Talking Gender Public Images, Personal Journeys, and Political Critiques

Talking Gender assesses the state of women's studies in the 1990s. The contributors write from the perspective of their own academic disciplines and experiences, but they also address more general issues of women's lives and circumstances. The result is a broad picture of women's studies and feminist scholarship, which emerge as a rich, if sometimes dissonant, chorus of voices. These original essays cover a range of topics and a variety of times and places: images of women inherited from Roman oratory, visual images from cultures of trauma; verbal imagery in today's pornography debates; political and social identities in the state of Israel; boundaries between private and public lives of African American women leaders; voices and audiences of African American women writers; stereotypes of HIV-positive women; what women's studies can teach men about themselves; and the place of women in global industry. The introduction and conclusion place the collection within the context of historical debates in women's studies and suggest some new directions for the field.

Nancy A. Hewitt is professor of history at Duke University.

Jean O'Barr was the founding director of women's studies at Duke, holding the Margaret Taylor Smith Directorship, the first endowed Directorship in the US. She is now a Distinguished University Service Professor.

Nancy Rosebaugh is program coordinator for women's studies at Duke University.