The Girls’ History and Culture Reader: The Nineteenth Century

In 1982 Harvard professor Carol Gilligan published In a Different Voice, a revolutionary body of research articulating the unique psychological experience of being female in America. Responding to research that drew conclusions from studying boys, Gilligan’s exploration of the female experience was one of the first to focus on girlhood as an independent site for research rather than as a sub-category of Women’s Studies.

The Young Lords: A Reader

Before reading The Young Lords: A Reader, I had never heard of the Young Lords Party. The original Young Lords were a loosely organized group that emerged from a street gang fighting the gentrification of Puerto Rican neighborhoods in Chicago.

I'm a Registered Nurse, Not a Whore

My grandmother was a nurse. She's retired now, but I remember how she used to chastise her grandchildren, scolding us about washing our hands, eating certain foods, and getting exercise. Above all, she was straightforward about our bodies.

Why Study Talmud in the Twenty-first Century?: The Relevance of the Ancient Jewish Text to Our World

Lending a somewhat contrarian voice to this collection of essays extolling the virtues of Talmud study, the rabbi Dr. Pinchas Hayman takes umbrage at the question Paul Socken poses in the book’s title: “Why should the indescribable depth, beauty, and challenge of authentic Jewish literature require apologetic essays?” He concludes with his own “more relevant” and “far more difficult” question: “Who needs the twenty-first century if one learns Talmud?”

The Vintage Book of American Women Writers

Anyone who has taken their share of English literature survey courses will tell you that the women considered great enough to be included within the literary canon are few to be found, as women writers have been marginalized throughout history. Even today, the title “great American novelist” is one that has yet to be bestowed upon a woman, and many women writers whose work has literary significance find their work disregarded as "chick lit." The Vintage Book of American Women Writers helps to give women their due. The 848-page book traces the history of women writers in America, beginning with Anne Bradford, the first woman to be published in Puritan America, and ending with such contemporary writers as Amy Tan and Jhumpa Lahiri.

Being and Becoming Visible: Women, Performance, and Visual Culture

This book collects an array of articles previously published in the National Women’s Studies Association Journal, brought together for the first time under the auspices of elaborating on the theme of visibility in both performance and visual culture. As with all such collections, some pieces stand out in caliber, notably "Practical Perfection?

Making the Hook-up: Edgy Sex with Soul

What business does a White woman like me have reviewing a collection of erotica by African American authors? I figure when it comes to erotica, it's matter of whether the story turns you on or doesn’t, and I can’t see that race has much to do with that.

The Thing Around Your Neck

My friend Francine, who sensibly chose to read English at Cambridge, knowing my insatiable appetite for novels, asked me to taste and see that Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was good five years ago. I devoured Purple Hibiscus. Sated and ravenous, I only halfheartedly digested Half of a Yellow Sun, because I felt that it did not reflect the brilliance of the first novel—maybe precisely because Purple Hibiscus could not be matched at all in the way it presented the fragrance, colour, and texture of Nigeria.

So Much Things to Say: 100 Calabash Poets

Each May for the past ten years, poets from all over the globe converge in Jamaica for the Calabash International Literary Festival. So Much Things to Say: 100 Calabash Poets brings together the work of poets known and unknown who have read at the Festival or are Calabash Writer’s Workshop Fellows.

I Am an Emotional Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around the World

I'll tell you why I bothered picking up I Am an Emotional Creature: (1) I loved the graffiti-like cover, which reminded me of the doodling I used to pen over my books in high school, and (2) I really respect and enjoy Eve Ensler's writing.

Alone With You: Stories

For years, I read The New Yorker for the politics and music reviews more than for its fiction.

Body 2 Body: A Malaysian Queer Anthology

Body 2 Body is the product of Malaysia’s young, hip and well-connected who’ve banded together to compile a collection of short stories and essays on living la vida non-normative.

Sometimes She Lets Me: Best Butch/Femme Erotica

So, I sometimes forget that reading erotica and looking at BDSM queer porn in the library of an Ivy League university is not necessarily standard practice. Lucky for me, I go to Brown, where I’m concentrating in Gender and Sexuality studies, and have somehow managed to legitimize studying sex manuals with postmodern theory in order to (supposedly, so they say) get a degree next year.

Leading the Way: Young Women's Activism for Social Change

When I read Leading the Way, I felt the same way I did the first time I read Grassroots: A Field Guide for Feminist Activism by Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards or Listen Up: Voices from the Next Feminist Generation by Barbara Findlen. I felt inspired, challenged, and optimistic about the future of feminism. I felt I had a road map of feminist ideas I could apply to my own life, and I knew I had incredible, real-life examples of women creating social change in their lives.