Transitions, environments, translations : feminisms in international politics ; [revised papers from a conference held April 1995 at Rutgers University

The Essays In Transitions, Environments, Translations Explore The Varied Meanings Of Feminism In Different Political, Cultural, And Historical Contexts. They Respond To The Claim That Feminism Is Western In Origin And Universalist In Theory, And To The Assumption That Feminist Goals Are Self-evident And The Same In All Contexts. Rather Than Assume That There Is A Blueprint By Which To Measure The Strength Or Success Of Feminism In Different Parts Of The World, These Essays Consider Feminism To Be A Site Of Local, National And International Conflict. They Ask: What Is At Stake In Various Political Efforts By Women In Different Parts Of The World? What Meanings Have Women Given To Their Efforts? What Has Been Their Relationship To Feminism--as A Concept And As An International Movement? What Happens When Feminist Ideas Are Translated From One Language, One Political Context, To Another?-- 1. Finding A Language: Feminism And Women's Movements In Contemporary China / Lin Chun -- 2. Civil Society And The Politics Of Difference In Eastern Europe / Peggy Watson -- 3. Feminism And Civil Society / Susan Gal -- 4. German Unification And Feminist Identity / Myra Marx Ferree -- 5. Transitory And Persistent Differences: Feminism East And West / Hana Havelkova -- 6. Affective Nationalism / Djurdja Knezevic -- 7. Nationalist And Women's Discourse In Post-yugoslavia / Svetlana Slapsak -- 8. The Postsocialist Moral Majority / Renata Salecl -- 9. The Ngoization Of Feminism / Sabine Lang -- 10. The East German Women's Movement After Unification / Eva Maleck-lewy -- 11. Women's Movements In Poland / Malgorzata Fuszara -- 12. Politics In Transition / Milica Antic Gaber -- 13. Hungarian Women In Politics / Andrea Peto -- 14. The Women's Movement In Bulgaria After Communism / Krassimira Daskalova -- 15. Response / Ann Snitow. Edited By Joan W. Scott, Cora Kaplan, Debra Keates. Revised Papers From A Conference Held April 1995 At Rutgers University. Includes Bibliographical References.

the Essays In transitions, Environments, Translations Explore The Varied Meanings Of Feminism In Different Political, Cultural, And Historical Contexts. They Respond To The Claim That Feminism Is Western In Origin And Universalist In Theory, And To The Assumption That Feminist Goals Are Self-evident And The Same In All Contexts.

rather Than Assume That There Is A Blueprint By Which To Measure The Strength Or Success Of Feminism In Different Parts Of The World, These Essays Consider Feminism To Be A Site Of Local, National And International Conflict. They Ask: What Is At Stake In Various Political Efforts By Women In Different Parts Of The World? What Meanings Have Women Given To Their Efforts? What Has Been Their Relationship To Feminism—as A Concept And As An International Movement? What Happens When Feminist Ideas Are Translated From One Language, One Political Context, To Another?

booknews

the Contents Are Revisions Of Papers Presented At A Conference At Rutgers In April 1995. The Book Attempts To Articulate The Relationship Between Feminism As A Universal Movement For Women's Rights And Feminism As A Set Of Particular Movements Deeply Rooted In National Or Regional Histories. Twenty-nine Contributions Study Women's Movements In Various Socialist And Postsocialist Societies, Including China, Germany, And The Former Yugoslavia; Issues Of Economic Development And Environmentalism In India And Ethiopia; Race In Women's Movements In The United States And South Africa; And Women's Studies Programs In Some Eastern Cultures And Their Relationship To Western Feminism. Annotation C. By Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

This superb collection of essays explores the meanings and effects of feminism's universalist claims, challenging the idea that translation involves creating copies of Western women's movements and arguing instead that feminism is an international phenomenon that involves transmutations and adaptations. Contributors from many different countries -- including China, South Africa and several parts of Eastern Europe -- examine the questions of how movements and ideas can yield cross-cultural feminist collaboration. The pioneer literature bearing the new feminist consciousness produced by a few women scholars and novelists in China had a distinct voice in the general humanist and individualist turn of the country's political and cultural discourse immediately after the Cultural Revolution in the late 1970s.