Our Lives Before the Law: Constructing a Feminist Jurisprudence, Judith A. Baer '68, paperback edition, Princeton University Press, 1999. In this book, Baer argues that feminist legal scholarship does not effectively address the harsh realities of women's lives and that feminists have marginalized themselves by withdrawing from mainstream intellectual discourse. She thus presents the framework for a new feminist jurisprudence—one that would r eturn feminism to relevance by conne cting it in fresh and creative ways with liberalism. She interprets three central components of conventional theory-equality, rights and responsibility—through analysis of pressing legal issues such as constitutional interpretation, reproductive choice and fetal protection. Her approach values individual freedom and recognizes our responsibility for addressing individuals' needs.
Feminist Theory: The Intellectual Traditions, Josephine Donovan '62, third edition, Continuum International Publishing Group, 2000. With this book, Donovan seeks to keep alive feminism's historical identity and its historic promise. Feminist Theory first was published in 1985, intended to present and interpret the main traditions of feminist theory in the context of their historical and philosophical roots. This third edition has been revised and reset. Chapters include "19th-Century Cultural Feminism," "Feminism and Freudianism" and "Into the 21st Century."
The Magic Lantern, Having a Ball and Christmas Eve, José Tomás de Cuéllar, Trans. Margaret Carson '84, Oxford University Press, 2000. Having a Ball and Christmas Eve are two novellas which popularized the costumbrista style of caricature: sketches of contemporary manners. The stories reflect the effects of modernization brought by an authoritarian regime dedicat ed to order and progress, and a Mexican society unraveling under the mounting infl uence of European culture. The collect ive title, The Magic Lantern, is taken from de Cuéllar's musing that "within the luminous circle cast by the small lens of my lantern, I have seen a multitude of little figures who have inspired me to draw their portraits with my pen."
Containing the Poor: The Mexico City Poor House, 1774-1871, Silvia Marina Arrom '71, Duke University Press, 2000. The Mexico City Poor House was part of an experiment intended to eliminate poverty and impose a new work ethic on former beggars by establishing a forcible internment policy for some and putting others to work. Containing the Poor reveals the flaws in this ill-fated plan, showing how the asylum functioned primarily to uplift white orphans rather than to contro l the multiracial population of street people for whom it was designed. Arrom traces the course of a century that saw colonialism give way to republicanism in Mexico, and links the Poor House's transformation with Mexican women's increasing impact on social welfare policies.
Anselm Kiefer and Art After Auschwitz, Lisa Saltzman, Assistant Professor of History of Art, Cambridge University Press, 2000. Anselm Kiefer and Art After Auschwitz examines the legacy of German-Jewish culture in the aftermath of the Holocaust. Positioning Kiefer as a learned artist who encounters and represents history in painted form, Saltzman contends that his work is unique among postwar German artists in his persistent exploratio n of the legacy of fascism. His work p robes the aesthetic and ethical dilemma of representing the unrepresentable, this historical catastrophe into whose aftermath the artist was born.
The Journey of an Arab-Jew in European Israel, David Rabeeya, Lecturer in Judaic Studies, XLibris Corporation, 2001. The author tells the story of how his immersion in the Arab culture and intimate knowledge of Islam clashed with his Judeo-Arabic tradition and secular Zionism while living in Israel. He reflects on issues such as racism, European cultural dominance , oppression, and discrimination in the Middle East region, representing a painful personal experience within a histori cal framework.
Integrating Research into Practice: A Model for Effective Social Work, Cynthia D. Bisman, Associate Professor of Social Work and Social Research; David A. Hardcastle, Wadsworth Publishing, 1999. The authors present research methods as tools that social workers can use to improve practice with clients. They present case examples, research methods beyond the social sciences and a discussion of the unique research needs of the social work profess ion within the context of its mission and ethical code.
Dead Hands: Fictions of Agency, Renaissance to Modern, Katherine Rowe, Associate Professor of English, Stanford University Press, 2000. Rowe examines the imaginative device of the wandering, disembodied or ghostly hand in gothic, literary and intellectual contexts, from early modern English drama through American fiction. She considers various "manual iconography," from 16th-century religious imagery , medical anatomies, emblem books, witchcraft, and folklore, to the popular metaph ors of 19th-century industrialism, contemporary labor movements, and forensic science. She argues that complex social fictions are invested in the faculties of the hand, and that the figure of the "dead hand" represents concerns about the fraught relationship between individual and collective intentions and meaningful action in the world.
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