New Books in Women's History

Discussions with scholars of women's history about their new books

Books
History
Social Sciences
1526
Ellen Mayock, “Gender Shrapnel in the Academic ...
Recent controversies surrounding sexual harassment and assault on college campuses have sparked heated discussions surrounding the everyday experiences of women on college campuses. Female students and faculty members have often felt at odds with their...
61 min
1527
Loki Mulholland, et.al. “She Stood for Freedom:...
“Anyone can make a difference. Find a problem, get some friends together, and go fix it. Remember you don’t have to change the world, just change your world.” –Joan Trumpauer Mulholland In the early 1960s, in the segregated South, a white teenager,
42 min
1528
Ellen Fitzpatrick, “The Highest Glass Ceiling: ...
Ellen Fitzpatrick is professor of history at the University of New Hampshire. Her book The Highest Glass Ceiling: Women’s Quest for the American Presidency (Harvard University Press, 2016) provides the story of three women,
55 min
1529
Carol McCabe Booker, ed. “Alone Atop the Hill: ...
Carol McCabe Booker is a Washington, D.C. attorney and former journalist. In the 1960s and 70s, she covered civil rights for the Voice of America, freelanced articles for The Washington Post, Readers Digest, Ebony, Jet, and Black Stars,
78 min
1530
Anne Mac Lellan, “Dorothy Stopford Price: Rebel...
Among the achievements of Irish medicine in the twentieth century was ending the persistent epidemic of tuberculosis throughout the island, and one of the central figures in that effort was Dorothy Stopford Price.
57 min
1531
Michelle Cruz Gonzales, “The Spitboy Rule: Tale...
In her new book The Spitboy Rule: Tales of a Xicana in a Female Punk Band (PM Press, 2016), Michelle Cruz Gonzales tells her story as a member of a feminist hardcore punk band. The band, Spitboy, emerged in the early 90s in the Bay Areapunk scene.
50 min
1532
April R. Haynes, “Riotous Flesh: Women, Physiol...
April R. Haynes is an assistant professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In Riotous Flesh: Women, Physiology, and the Solitary Vice in Nineteenth- Century America (University of Chicago Press,
55 min
1533
Cassandra A. Good, “Founding Friendships: Frien...
Cassandra A. Good is the Associate Editor of the Papers of James Monroe at the University of Mary Washington. Her book Founding Friendships: Friendships between Men and Women in the Early American Republic (Oxford University Press,
50 min
1534
Sabine Arnaud, “On Hysteria: The Invention of a...
Sabine Arnaud‘s new book explores a history of discursive practices that played a role in the construction of hysteria as pathology. On Hysteria: The Invention of a Medical Category between 1670 and 1820 (University of Chicago Press,
65 min
1535
David Potter, “Theodora: Actress, Empress, Sain...
Thanks to the writings of Procopius and other detractors, the Byzantine empress Theodora (c. 495-548 CE) has long been viewed as a depraved and spiteful woman who was a negative influence on her husband Justinian. In his new book Theodora: Actress,
55 min
1536
Marlene Trestman, “Fair Labor Lawyer: The Remar...
As a trailblazing attorney, Bessie Margolin lived a life of exceptional achievement. At a time when the legal profession consisted almost entirely of men, she earned the esteem of her colleagues and rose to become one of the most successful Supreme Cou...
81 min
1537
Srimati Basu, “The Trouble with Marriage: Femin...
Are solutions to marital problems always best solved through legal means? Should alternative dispute resolutions be celebrated? In her latest book The Trouble with Marriage: Feminists Confront Law and Violence in India (University of California Press,
8 min
1538
Brooke Hauser, “Enter Helen: The Invention of H...
“Women’s history, if they had any, consisted in their being beautiful enough to become events in male lives,” the feminist academic Carolyn R. Heilbrun noted in a series of 1997 lectures, suggesting the need for new narratives and new ways of writing w...
46 min
1539
Matthew H. Sommer, “Polyandry and Wife-Selling ...
First things first: Matthew H. Sommer‘s new book is an absolute must-read for anyone interested in the history of China and/or the history of gender. Based on 1200 legal cases from the central and local archives of the Qing dynasty,
68 min
1540
Peter L. Laurence, “Becoming Jane Jacobs” (Univ...
Peter L. Laurence is an associate professor of urban design, history and theory at Clemson University School of Architecture. His book Becoming Jane Jacobs (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016) is an intellectual biography of the architecture critic...
60 min
1541
Kate Bolick, “Spinster: Making a Life of One’s ...
“There still exists little organized sense of what a woman’s biography or autobiography should look like,” Carolyn G. Heilbrun wrote in her 1988 classic, Writing A Woman’s Life, noting, “Even less has been told of the life of the unmarried woman.
38 min
1542
Elizabeth A. Wilson, “Gut Feminism” (Duke UP, 2...
Elizabeth A. Wilson‘s new book is a must-read for anyone interested in the intersection of science studies and feminist theory. In its introduction, Gut Feminism (Duke University Press, 2015) lays out two major ambitions: it seeks “some feminist theore...
61 min
1543
Michelle Chase, “Revolution within the Revoluti...
This episode features Michelle Chase, who joins us to discuss her fascinating new book, Revolution Within the Revolution: Women and Gender Politics in Cuba, 1952-1962 (University of North Carolina Press, 2015).
60 min
1544
Domna Stanton, “The Dynamics of Gender in Early...
Domna Stanton‘s latest book The Dynamics of Gender in Early Modern France: Women Writ, Women Writing (Ashgate, 2014) is a series of six case studies with important literary, historical, and theoretical implications for how we think about gender in the ...
54 min
1545
Anita Weiss, “Interpreting Islam, Modernity, an...
Pakistan is often caricatured and stereotyped as a volatile nuclear country on the precipice of disaster. Such depictions are often especially acerbic when comes to the issue of Women’s rights in the country. In her important new book,
63 min
1546
Jennifer Bain, “Hildegard of Bingen and Musical...
Hildegard of Bingen was many things: a religious leader, a prolific letter-writer, a visionary prophet, possibly a compiler of medical lore, and certainly one of the most important composers of the 12th century. In recent years,
77 min
1547
Joan Judge, “Republican Lens: Gender, Visuality...
Joan Judge‘s wonderful new book takes readers into the pages of the Funu shibao (the Women’s Eastern Times), a “Shanghai-based, nationally distributed, protocommercial, gendered journal that was closely attuned to the concerns of its readers,
61 min
1548
Aisha Durham, “Home With Hip Hop Feminism” (Pet...
Is hip hop defined by its artists or by its audience? In Home With Hip Hop Feminism, Aisha Durham returns hip hop scholarship to its roots by engaging in an ethnographic and autoethnographic approach to studying hip hop.
40 min
1549
Alice J. Kang, “Bargaining for Women’s Rights: ...
Alice J. Kang has written Bargaining for Women’s Rights: Activism in an Aspiring Muslim Democracy (University of Minnesota Press, 2015). Kang is assistant professor of political science and ethnic studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
15 min
1550
Christine Hong, “Identity, Youth, and Gender in...
In her new book, Identity, Youth, and Gender in the Korean American Church (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), Dr. Christine Hong explores the lives of female Korean American Mainline Christian adolescents. Hong’s work,
47 min