SUNY Press

Unequal Desires: Race and Erotic Capital in the Stripping Industry

mandy — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 20:00:00 +0000

Racial inequality in the workforce seems sadly obvious, but something I had never before thought of was racial inequality in sex work. Logically, it makes sense that this brand of inequity would carry through to the sex industry, but it feels wrong somehow that anyone would be vying for a better position in sex work. As a feminist, empowerment in sex work has always fascinated me. Although the typical debates of this issue play a very limited role in Unequal Desires, the book creates the space for a new conversation about sex work and race.

Unequal Desires highlights race’s role in stripping—specifically, the stripper’s erotic capital. (Erotic capital is the value given to a body based on socially and culturally crafted visions of ideal beauty that are accepted by the majority of people in a given society.) Adapted from Brooks’ dissertation, her book reads like an ethnographic study. Her interpretation of interviewees quotes are very limited and the majority of the book contains her uncontaminated observations. The purity of her research gives it enormous academic credibility in my eyes, but may become tiresome reading for someone outside of academia.

What I found most interesting was Brooks’ choice of interviewing strip club staff as her primary source, and not dancers. This appeared to coalesce in the process of her research, as the dancers were less accessible at the three clubs at which she conducted her study: two straight clubs in New York City and one lesbian club in San Francisco. Hearing directly from bouncers, waiters, custodians, club managers, and a few dancers was incredible. It is nearly impossible to hear these voices unfiltered through media and academic sources, so Brooks’ fieldwork is invaluable in that sense; however, her choice to maintain an academic frame in her publication may limit the scope of individuals these voices reach.

Using stripping as a window makes racial discrimination in the workplace a new issue. Even among jobs that many find undesirable, racism persists and reminds the world that we are not in a “post-racial” state; in fact, it is quite the opposite.

Written by: Nicole Levitz, January 22nd 2011

Disciplining Women: Alpha Kappa Alpha, Black Counterpublics, and the Cultural Politics of Black Sororities

annette — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 12:00:00 +0000

By Deborah Elizabeth Whaley

SUNY Press

I learned a lot about Black Greek-letter organizations while reading Disciplining Women: Alpha Kappa Alpha, Black Counterpublics, and the Cultural Politics of Black Sororities, specifically about the title sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha (AKA). The author, Deborah Elizabeth Whaley, does a good job of laying out the socio-political arena in which the members lived, from the importance of stepping to the brown paper bag (skin hue) test to the members’ activism in the public sphere.

Disciplining Women is split into five chapters and includes copious endnotes for the dedicated reader. Whaley introduces us to Black Greek-letter organizations (BGLOs) generally in the first chapter by referencing the recent movie Stomp the Yard and Spike Lee’s School Daze. She notes, however, that neither film is historically complex and both are about men’s organizations, not women’s, which creates kind of a vacancy in popular imagination about the specifics and importance of Black sororities. The first chapter is a stepping point from BGLOs by and large to AKA in particular.

The second chapter focuses on placing AKA and, by extension, other BGLOs into a historical context by connecting the sorority to other culturally significant events: everything from anti-lynching activism at the turn of the last century to1990s AIDS activism and all the way up to the present. Whaley duly notes AKA’s members’ good deeds but also mentions with caution that the sorority’s “politics of respectability and reform ventures” may actually have hurt (and continue to hurt) Black Americans as a whole. One step forward, two steps back, it seems.

The third chapter was the most interesting and informative to me because it covered stepping, something I’ve been interested in since I learned about it in college. (My school had no historically Black sororities or fraternities, but the Black Student Union often hosted groups from other schools, many of which included step performers.) Whaley briefly analyzes stepping by centering it in the step performances of the African diaspora and then centers on how stepping has evolved on college campuses and how young women reproduce and recreate gender, sexual identity, and ethnic loyalties through public ritual. Though other publications have covered stepping more thoroughly, Disciplining Women expands upon Black women’s contributions to discussions of femininity and sexuality.

In the fourth chapter, from which the title of the book is taken, Whaley tackles the minefield that is hazing in a BGLO (or any Greek-letter organization). The primary AKA case study about unofficial pledge activities that resulted in a criminal trial in Kent, Ohio, provided a dark, complicated look into sorority initiation rites.

In the last chapter, AKA sisters and alumnae comment on the future of BGLOs and raise three main points of concern: “class, gender, and racial struggle; regrets and mistakes pertaining to pledging and hazing; and maintaining hope through action in the Black public sphere.” Including the voices of women in AKA proved to be an important point for Whaley; she lets the reader draw his or her own conclusions by setting historical narrative and present-day socio-political and cultural discussion side by side for review.

Disciplining Women does not work well as an introduction to Black Greek-letter organizations and seems more easily approached as a case study of one such organization, Alpha Kappa Alpha, so long as the reader already has some background knowledge of Black fraternities and sororities, stepping, and/or hazing on college campuses. The reading is verbose and intense; more than once I had to reread a sentence to understand what it really meant. Essentially, it’s an academic text rather than a popular history or easy-to-read guide. Any one of the chapters could have been exponentially expanded and, when I was able to follow the author, I often wanted it to; the discussion, when I understood it, was all too brief for my taste. Disciplining Women provides a lot of great information, but make sure you’re prepared to focus and engage in the reading without interruptions or distractions.

Written by: Viannah Duncan, December 5th 2010

Imagining Black Womanhood: The Negotiation of Power and Identity Within the Girls Empowerment Project

beth — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000

By Stephanie D. Sears

SUNY Press

Imagining Black Womanhood by Stephanie D. Sears is a sociological account of the experiences of young African-American girls within the Girls Empowerment Project (GEP), an “Afri-centric, womanist, single-sex, after-school program” in Sun Valley, the largest housing development in Bay City, California. Set against the backdrop of a “nation’s collective anxieties” regarding Black women and girls, Imagining Black Womanhood is a well-researched and thoughtful interrogation of race, gender, and class and how the experiences of young Black girls struggling to resist stereotypes within and outside the GEP project speak to broader questions of power, privilege, and politics. Despite the (ironically) unimaginative title, Imagining Black Womanhood is a commendable effort by Sears to question, with equal academic rigor, discourses of empowerment, as well as oppression, in addition to showing how the biases that inform many of the stereotypes that these girls must struggle against come from across the political spectrum and across racial lines.

Sears sets the historical stage well, by tracing images of poor Black women and girls as “welfare queens” to the Reagan administration’s dismantling of the welfare state and its promotion of “trickle-down” economics, with its explicit finger-pointing at the “impoverished African-American female” as an undeserving recipient of benefits. By laying bare the racial and gender stereotypes that underlie these and other predominant images (such as “teen mothers”) of young Black women in the public imagination, Sears demonstrates how discourses from both Black and dominant communities have attempted to control the sexuality of young Black women—and have shaped the context for the growth of projects such as GEP.

Against this background, Sears describes how despite its aim to “empower” and enable Black girls to counter racial and gender stereotypes, GEP inadvertently reproduced many of these discourses in both its structure as an organization as well as its method of work. GEP’s explicit aim, when it initially conducted an assessment of problems such as teen pregnancy and poverty among Black girls, was to “challenge and change…unequal power relations and resource distribution”—that is, the structural issues underpinning Black girls’ social status in Sun Valley. However, despite this goal, GEP’s more pragmatic choice to try and effect change in areas where they could have most impact, meant that they ended up addressing the symptoms of discrimination rather than challenging the structures of power responsible for them. In doing so, GEP fell back on middle class cultural values and notions of “respectability,” attempting to erase what they viewed as the cultural markers of the “ghetto underclass”—such as the hypersexualization and objectification of young Black women—but with them, also the sense of self-hood and lived experiences of the young girls of GEP.

The above is illustrated most interestingly in the section entitled “Dance Lessons,” in which Sears shows how the struggle over sexuality, power, and identity between GEP and the young girls who attend it, is enacted through the “embodied politics” of dance. Prompted by the Afro-centric ideology of GEP, GEP staff’s attempts to encourage the girls to perform African dances (this bearing, in their eyes, the respectable currency of tradition) is countered by the girls’ desire to “express who they are” through contemporary hip-hop numbers. Sears stages the generational and class confrontation between the GEP staff and the girls through their conflicting perceptions of “appropriate” displays of sexuality, respectability, and respect, thereby asking the question that lies at the heart of Imagining Black Womanhood—what does “empowerment” mean, and to whom? How are notions of empowerment intertwined with class and cultural values? And what happens when processes of empowerment attempt to reconstitute the identity of she who is seen to be a “recipient” rather than an equal participant in this process? Sears’ book is a dense but rewarding read, not just for academics but for anyone interested in confronting these questions.

Written by: Kaavya Asoka, November 19th 2010

Mothers Who Deliver: Feminist Interventions in Public and Interpersonal Discourse

gwen — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Edited by Pegeen Reichert Powell, Jocelyn Fenton Stitt

SUNY Press

While the field of mothering studies is approximately thirty years old, there’s no question that the experience of motherhood and the accompanying discourse and silence that surround it has existed for far longer. In this academic anthology, Stitt and Powell cast a wide net into this interdisciplinary field, bringing back articles that speak to everything from the “mommyblogging” revolution to single mothers’ groups and how they operate on university campuses. It is a bit broad for a text that comes in under 315 pages, but then again, it seems that attempting to narrow this field of study would be counterintuitive. The message of mothering studies scholars is clear: each mother’s experience deserves exploration.

The book is divided into two parts: “Feminist Interventions in Public Discourse,” and “Feminist Interventions in Interpersonal Discourse.” That organizational style doesn’t help or hurt the book since it’s a well-curated set of articles, but it is interesting to think about the public and private spheres that mothering dually occupies. In a feminist collection like this, it is difficult to highlight certain articles over others, especially because readers know how intimate these experiences are. However, there are certain pieces in this anthology that truly do stand apart from the rest. “Cyborg Mothering” by Shelley Park offers a unique, maternal perspective on technology. This is a woman who once refused to own a cell phone because she didn’t want to be in constant contact with anyone. Upon her separation from her husband and as a result of their joint custody of their two daughters, that same woman now relies on that mobile device and various web tools to maintain a presence in her daughters’ lives when they spend time with her ex-husband. It’s fascinating to see technology in this light, as a tool that truly does keep the lines of communication open, rather than as a distraction or a way to connect with an old high school friend.

Lynn Kuechle offers her thoughts on the current lack of mothering scripts, and expresses her frustration as a master’s student in speech communication and a mother, which culminates in a series of monologues about mothering. When read against another article in this text, “Mommyblogging Is a Radical Act!: Weblog Communities and the Construction of Maternal Identity,” one begins to question what “lack of mothering scripts” Kuechle is referring to. According to Lisa Hammond, mommybloggers are rewriting scripts every day on the web. The issues like these that are raised by the mere combination of articles in this text are the most rewarding aspects of reading Mothers Who Deliver. The articles themselves promote introspection, but it is the act of reading them in the same space against seemingly disparate articles that fosters questioning and eventual understanding of just how personal and political a field like mothering studies can be.

Written by: Alyssa Vincent, November 13th 2010

Who Should Be First?: Feminists Speak Out on the 2008 Presidential Campaign

mandy — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 16:00:00 +0000

Edited by Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Johnnetta Betsch Cole

SUNY Press

Please read this book. If you were in any way inspired by the groundbreaking 2008 election of President Barack Obama, you will find an essay in Who Should be First? that speaks what's been on your mind, challenges your way of thinking, causes you to feel frustrated, or represents the many complex emotions you felt on that historic day.

Bravo to Beverly Guy-Sheftall and Johnnetta Betsch Cole for compiling this diverse and inspiring anthology. At first glance, I saw all the usual names (i.e., Valenti, Steinem, Walker) and warily assumed that this would be one more tribute to the same feminist pundits, as always. But you will find essays from many feminist points of view in this compilation, and a lot of them (thankfully!) point out that “women” and “people of color” are not mutually exclusive groups. The press often ignored women of color during this election, leaving us to think that everyone had the luxury to choose between race and gender allegiances.

I wish I had owned this book during the election, although of course that would have been impossible. The essays recall conflicted feelings I experienced when trying to decide between the two potential Democratic Presidential candidates. The authors explore the divisive, oft repeated claims of the time: that gender was a greater barrier to overcome than race, that young feminists were naive or stupid to vote for Obama, that Bill Clinton had been the first Black President and, therefore, Black voters should support Hillary, etc. The editors arranged the book book to highlight, rather than smooth over, these opposing views.

In one essay, the author explained that she was voting for Hillary because gender was the greatest barrier to overcome. In the following essay, a different author explained that she was voting for Barack because race was the greatest barrier to overcome. The authors of all the essays express various thoughtful points of view, but I have not been able to stop mulling over Jane Caputi’s “Crisis of Representation: Hate Messages in Campaign 2008 Commercial Paraphernalia.” Originally published in the Denver University Law Review last year, it is a comprehensive, although by no means exhaustive, study of visual representations of the rampant sexism, racism, ageism, and ableism expressed during the campaign not only against Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, but also Michelle Obama, John McCain, and Sarah Palin. This essay actually made me feel nauseous. If you can stomach the hateful and disgusting images, it is a powerful reminder (in case you forgot) of the vivid hate speech both Democratic candidates had to battle.

“Sex Versus Race, Again,” by Tracy A. Thomas, is another well-researched piece that compares the 2008 election to the fight for women’s voting rights in the early twentieth century. Thomas shows that drawing a line in the sand didn’t work then and won’t work now. The either/or strategy leaves everyone at a loss.

Read Who Should be First? to remember the electric energy you felt two years ago. We all knew that the political world was changing, and after eight bleak years with a warmongering President, even the most cynical of us began to hope. With the November elections around the corner, and the threat of right-wing extremists garnering control of Congress, think back to a time where you were excited, enthralled, and inspired by politicians.

Cross-posted at Gender Across Borders

Written by: Colleen Hodgetts, October 24th 2010

African Americans Doing Feminism: Putting Theory into Everyday Practice

brittany — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 18:00:00 +0000

Edited by Aaronette M. White

SUNY Press

There are many well-meaning people in society who identify as feminists, yet do not know what they can do to put their feminist ideals into action. African Americans Doing Feminism is an excellent resource for these people. The book is collection of essays written by women and men from a broad spectrum of backgrounds, but the unifying theme among the contributors is that all of them have been impacted by feminism in some way at various stages in their lives.

In her introduction, Aaronette M. White explains that when she put out the call for contributors, she did not want to define “feminist.” As a result, “feminism,” “womanism,” and “Black feminism” are all discussed in varying degrees throughout the book. Some authors use the terms interchangeably—a fact that may not sit well with some readers—while others prefer specific terminology. What is clear, however, is that regardless of their preferred term (or lack thereof), all of the authors interpret feminism in terms of the negative effects created by patriarchy and other systems of oppression.

The book is split into five parts: Family Values; Community Building; Romantic Partnerships; Healing Practices; Career Dilemmas. Some of the most poignant essays came from people who had participated in sexist/oppressive practices in the past. Dorothy M., for example, writes about growing up at the hands of her abusive sister. Dorothy went on to become an advocate and educator on domestic abuse issues, only to find herself as the abuser in her own personal relationship.

In “‘Every Goodbye Ain’t Gone’: Why the Feminist I Loved Left Me,” William Dotson reflects on a tumultuous relationship with a woman who left an indelible effect on his life. He writes, “feminism ‘did’ more to me than I ‘did’ to or with it.” Though Dotson was considered progressive in activist circles, he could not and would not see past his sexism and patriarchal oppressiveness. He was in a relationship with a feminist woman whom he loved deeply, but his attitude cost him their relationship; it was not until years later that he began to regretfully analyze his abusive behaviors.

Other essays serve as a rallying call for change. One of my favorite essays is written by Sister Sojourner Truth, who writes that, “Being an African American feminist nun has never been a contradiction for me,” and goes on to write that she is, “comfortable with the idea that the Catholic Church might have to get rid of terms such as nun, priest, and even pope in order to be open to the creative possibility of a nonhierarchical, nonpatriarchal church.” Talk about radical! Sister Sojourner goes on to discuss the systematic abuses committed by the church; though the sexual abuse of children got worldwide coverage, she points out how other abuses are still kept silent, such as the rapes of nuns by priests. Her form of practicing feminism is to speak out at all times.

Another fascinating essay is, “Gay, Gray, and a Place to Stay: Living It Up and Out in an RV Park,” by Aaronette M. White and Vera C. Martin. The essay mostly takes place in the form of a conversation between White and Marin. It revolves around Martin’s experiences as an African American living in a predominantly white RV park for aging lesbians, and her experiences as an activist for aging lesbians.

African Americans Doing Feminism shows readers that feminist activism can be put into everyday practice through even the smallest actions. Though a lot of the contributors in this book are professional activists and educators, a lot of them are just regular people whose actions can have a large impact. They show that being a man and talking to other men about sexism and violence against women, being a mother who seeks to destigmatize breastfeeding, or simply being a person who is honest about health issues such as depression is a powerful form of feminist activism. Most importantly, the writers realize the different systems of oppression affecting women and people of color, and they have found ways to address some of these issues in their own lives.

Written by: Melissa Arjona, September 16th 2010

Anachronism and Its Others: Sexuality, Race, Temporality

admin — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 17:01:00 +0000

By Valerie Rohy

SUNY Press

Valerie Rohy’s exploration of the efforts to define both queer and Black identities and their subsequent intersections is as interesting as it is illuminating, as presented in Anachronism and Its Others, whether it is a discussion of the temporal implications of Frederick Douglass’ thought presented in his autobiography or demystifying the nebulous concepts of "queer time." Anachronism and Its Others also investigates how the modern field of sexology has recently made a connection between homosexuality and blackness, often for the negative purpose of justifying homophobic and/or racist socioeconomic worldviews.

One of Rohy’s strongest observations in Anachronism and Its Others is the split between "queer" and "straight time" as she notes within the initial chapters of the book. The idea of straight time as a historical metanarrative told through the evolution of American culture as defined by the goals of majoritarian interests is revelatory. As Rohy states, straight time is "promoted as the best form of progress and the only 'real temporality.'" The author illustrates an important connection to scientific racism as it forms the grounding of those seeking to connect homosexuality and Blackness with threats to the White family, to its perceived superior vitality, fecundity, and ability to function as the carriage of the national society. Rohy’s weaving of modern constructions of ethnic and sexual identity, the connection of contemporary sexology with scientific racism and the attempt to negate any alternatives to a Caucasian heteronormative national paradigm are brilliant.

Such connections and observations lead one to an important question: How does one combat attempts to frame progress and time itself as concepts in opposition to the existential utility of sexual and ethnic minorities within a particular society? As threats to the forward movement of that society? Rohy’s argument against the idea of "straight time" and other justifications of a narrowly defined national culture and destiny are made through the intellectual dismantling of its philosophical buttresses: contemporary sexology and its cousin scientific racism appear to be one large step toward answering such a daunting challenge.

Written by: Brandon Copeland, February 12th 2010

Yasodharā, the Wife of the Bōdhisattva: The Sinhala Yasodharavata (The Story of Yasodhara) and the Sinhala Yasodharapadanaya (The Sacred Biography of

admin — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 01:00:00 +0000

By Ranjini Obeyesekere

SUNY Press

I approached Ranjini Obeyesekere’s book with slight trepidation: though the subject of Buddhism has always interested me, I was worried about my ability to write about a religion with such a long detailed history that I had only a surface knowledge of. I was well aware from the start that my Christian background would affect my interpretation of this text, and in the end this book did leave me questioning every rose-coloured, perhaps orientalist view I had of Buddhism.

As I suspected, Yasodharā, the Wife of the Bōdhisattva, is not a light read. This book will be really popular with those already familiar with SUNY Press’ challenging and progressive publications, but will probably never touch the trade market. The writing style is heavy on facts and descriptions, and less so on interpretation and theorization. The reader doesn’t get much of a sense of Obeyesekere’s thesis, which is unfortunate as she is such an experienced scholar. But perhaps this was done on purpose, as the book leaves the reader with no choice but to form their own interpretation; and with the fantastical, bizarre story presented in her translations, it is almost impossible not to.

Women in most major religions are delegated to a life of suffering, whether as punishment or reward. Yasodharā’s life is no exception. Born into a rich class, she was married to Siddhartha when she was 16 years old. They were happy until Siddhartha decided to pursue a holy life, two days after the birth of their only child. Yasodharā then lives out her life in pious denial, eventually becoming a nun with superpowers, which would be cool if she allowed to use them. Her story so far was basically what I was expected, similar to the role of the Virgin Mother in Christianity: a life lived in perfect accordance to the rules that is rewarded with silent suffering.

What I was not prepared for was the violence Yasodharā was subjected to. She and Buddha spend countless lives together as partners, and throughout these lives Buddha allowed her to be eaten by animals, gave away her children, sold her, lost her in a bet, and abandoned her in the middle of the night after she gave birth to their child. What is most disturbing is that Buddha’s actions were considered progression through samsara (the human condition) and necessary to achievement enlightenment. As Yasodharā is considered Buddha’s property, giving her away or letting her be taken was an act of charity. The fact that Yasodharā puts up with this abuse in each life proves she is an ideal wife and will eventually reach nirvana.

Obeyesekere’s text is straight-forward historical reference; however, I found myself often making connections between Yasodharā’s story and the way our culture still perceives violence against women. Viewed from a feminist perspective, a reader of Yasodharā’s story can’t help but wonder if she should have been the Buddha. While Siddhartha may have lived an ascetic life of charity and poverty, his horrific treatment of his wife and children suggests he is far from obtaining enlightenment. Yasodharā, on the other hand, did nothing but sacrifice herself for the betterment of another person and follow the rules of being a perfect Buddhist woman. It is not only Yasodharā who has met this fate—as much as we hate to admit it, men we as a culture admire, like Martin Luther King Jr. or Gandhi, were no saints when it came to their treatment of women.

This book is a challenging and eye-opening read, and the retelling and sharing of Yasodharā’s story is the most fundamental type of feminist act.

Written by: Jennifer Burgess, February 10th 2010

Girls, Feminism, and Grassroots Literacies: Activism in the GirlZone

admin — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 16:18:00 +0000

By Mary P. Sheridan-Rabideau

SUNY Press

Set in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Girls, Feminism, and Grassroots Literacies follows the short life GirlZone, a nonprofit in Central Illinois. Founded by two women living in Urbana-Champaign, GirlZone offered nontraditional workshops and other hands-on learning opportunities for girls in the area and its outskirts. Ranging from skateboarding lessons to a bi-weekly radio show, GirlZone sounds like it was very cool indeed.

I was really excited to receive this book, but it was disappointing in a number of ways. First, it's a real downer to read about how a neat nonprofit that was girl-centered simply flopped. Second, you have to plow through an academic, dry writing style to get to what should be the exciting meat of the book. It's written like a case study—notwithstanding the absence and misuse of punctuation, which grates on the nerves—rather than a narrative of what really seems like groundbreaking social work.

What is exciting is reading the interviews with girls who were activists in grade school, and finding out that they went on to become employed as journalists, radio DJs, and independent media producers. What's sad is that many of GirlZone's internal debates centered around whether or not to openly call themselves a feminist organization. While it's clear that the organization never had a solid funding or board structure, it's maddening to think that, being a nonprofit that focused on girls exclusively, they never really had a fair shot at funding. The author and one of GirlZone's founders, Aimee, both argue this point, and the statistics agree: Sheridan-Rabideau cites the fact that for every four private foundation grants to boys' groups, only one is given for girls.

One thing I did like about this book is that it made me, as a fundraising professional, want to go out and do something about that. It's high time for those numbers to change.

Written by: M.L. Madison, April 12th 2009

Black Male Outsider: Teaching as a Pro-Feminist Man

admin — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 23:16:00 +0000

By Gary L. Lemons

SUNY Press

In this compelling, readable volume that is part memoir, part classroom case study Dr. Gary L. Lemons employs the theme of moving from silence to voice, and what this means for anti-racist, feminist pedagogy. He eloquently writes about his experiences teaching and learning in majority white classrooms as a pro-feminist, African American man.

Filled with the citations from work that has inspired and supported his pedagogy—such as bell hooks, Audre Lorde, Marlon Riggs, and Patricia Hill Collins, as well as quotes from the many critical autobiographical writings Lemons assigned to his students—Black Male Outsider is a powerful memoir and teaching tool. He offers educators at all levels effective strategies they can adapt to their own classrooms to teach and learn across difference and is one of the most compelling books on this subject to come out in some time.

For thirteen years Lemons was a professor at a small, progressive, liberal arts college in New York City. His book highlights his classroom strategies to challenge students to confront the interrelated forces of racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia, often through teaching black, feminist literature. He also highlights how he worked to encourage students to come to a deeper understanding of the ways white supremacy has shaped American culture. To further illuminate his path to being a pro-feminist educator, Lemons also delves deeply into his own personal history of growing up in Arkansas and surviving domestic violence perpetrated by his father.

Lemons, whose doctorate is in English literature, is adept with language, and he plays with it throughout the book. Unfortunately, his many italics, parentheses, and quotation marks—while making a strong point about how institutionalized power inhabits the very language we speak—become a distraction from his otherwise clear prose. They threaten to become too cutesy for the depth with which he addresses his subjects.

Fortunately, Lemons and the students whose work he quotes provide powerful examples and testimony of the possibilities teaching across difference offers. He demonstrates how one can find strength in difference that resists a banal, depoliticized celebration of multiculturalism. He also powerfully makes the case that men can and must be feminist advocates and allies.

As Lemons writes in the conclusion, his book "promotes black feminist memoir-writing pedagogy that opposes all forms of domination, and it promotes the critical necessity of one’s movement from silence to voice about the effects of its dehumanization—personally and politically." Lemons bravery in confronting the violence social injustices wreak on society in his teaching and in his writing will serve his readers alike and equip them with knowledge a theoretical framework in which they can formulate their own ideas of how to heal from the wounds of white supremacy in their own lives.

Written by: Eleanor Whitney, April 10th 2009

Queer Youth Cultures

admin — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 16:46:00 +0000

Edited by Susan Driver

SUNY Press

Queer youth are often absent from discussions about adolescents, popular culture, and even the queer community. Susan Driver, an advocate and expert on LGBTQ youth, puts together a thoughtful and diverse collection of work that gives voice to queer youth without pathologizing them. Queer Youth Cultures, edited by Driver, is broken down into three parts: selections about building queer youth cultures and community, the impact of popular culture on queer youth, and queer youth political advocacy.

My favorite essay, by far, was Judith Halberstam’s “What’s That Smell?: Queer Temporalities and Subcultural Lives.” Halberstam, a rock star in the world of queer theory, presents various queer subcultures (dyke punk music, drag king performances, slam poetry, etc.) and discusses the importance of archiving these subcultures without exploitation. The reading also features some pieces of Halberstam’s theories found in her groundbreaking book-length work In a Queer Time and Place.

Mark Lipton’s “Queer Readings of Popular Culture: Searching [To] Out the Subtext” is an in-depth study of how queer youth are capable of creating queer storylines and characters out of seemingly heterosexual popular culture. Since Lipton originally researched this topic in 1990 and again towards 2000, it is interesting to see the progression with the addition of Will and Grace and The L Word—texts that actually include LGBTQ characters.

But not every reading in this collection is theoretical in nature, which makes Queer Youth Cultures that much more accessible and important. “Redefining Realities Through Self-Representational Performance,” by Jama Shelton, features best practices on how queer youth can harness their own experiences and individual voices to build their self-esteem. Shelton discusses the artistic programming at Houston-based LGBTQ youth organization H.A.T.C.H. (Houston Area Teen Coalition of Homosexuals), and shares powerful examples from works created by youth in the program.

Queer Youth Cultures is a beautiful photography collection by Cass Bird that gives visibility to queer youth. I particularly enjoyed “I Look Just Like My Daddy” and “I Look Just Like My Mommy”—two juxtaposed photographs of one youth displaying both typical feminine and masculine characteristics. Since queer youth are often judged based on their appearance, I appreciate the editor’s decision to include photography in this text.

Written by: Kerri Kanelos, March 22nd 2009

Resilience: Queer Professors from the Working Class

admin — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 18:38:00 +0000

Edited by Kenneth Oldfield, Richard Greggory Johnson III

SUNY Press

This anthology of writings from a variety of queer professors and administrators from the working class aims to shed light on the myriad of ways that gender, sexuality, and class intersect and come into play in the academy. Each author offers his or her unique story, producing testimony to the salience of multiple identities in understanding power within the university and more broadly.

The strength of this anthology is the dialogue between authors of multiple generations and geographic regions. The reader begins to build connections between a young Black man from the Bronx and an older White woman from the rural south. These differences keep the book from falling back on tropes of individualism that often come from 'inspiring' individual stories. One of the strongest pieces was Felice Yeskel's "My First Closet Was the Class Closet." It highlights how she came to focus on queer and working class issues of social justice, and through collective action found strength in her identities and politics. The narrative became more than just her own story; it also offered historical lessons in social movements and the challenges of developing an intersectional praxis of radical politics.

One of the advantages of an anthology is that every reader finds different pieces insightful and valuable. The editors explain in the introduction that they hope the book will educate people who possess class and heterosexual privilege on the reality of oppression faced by queer, working class professors, and that these qualitative accounts of lived experience will enrich scholarly work around class and sexuality. Resilience certainly provides the material for success.

Written by: Katrina Forman, February 8th 2009