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Feminist Communication Theory
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Feminist Communication Theory
Selections in Context



September 2004 | 288 pages | SAGE Publications, Inc

"This is a remarkable book that embraces the challenge of rethinking communication theory. Much more inclusive than most communication volumes, this guidebook offers a rich diversity of voices, along with a conceptual framework for remaking communication theory. Illuminating, innovative, eloquent-and transforming."

-Cheris Kramarae, University of Oregon

"This is a book not only of and for feminist communication theory, but of and for feminists. After a preface that marks and remarks in creative ways how the personal is political, Rakow and Wackwitz offer a compelling account of the need and potential of feminist theorizing for social and structural transformation. The collection represents a range of experiences, problems, voices, and thus will be useful to scholars, students, and activists."

-Linda Steiner, Rutgers University

Feminist Communication Theory is a book "of" and "for" feminist communication theorists, providing the potential to help individuals understand the human condition, name personal experiences and engage these experiences through storytelling, and give useful strategies for achieving justice. Lana F. Rakow and Laura A. Wackwitz examine the work of feminist theorists over the past two decades who have challenged traditional communication theory, contributing to the development of feminist communication theory by identifying its important contours, shortcomings, and promise.

Arguing that feminist communication theory must address theories of gender, communication, and social change, Rakow and Wackwitz describe feminist communication theory as explanatory, political, polyvocal, and transformative. The book is constructed around the three key concepts of difference, voice, and representation to reflect on how feminist theory reshapes our thinking about gender and communication. Feminist Communication Theory represents a variety of voices from different theoretical, cultural, and geographic perspectives to illustrate the complex challenge of constructing new theoretical positions.

Key Features

  • Explores key works and issues of feminist theory relevant to gender and communication
  • Examines a broad range, well beyond conventional wisdom, of women's perspectives and experiences
  • Provides tools to develop the theoretical potential of both feminist and communication theory

Feminist Communication Theory is designed for undergraduate and graduate courses on feminist communication, gender and communication, communication theory, speech, rhetoric, and mass communication. The book will also be of interest to feminist scholars in a variety of disciplines, as well as students and scholars in Women's Studies and Cultural Studies.


 
Feminist Communication Theory: An Introduction
 
Part 1: Difference
 
Difference in Feminist Communication Theory
Paula Gunn Allen
Who is Your Mother? Red Roots of White Feminism
Marilyn Frye
The Necessity of Differences: Constructing a Positive Category of Women
Anita Silvers
Reconciling Equality to Difference: Caring (F)or Justice for People with Disabilities
Patricia McFadden
Becoming Post Colonial: African Women Changing the Meaning of Citizenship
Maria C. Lugones
On the Logic of Pluralist Feminism
 
Part 2: Voice
 
Voice in the Feminist Communication Theory
Linda McCarriston
"The Grace of Form": Class Consciousness and an American Writer
Leslie Bow
"For Every Gesture of Loyalty, There Doesn't Have to be a Betrayl": Asian American Criticism and the Politics of Locality
Diane Glancy
Speaking the Corn into Being
Catherine M. Boyle
Touching the Air: The Cultural Force of Women in Chile
Luce Irigarary
Love of the Other
 
Part 3: Representation
 
Representation in Feminist Communication Theory
Rajeswari Sunder Rajan
Real and Imagined Women: Politics and/of Representation
Michelle Wallace
Negative Images: Towards a Black Feminist Cultural Criticism
Teresa de Lauretis
The Technology of Gender
Leith Mullings
Images, Ideology, and Women of Color
Elizabeth Waters & Anastasia Posadskaya
Democracy Without Women is No Democracy: Women's Struggles in Postcommunist Russia
 
Index


"This is a remarkable book that embraces the challenge of rethinking communication theory. Much more inclusive than most communication volumes, this guidebook offers a rich diversity of voices, along with a conceptual framework for remaking communication theory. Illuminating, innovative, eloquent-and transforming."

Cheris Kramarae
University of Oregon


"This is a book not only of and for feminist communication theory, but of and for feminists. After a preface that marks and remarks in creative ways how the personal is political, Rakow and Wackwitz offer a compelling account of the need and potential of feminist theorizing for social and structural transformation. The collection represents a range of experiences, problems, voices, and thus will be useful to scholars, students, and activists."

Linda Steiner
Rutgers University


"Feminist Communication Theory will be a classic work for all scholars teaching the field of feminist communication studies. We've waited a long time for a compilation that is theoretically innovative and sophisticated, and Rakow and Wackwitz provide it, along with a series of readings immensely valuable for classroom use. I highly recommend this work and plan to use it in my own teaching."

Andrea Press
University of Illinois
Key features
  • Places writings in historical and political context
  • Offers readers a framework for understanding developments in this field (Difference, Voice & Representation)