New Books in Women's History

Beginning with a discussion about Black Lives Matter may seem like an unlikely place to start a book about nineteenth century science and culture. However, by contrasting Black lives with White feelings, Kyla Schuller sets up the central conflict of her book. The Biopolitics of Feeling: Race, Sex, and Science in the Nineteenth Century (Duke University Press, 2017) interrogates the role of sexual difference in the management of racialized populations, making this book a necessary read for understanding the history of such current social movements as Black Lives Matter and the trans* exclusionary “Pussy hat” feminism.From the very beginning of the book, our conceptions of nineteenth-century science are challenged. For much of the century, many US scientists championed Jean-Baptiste Lamarck over Charles Darwin as their most prominent influence. In their quest to refute determinist theories of heredity, the neo-Lamarckians of the American School of Evolution advocated for a self-directed version of evolution. These scientists argued that Anglo-Saxons have the most adaptable features and impressionable heredity. This impressionability was what made Whites more sentimental and civilized than other races, who were not as impressionable and seen as largely stuck in a prior stage of progressivist evolution, according to E.D. Cope and the American School of Evolution. Whites were also seen as having greater sexual dimorphism than other races, while women of color were not seen as achieving true womanhood. Kyla therefore finds the origin of binary sex enveloped in racialized difference.Beyond the subject of evolutionary science, this book introduces us to the Black uplift project of Frances Harper, the vagina politics of Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell and Dr. Mary Walker, the biophilanthropy of Charles Loring Brace, and the assemblage theories of W.E.B. DuBois. The Biopolitics of Feeling is packed with interesting, and sometimes shocking, historical anecdotes, such as Walker’s sex advice book to men in 1878, E.D. Cope’s sometimes destructive and violent rivalry with O.C. Marsh, and the “orphan trains” that took two hundred thousand kids out West for educational and labor purposes. The breadth of this book shouldd be of interest to a number of scholars interested in the history of science, literature, and medicine. Meanwhile, Kyla’s engagement and challenge to New Materialist theories is likely to be canonical for future Feminist STS scholars.Chad J. Valasek is a Ph.D. Candidate in Sociology & Science Studies at the University of California, San Diego. His research interests includes the history of the human sciences, the influence of the behavioral sciences on medical practice and health policy, and political activism around science and the arts. You can follow him on Twitter @chadjvalasek. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What sort of inequalities characterize classical music today? In Gender, Subjectivity, and Cultural Work: The Classical Music Profession (Routledge, 2018), Christina Scharff, a senior lecturer in culture, media and creative industries in the department of Culture, Media and Creative Industries at King’s College London, offers a detailed analysis of the way the classical music profession is marked by race, class, and gender inequalities. Drawing on contemporary debates in feminism, the work of Michel Foucault, and a critique of the entrepreneurial self, the book offers a comparative study of London and Berlin. In doing so it positions classical music as a crucial site for understanding not only cultural and creative industries, but the entirety of our unequal, post-feminist economy and society. It will be required reading and citation for all creative industries scholars, as well as an important text for cultural and media studies, sociology, music, and anyone interested in the relationship between culture and social inequality. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In her new book, Polly Plum: A Firm and Earnest Woman’s Advocate, Mary Ann Colclough, 1836–1885 (Otago University Press, 2017), Jenny Coleman, a senior lecturer and Director of Academic Programmes in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Massey University, explores the life and letters of early New Zealand feminist Mary Ann Colclough, who wrote under the name Polly Plum. Coleman offers a biographical portrait of a too-long forgotten advocate for girls’ education, women’s rights and social reforms in New Zealand and around the world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Labeled in history as “mad,” Juana of Castile was in fact a complex figure whose sometimes emotional nature was exploited by the men around her as a way of limiting her ability to exercise her power as queen. Gillian B. Fleming’s Juana I: Legitimacy and Conflict in Sixteenth-Century Castile (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), a volume in the publisher’s “Queenship and Power” series, examines the struggles she faced in ruling that were posed by her husband, her father, and her son. The second daughter of Fernando of Aragon and Isabel of Castile, the bright and willful Juana was raised to assume the traditional duties of a royal woman. It was the death of her brother Juan and her older sister Isabel of Aragon that placed her in line to succeed her mother. Though designated as the ruler of Castile in her mother’s will, when Isabel died in 1504, Juana soon found herself confined as part of a struggle between her father and her husband Philip, over control of Castile. As Fleming explains, many of the steps she undertook to assert herself during this time often played into the arguments made about her unsuitability for ruling, which became a recurring theme in the efforts to deny her rightful authority. Even after the deaths of first her husband and then her father, her son Charles continued her confinement as a means of ensuring his control over her kingdom, a confinement that continued until her death in 1555. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Veiled Superheroes: Islam, Feminism, and Popular Culture (Lexington Books, 2017) by Sophia Rose Arjana (with Kim Fox), takes us on a riveting journey through the world of superheroes and villains from the streets of New York to Pakistan. The book is a creative, masterful, and fascinating analysis of female Muslim superheroes in popular comic books and animation. Through the use of global examples, such as Ms. Marvel, Burka Avenger and Bloody Nasreen, just to name a few, Arjana engages her readers beyond reductive discussions of the veil, sexuality, and gender to highlight the ever-complex ways in which female Muslim superheroes can help us engage constructively with ideas of Islamic feminism, the Muslim female body, intersectionality, and even notions of violence. With supernatural powers, such through the mystical arts (i.e., Sufism), or human qualities of courage and bravery, the Muslimah superheroes featured in this study capture the real and complex lives of Muslim women globally, and the vast negotiations they have to contend with. In doing so, Arjana masterfully highlights that there is no singular Islamic feminist (or just Muslim) female experience. This book is a must read for anyone interested in religion, popular culture, and gender studies, while its accessibly written style, makes it an excellent resource for teaching religious, media, and gender studies for undergraduate students.M. Shobhana Xavier is an Assistant Professor of Religion at Ithaca College. Her research areas are on contemporary Sufism in North America and South Asia. She is the author of Sacred Spaces and Transnational Networks in American Sufism (Bloomsbury Press, 2018) and a co-author of Contemporary Sufism: Piety, Politics, and Popular Culture (Routledge, 2018). More details about her research and scholarship may be found here and here. She may be reached at mxavier@ithaca.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Schoolhouse Wreck: The Betsy DeVos Story (Strong Arm Press, 2018), Jason Linkins delivers a searing critique of controversial Trump administration Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. The book tracks the DeVos family’s accumulation of wealth through the multi-level marketing company Amway, which was founded by her Betsy DeVos’ father-in-law, and the... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In her book, Ugly Prey: An Innocent Woman and the Death Sentence That Scandalized Jazz Age Chicago (Chicago Review Press, 2017), Emilie Le Beau Lucchesi presents the story of Sabella Nitti, an Italian immigrant arrested in 1923 an accused of murdering her husband. Sabella was found guilty and became the first woman in Chicago sentenced to hang. Through meticulous research into court documents and other public records, Lucchesi shares the riveting narrative of Sabella’s case. Situating Sabella in the 1920s, and looking at the ways in which this case shows how the legal system set up to defend her failed Sabella at every turn, Lucchesi’s book walks readers through the trial where there was no evidence and no witnesses, but reporters and the jury knew one thing for certain, Sabella must be guilty: she was ugly. Describing how the press, judges, and juries decided the guilt or innocence of women based on their looks, Lucchesi examines how Sabella’s fellow inmates such as Beulah and Belva were able to charm their juries into acquitting them. She examines the role of Helen Cirese, the young lawyer who lead Sabella’s appeal giving her a jailhouse makeover in order to be more credible. Told with deep description, Ugly Prey makes sure that the story of Sabella Nitti is not lost. Instead, it is one that shows how the present day American justice system is not dissimilar to the system of the past in the ways that gender, class, and ethnicity are impact how individuals are treated throughout the justice system.Rebekah Buchanan is an Associate Professor of English at Western Illinois University. Her work examines the role of narrative in peoples lives. She researches zines, zine writers and the influence of music subcultures and fandom on writers and narratives. You can find more about her on her website, follow her on Twitter @rj_buchanan or email her at rj-buchanan@wiu.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How can war change women’s political mobilization? Using Rwanda and Bosnia as case studies Marie E. Berry answers these questions and more in her powerful new book, War, Women, and Power: From Violence to Mobilization in Rwanda and Bosnia Herzegovina (Cambridge University Press, 2018). Berry provides the reader with a solid history and background of how war came to be in each of these countries respectively. The book starts off by shedding light on the transformative nature of war and women’s political mobilization. Berry notes three major changes that are key throughout the book: demographic, economic, and cultural shifts. Starting with Rwanda, Berry sheds light on women’s roles as caregivers during and after the war, and how groups they formed for emotional support lead to starting programs and organizations. Moving to Bosnia, Berry lays out how this situation was similar and also different from Rwanda, noting, interestingly, that NGOs were basically non-existent there before the war. She concludes by noting the ways in which women mobilized politically but also the ways in which the changes that occurred have been limited by systemic issues like victim hierarchies or patriarchal backlash. Overall, the book is rich with information and written in a very clear, organized, and accessible way.The book will be enjoyed by anyone interested in women and war. Folks in sociology, political science, history, women’s studies, as well as those interested in Rwanda and Bosnia specifically, will find this book fascinating. This would fit well in a graduate level Sociology course and would be a solid anchor for a substantive class on women and war.Sarah E. Patterson is a postdoc at the University of Western Ontario. You can tweet her at @spattersearch. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What is the impact of austerity on minority women? How has this impacted on already long standing forms of social inequality across England, France and Scotland? These questions are the subject of Minority Women and Austerity: Survival and Resistance in France and Britain (Policy Press, 2017), the new book from Dr. Leah Bassel, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Leicester, and Professor Akwugo Emejulu, a professor of sociology at the University of Warwick. The book foregrounds the narratives and understandings of minority women activists with regard to the current political moment. It challenges contemporary social policy analysis by using an intersectional approach to the impact of both state and third sector actions, as well as the political mobilizations associated with resistance. Drawing on a wealth of interview fieldwork, detailed policy analysis, and a deep but accessible theoretical framework, the book offers an important intervention on the failures of both right and left wing politics in response to the ongoing marginalization and poverty experienced by women of color. The book is an essential and important read for social policy, sociology, and politics scholars, as well as for anyone who seeks to understand the reality of the racialized and patriarchal contemporary state. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As the thrice-married widow of one of the richest dukes in Victorian Britain, Mary Mitchell lived a life often at variance with the expectations of propriety for her time. In The Life and Times of Mary, Dowager Duchess of Sutherland (Cambridge Scholars Press, 2018), Catherine Layton goes beyond the headlines from her time to understand who Mary was and the world in which she lived. The daughter of an Oxford academic, Mary grew up in the interconnected world of the English elite. While her first marriage to an army captain proved unhappy, through it she encountered George Levenson-Gower, the fabulously wealthy third duke of Sutherland, a friend of the Prince of Wales who, like the future king, engaged in a series of extramarital affairs. Soon after her husband’s death in a shooting incident Mary became the duke’s mistress, marrying him within months of the duchess’s death in 1887. The duke’s own death in 1892 sparked a high-profile legal case that even led to Mary’s imprisonment for a brief period, yet the eventual settlement left her fabulously wealthy. Though married a third time to a Conservative politician, as Layton reveals, Mary’s subsequent separation from him before her death in 1912 and her final request to be buried next to the duke serve as conclusive evidence of where her heart ultimately lay. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices