Books by Subject
Books by Subject
Women and Culture
Woman's Inhumanity to Woman
by Phyllis Chesler
Hardcover - 536 pages (February
9, 2002)
Thunder's Mouth Press;
ISBN: 1560253517 ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.73 x 9.38 x 6.36
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Woman: An Intimate Geography
by Natalie Angier
Hardcover - 398 pages (April 1,
1999)
Houghton Mifflin Co (Trd); ISBN:
0395691303 ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.40 x 9.34 x 6.41
Other Editions: Audio
Cassette (Abridged)
Reviews
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Despite scientific evidence to the contrary, as far as the health care
profession is concerned the standard operating design of the human body is male.
So when a book comes along as beautifully written and endlessly informative
as Natalie Angier's Woman: An Intimate Geography, it's a cause for major
celebration. Written with whimsy and eloquence, her investigation into female
physiology draws its inspiration not only from scientific and medical sources
but also from mythology, history, art, and literature, layering biological factoids
with her own personal encounters and arcane anecdotes from the history of science.
Who knew, for example, that the clitoris--with 8,000 nerve fibers--packs double
the pleasure of the penis; that the gene controlling cellular sensitivity to
male androgens, ironically enough, resides on the X-chromosome; or that stress
hormones like cortisol and corticosterone are the true precursors of friendship?
The mysteries of evolution are not a new subject for Angier, a Pulitzer
Prize-winning biology writer for the New York Times whose previous books include The
Beauty of the Beastly and Natural Obsessions. The strengths of Woman
begin with Angier's witty and evocative prose style, but its real contribution is the way
it expands the definition of female "geography" beyond womb, breasts, and
estrogen, down as far as the bimolecular substructure of DNA and up as high as the
transcendent infrastructure of the human brain. --Patrizia DiLucchio
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In his clinical practice, Klawans thought about the evolution of the brain to try to understand his patients' problems, and vice versa. His theme throughout is that brain development is about windows of opportunity: many things can only be learned in certain periods, and after puberty in particular the brain has been largely "pruned to shape," so that skills like language and music may never be properly acquired.
The cavewoman of the title is the one who stayed home taking care of the babies while Man the Hunter was off spearheading the Ascent of Man (in what Stephen Jay Gould, one of Klawans's favorite writers, calls an "evolutionary just-so story"). Not so, says Klawans: because the window of opportunity for learning language is in childhood, especially early childhood, language must have arisen between mothers and children: "though few defend the Cavewoman, we all speak our mother's tongue." --Mary Ellen Curtin
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Architecture and Feminism : Yale Publications on Architecture
by Debra Coleman (Editor), Elizabeth Danze (Editor), Carol Henderson
(Editor), Courtney Mercer (Editor)
Paperback - 272 pages
(February 1997)
Princeton Architectural Pr; ISBN:
1568980434 ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.62 x 9.12 x 6.10
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Cracks in the Pedestal : Ideology and Gender in Hollywood
Distinguishing his own neo-Marxist approach
from that of other media scholars, Philip Green pursues two interrelated themes.
In the first part of the book, he looks at the strategies Hollywood has employed
to deflect or absorb the ideological challenges posed by the feminist critique
of contemporary American society. He demonstrates the ways in which mainstream
movies and television programs, no matter how unconventional or
"subversive" they may appear, produce and reproduce familiar images of
sexuality and gender identity. In the second part, Green highlights instances in
which reproduction of the dominant ideology is less successful by examining
several recent cinematic genres - the female action movie, the rape-revenge
cycle, and the new film noir - that portray the real ambiguities of a social
order in upheaval. As a male consumer of the cultural commodities being
discussed, the author offers a perspective on American films and television
different from that of most other feminist critics. --This text refers to the
hardcover edition of this title
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For centuries, women diagnosed with "hysteria"--a
"disease paradigm," in Rachel P. Maines's felicitous phrase, thought
to result from a lack of sexual intercourse or gratification--were treated by
massaging their genitals in order to induce "paroxysm." Male
physicians, however, considered the practice drudgery, and sought various ways
of avoiding the task, often foisting it off on midwives or, starting in the late
19th century, employing mechanical devices. Eventually, these devices became
available for purchase and home use; one such "portable vibrator" is
advertised in the 1918 Sears, Roebuck catalog as an "aid that every woman
appreciates." The Technology of Orgasm is an impeccably researched
history that combines a discussion of hysteria in the Western medical tradition
with a detailed examination (including several illustrations) of the devices
used to "treat" the "condition." (Maines is somewhat
dismissive of the contemporary, phallus-shaped models, which she describes as
"underpowered battery-operated toys," insisting that "it is the
AC-powered vibrator with at least one working surface at a right angle to the
handle that is best designed for application to the clitoral area.") Don't
expect any cheap thrills, though; the titillation Maines offers is strictly
intellectual. --Ron Hogan
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Dancing Women : Female Bodies on Stage
by Sally Banes
Paperback - 296 pages
(April 1998)
Routledge; ISBN: 0415111625 ;
Dimensions (in inches): 0.79 x 9.22 x 6.19
Other Editions: Hardcover
Table
of Contents
1. The Romantic ballet: La Sylphide, Giselle, Coppelia
2. The Russian Imperial ballet: The Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker, Swan Lake
3. Early modern dance: Fire Dance, Lily, Brahms, Waltzes, Mother, Revolutionary
4~4~tude, Radha
4. Early Modern Ballet: Firebird, The Rite of Spring, Les Noces
5. Modern Dance: Witch Dance, With my Red Fires, Rites de Passage, Night Journey
6. Modern Ballet: Jardin aux Lilas, A Wedding Bouquet, Rodeo, Agon
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The Dread of Difference : Gender and the Horror Film (Texas Film Studies Series)
Ecstasy Unlimited : On Sex, Capital, Gender, and Aesthetics
by Laura Kipnis, Paul Smith
Paperback - 308 pages (April 1993)
Univ of Minnesota Pr (Txt); ISBN:
0816619972 ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.71 x 8.98 x 6.01
Other Editions: Hardcover
Amazon.com Sales Rank: 336,360
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Holding My Own in No Man's Land : Women and Men and Film and Feminists
Images of the Self As Female : The Achievement of Women Artists in
Re-Envisioning Feminine Identity (Women Studies; Vol 4)
by Kathryn Benzel, Lauren Pringle De La Vars (Editor)
Hardcover (April 1992)
Edwin Mellen Press; ISBN: 0889461228
Availability: This title usually
ships within 4-6 weeks. Please note that titles occasionally go out of print
or publishers run out of stock. We will notify you within 2-3 weeks if we have
trouble obtaining this title.
Amazon.com Sales Rank: 1,514,859
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Mammies No More : The Changing Image of Black Women on Stage
and Screen
by Lisa M. Anderson
Hardcover - 160 pages
(September 1997)
Rowman & Littlefield; ISBN:
0847684199 ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.76 x 9.31 x 6.21
Reviews
The author, Lisa M. Anderson , October 1, 1997
A fascinating journey through images of black women.
This book provides an intriguing look at three stereotypes of black
women in theatre and film in the United States: the Mammy, the Tragic Mulatta,
and the Jezebel. Not only are these stereotypes explored, but the efforts of
black women playwrights and filmmakers to provide positive alternatives to those
images are presented. Finally, the book offers some hope for the future; while
the negative images remain, there is more and more space in the contemporary
worlds of film and theatre for different, more positive images.
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Reel to Real : Race, Sex, and Class at the Movies
Although it may not be the goal of filmmaker,
most of us learn something when we watch movies. They make us think. They make
us feel. Occasionally they have the power to transform lives. In Reel to Real,
Bell Hooks talks back to films she has watched as a way to engage the pedagogy
of cinema - how film teaches its audience. Bell Hooks comes to film not as a
film critic but as a cultural critic, fascinated by the issues movies raise -
the way cinema depicts race, sex, and class. Reel to Real brings together
Hooks's classic essays (on Paris is Burning or Spike Lee's She's Gotta Have it)
with her newer work on such films as Girl 6, Pulp Fiction, Crooklyn, and Waiting
to Exhale, and her thoughts on the world of independent cinema. Her
conversations with filmmakers Charles Burnett, Julie Dash, and Arthur Jaffa are
linked with critical essays to show how cinema can function subversively, even
as it maintains the status quo.
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