New Books in Women's History

Though she died in 1847 at a young age, Marie Duplessis inspired one of the greatest operas ever composed. In The Real Traviata: The Song of Marie Duplessis (Oxford University Press, 2015), René Weis recounts the life of the remarkable woman who overcame poverty and abuse to become the toast of Parisian society. Born Alphonsine Plessis, as a young girl she was sexually assaulted by her own father before she escaped to Paris. Initially finding work as a laundress, Duplessis’s beauty soon won her the attention of wealthy admirers, whose interests gave her access to the social elite. As Weis demonstrates, her success as a courtesan was not just because of her physical attractiveness, but also due to her intelligence, her charm, and her generous spirit, all of which won her a range of friends and lovers that included some of the greatest artistic talents of her time. Among them was the younger Alexandre Dumas, whose novel La Dame aux Camélias was based on Duplessis’s life and which, in turn, inspired the Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi to write La traviata, an opera which has enchanted and entertained millions ever since its initial performance in 1853. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jewish women have consistently played a vital and significant role in American history more broadly, and American Jewish history specifically. Through a variety of different ways, from engaging in social activism, working outside the home, creating women’s organizations, or managing their households, Jewish women forged their own path and inserted themselves in the fabric of American life and history. In her new book, America’s Jewish Women: A History from Colonial Times to Today (W. W. Norton and Company, 2019), Pamela S. Nadell tells the stories of America’s Jewish women, from the first Jewish women who arrived in the United States in 1654 to the very well-known Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and the many women in between. Nadell’s study utilizes a variety of archival sources and oral histories to stitch together the rich history of America’s Jewish women.Lindsey Jackson is a PhD student at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Audrey Hepburn was justly known for her long acting career, yet her early life is largely unknown. In his book, Robert Matzen describes how she lived during the World War II period in Nazi-occupied Netherlands. Based on many interviews and other primary sources, Robert shows how she was affected by the war. Listen in as we talk about his new book Dutch Girl: Audrey Hepburn and World War II (GoodKnight Books, 2019). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On the eve of International Women’s Day in 2015, five activists were detained by the police in China for their plans to distribute anti-sexual harassment stickers. Although such detainments usually last 24 hours, these women were detained 37 days, the legal limit for detention without bringing charges. Dubbed the Feminist Five, news of the women spread rapidly through social media. The author of Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China, Leta Hong Fincher, uses the stories of these women to explore a much larger issue—that the subjugation of women is a key component of the authoritarian state. Betraying Big Brother: The Feminist Awakening in China (Verso, 2018) examines censorship and social media; the trauma of detention and its aftermath; the history of feminism in China; the feminist fight against sexual assault, sexual harassment, and domestic violence; and, ultimately, the remarkable ways that feminist thinking spreads under the circumstances.Laurie Dickmeyer is an Assistant Professor of History at Angelo State University, where she teaches courses in Asian and US history. Her research concerns nineteenth century US-China relations. She can be reached at laurie.dickmeyer@angelo.edu and on Twitter (@LDickmeyer). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bridging women’s history, the history of the South, and African American history, this book makes a bold argument about the role of white women in American slavery. In her new book They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South (Yale University Press, 2019) historian Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers draws on a variety of sources to show that slave‑owning women were sophisticated economic actors who directly engaged in and benefited from the South’s slave market. Because women typically inherited more slaves than land, enslaved people were often their primary source of wealth. Not only did white women often refuse to cede ownership of their slaves to their husbands, they employed management techniques that were as effective and brutal as those used by slave‑owning men. White women actively participated in the slave market, profited from it, and used it for economic and social empowerment. By examining the economically entangled lives of enslaved people and slave‑owning women, Jones-Rogers presents a narrative that forces us to rethink the economics and social conventions of slaveholding. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transnational feminist theory and practice is faced with a dilemma: how should we contest and resist gender-based oppression, while at the same time respecting cultural difference? In her book, Decolonizing Universalism: A Transnational Feminist Ethic(Oxford University Press, 2018), Serene J. Khader argues for a way out of this universalism/relativist impasse. She proposes a “nonideal universalism,” arguing that while feminism requires a universalist opposition to sexist oppression, it need not require universal adoption of Western values and strategies. Nonideal universalism answers the dilemma by rejecting the view that there is a single cultural form compatible with feminism, and by focusing on justice enhancement rather than justice achievement. Ultimately, Khader argues that transnational feminist solidarity requires empirical, contextual consideration of the harms of sexist oppression against the harms of imperialist intervention.Emily K. Crandall is a PhD candidate in Political Science at the Graduate Center, CUNY. She is a fellow at the Center for Global Ethics and Politics in the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How can feminist theory help address the climate crisis? In Climate Technology, Gender, and Justice: The Standpoint of the Vulnerable (Springer Verlag, 2019), Tina Sikka, a lecturer in media and cultural studies at the University of Newcastle, considers the limitations of our current approach to climate change, and the means through which we can respond in more open, and thus more effective, ways. The book uses the example of geoengineering as a case study in responses to climate change, highlighting the closed nature of the discussions and decision making processes associated with the methods, modelling, and policy for this approach. Drawing on Longino’s Feminist Contextual Empiricist theory, the book offers both a critique of current practice and points to ways in which this could be reorientated towards a wider and more inclusive range of human needs and capabilities. Given the nature of the climate crisis the book is essential reading for anyone interested in how the species survives. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mary Magdalene’s story of conversion from sinner to saint is one of Christianity’s most compelling and controversial stories. The identity of this woman, but more likely women, has been disputed since the early days of the Church, but her role as the first person to witness the resurrection of Christ makes her an astoundingly important figure in ways I was never privy to growing up.The Magdalene’s interpretation changes throughout history, from medieval times to the Reformation, where the interpretation under Martin Luther takes on different meaning, which is the topic conversation today with Dr. Margaret Arnold. Her new book, The Magdalene in the Reformation is out now from The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2018). Margaret Arnold is the Associate Rector of Grace Episcopal Church in Medford, Massachusetts. She received her PhD in Religious and Theological Studies from Boston University.Greg Soden is the host "Classical Ideas," a podcast about religion and religious ideas. You can find it on iTunes here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Joyce Antler is the Samuel J. Lane Professor Emerita of American Jewish history and culture at Brandeis University. Jewish Radical Feminism: Voices from the Women’s Liberation Movement (New York University Press, 2018) provides richly detailed biographies of known and unknown Jewish women from Shulamith Firestone to Aviva Cantor, who were the backbone of the movement. Their backgrounds hidden from historical view, and unrecognized, are brought to light. Many Jewish radical women emerged from the New Left and went on to create local women-centered groups such as the Gang of Four, Boston Women’s Health Collective, and Bread and Roses. How they navigated their experiences of being both Jewish and feminists provides insight into Jewish life and the relationship between religion, ethnic identity and feminism. In their diversity, from holding on to a traditional faith making room for feminism, to those who pulled away to lead secular lives, they encountered anti-Semitism, stereotypes, and connections across differences. The book demonstrates the rich contribution of Jewish values and identity had on the women’s liberation movement and how in turn they changed Jewish life in America.Lilian Calles Barger is a cultural, intellectual and gender historian. Her recent book is entitled The World Come of Age: An Intellectual History of Liberation Theology (Oxford University Press, 2018).  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Though not as well known today as some of her literary contemporaries, Charlotte Lennox wrote numerous works during the mid-18th century that won her critical acclaim and influenced subsequent generations of authors. In Charlotte Lennox: An Independent Mind (University of Toronto Press, 2018), Susan Carlile draws upon Lennox’s published works, her surviving correspondence, and the studies of her era to reconstruct the life and times of this remarkable writer. Growing up in Britain’s Atlantic empire, young Charlotte Ramsay’s preparations for a position in the court were derailed by her marriage to an impecunious Scotsman. In need of an income, the newly married Lennox attempted a career as an actress before turning to her pen for her livelihood. Though her early writing won both a wide audience and the admiration of such influential figures as Samuel Johnson, Samuel Richardson, and Henry Fielding, Lennox faced the continuous challenges common to writers of the era of earning an income sufficient for her family’s needs. As Carlile details, this led Lennox to produce both fiction and nonfiction across a range of genres, which demonstrated the scope of her skills and inspired numerous imitators and successors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices