depict-wild denizens of the Otherworld and wise women of various traditions-help their creators insert controversy into fiction in ways that charm rather than alienate readers.

Forms of rhetorical indirection that appear in the context of folklore, such as signifying practices, masking, sly civility, and the grotesque or bizarre, come out of the mouths and actions of these writers' magical and magisterial characters. Old traditions can offer new ways of discussing issues such as sexual expression, religious beliefs, or issues of reproduction. As differences between times and cultures affect what "can" and "cannot" be said, folkloric indirection may open up a vista to discourses of which we as readers may not even be aware. Finally, the folk women of Morrison, Ní Dhuibhne, Hurston, and Lavin open up new points of entry to the discussion of fiction, rhetoric, censorship, and folklore.

The relevance of translation has never been greater. The challenges of the 21st century are truly glocal and societies are required to manage diversities like never before. Cultural and linguistic diversities cut across ideological systems, those carefully crafted to uphold prevailing hierarchies of power, making asymmetries inescapable. Translation and interpreting studies have left behind neutrality and have put forward challenging new approaches that provide a starting point for researching translation as a cultural and historical product in a global and asymmetrical world. This book addresses issues arising from the power vested in and arrogated by translation and interpreting either as instruments of change, or as tools to sustain dominant structures. It presents new perspectives and cutting-edge research findings on how asymmetries are fashioned, woven, upheld, experienced, confronted, resisted, and rewritten through and in translation. This volume is useful for scholars looking for tools to raise awareness as to the challenges posed by the pervasiveness of power relations in mediated communication. It will further help practitioners understand how asymmetries shape their experiences when translating and interpreting.

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, the peer-reviewed, full-text, and open-access learned journal in the humanities and social sciences, publishes new scholarship following tenets of the discipline of comparative literature and the field of cultural studies designated as "comparative cultural studies." In addition to the publication of articles, the journal publishes review articles of scholarly books and publishes research material in its Library Series.

Lucy follows the sound of the panpipes to the Andes, seeking to find or create the ideal society of which they sing. In Peru and Bolivia she chews the sacred coca leaf, participates in indigenous ceremonies, starts a Fair Trade export company, and encounters U.S.-supported human rights abuses that lead to a life-or-death decision.

This article focuses on the influence that Darwin’s evolutionary theory had generated toward the Victorian construction of womanhood with a closed reading of Sarah Grand’s New Woman classic ‘The Beth Book’ (1897). As most of the book deals with the protagonist Beth’s childhood, one explores to realize that the different stages of her transformation presents her body as an object which needs to be formed and developed by the norms of the society. One shall not be quite out of focus to be reminded of Foucault’s study of the modern prison system to illustrate the rethinking of power and its relationship to the body in this context. Foucault called the type of power that he was illustrating “disciplinary power”. We often think of power as operating in a repressive or prohibitive mode, preventing and constraining action. Foucault turns this formulation of power on its head, and argues that contrary to our most held beliefs, power works through our actions making possible certain ways of being and doing. Beth, in a quite similar manner, establishes the very qualities associated with female inferiority as markers of an alternative and equal route to adulthood and grows out of her imposed intellectual infancy to contest the accepted view.

Brushing yellow gold on top of deep crimson, I sense the paints coming alive, even as I feel myself moving outside of ego, outside of time, and inside to my deepest source.

At least forty thousand years ago the human family began to make art; drawing, painting, sculpting and playing music. For much of human history, art has served a dual purpose. Some art has been purely decorative, while much art has expressed a spiritual understanding of our physical existence.

During the Paleolithic period, c.15–18,000 B.C. on the walls of a sacred cave, Lascaux, in southern France, our ancestors created beautiful paintings, often interpreted as a ritual that invoked sympathetic hunting magic. They are a reminder of the bond between the spirit world and the human world. This was a magical time in which humans lived immersed in the connection between the physical and spiritual worlds. Art was a means to both express and facilitate that connection.

Blessing the Source of Life harks back to the time when shrines were built near springs, the very literal sources of life for plants, animals, and humans.

The prayer “As we bless the Source of Life, so we are blessed,” based on a Hebrew metaphor which refers to a water source and set to music in a Jewish feminist context by Faith Rogow, has become one of the bedrocks of my Goddess practice.

In Minoan Crete, seeds were blessed on the altars of the Goddess and the first fruits of every crop were returned to Her. The ancient Minoans piled their altars high with barley, fruits, nuts, and beans, and poured libations of milk and honey, water and wine, over the offerings they placed on altars. Evidence of these actions is found in the large number of pouring vessels stored near altars.

Like thousands of other mothers, I found myself consumed by Anne-Marie Slaughter’s  13,000 word cover story, “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All” for the July/August edition of The Atlantic.  As a new mom with a Ph.D. and growing career, I have wondered if I can truly “have it all” or if something will eventually have to give in my overloaded schedule.  It has been exhausting and near impossible to keep up with my “normal” workload while being a parent and I have constantly been concerned about my daughter getting all she needs from me (and me getting all I need from my daughter!).

I had a long struggle to becoming a mother.  After ten years, multiple infertility treatments, many prayers, and even more tears, me and my husband decided to adopt.  We’ve been so fortunate to be blessed with our darling daughter, but becoming a mother has been nothing of what I expected.  I had fantasized about motherhood, imagined it as my true destiny, a spiritual path, the role God intended me to have.  Now that I am a mother, I find myself constantly falling short.  The laundry is never done, take out for dinner happens far too often, and some days I forget to pack my daughter’s lunch.  I’m late to work, I miss deadlines, I don’t return phone calls or emails, and I wonder if it is possible to get back to being organized and on top of life the way I was before.

In January, I wrote a blog about my life and Title IX. Perhaps the greatest celebration that speaks to the power of Title IX is represented by the future feminists that attended the jersey retirement, my dissertation defense, and the graduation. I wrote the blog because I wanted to make sure that everyone was aware that this year is the fortieth anniversary of Title IX.  I also knew that very few people would understand the uniqueness and significance of an African American woman from a working class background having a jersey retired and graduating with a Ph.D.—all in the same year.

In February, my sister and I had our jerseys retired at USC. I wanted the day to be special, so I invited my friends and colleagues. All of my worlds (faith, academics, and athletics) that seldom cross collided. The event turned out to be a celebration of diversity with representatives from the world of politics, athletics, and religion. Claremont Graduate University was actually one of the sponsors.

In March, I was the keynote speaker at the Women’s Leadership Conference at USC sponsored by the Alumni Association. The theme was tied to Title IX. I used the same Charles Dickens theme of my blog: “It is the best of times. It is the worst of times.“ I received a wonderful response from the women as I encouraged them to claim all of their power.

In April, I had my dissertation defense. I had invited everyone to the jersey retirement, so I also extended the same invitation to the defense. In many respects a dissertation defense is similar to a jersey retirement. It is an announcement to the world that you have completed your task and achieved something that very few people ever have the opportunity to do. A successful defense, tells the world that you are officially recognized as a doctor (Ph.D.). More importantly, especially for women and people of color it means that you are a scholar.

At the most recent Society of Christian Ethics annual meeting, I got into an impromptu late night discussion with several women friends about why some of us participate in “beauty culture” and how we feel as feminist Christian ethicists and moral theologians about our decisions. Each of us shared why we have chosen to wear make-up (or not), keep up with fashion (or not), dye our greying hair to mask the signs of aging (or not), or put in the effort to maintain a certain physique (or not). We also addressed what role our own mothers and larger communities have played in our decision-making processes.

Since it is certainly not my place to reveal what others disclosed behind closed doors over wine, let me expand upon a few things I shared that night.

First, I told them that when I used to work at Virginia Tech (2003-2009), I had both noticed and been a little self-conscious about the fact that I was the only faculty member in Women’s Studies who regularly wore make-up. My self-consciousness stemmed from multiple sources:

(1) I was a new member of the faculty who simply didn’t know what the conventions of dress were among my female colleagues (and thus I didn’t want to over- or under-do it),