The Women's Review of Books articles from July 2006

The Women's Review of Books archives from July 2006

How to spell "relief".(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2006... I just received my copy of the second issue of Women's Review of Books. What a relief. I had not realized how much it meant until it went missing. Now that it's returned I find I am so aware of how the New York Review of Books, the London...

A friendly suggestion.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2006... I've currently had occasion to learn belatedly about the suspension and new beginnings of Women's Review of Books, a publication to which some years back I was (for some time) a subscriber. I was sad to learn that you'd had to suspend the...

Pornography as propaganda.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2006... I was most interested in Leora Tanenbaum's point of view [in her March/April review of Pornified and Female Chauvinist Pigs], excellently expressed, but was disturbed when, quoting from Female Chauvinist Pigs, she wrote of the "clear-eyed...

Dreams fulfilled and betrayed.(Children of the New World: A Novel of the Algerian War)(Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits)(Book review)
July 1, 2006... Children of the New World: A Novel of the Algerian War By Assia Djebar Translated from the French by Marjolijn de Jager New York: The Feminist Press, 2005, 233 pp., $15.95, paperback Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits By Laila...

Women--deconstructed but still here.(Women's Studies for the Future: Foundations, Interrogations, Politics )(Book review)
July 1, 2006... Women's Studies for the Future: Foundations, Interrogations, Politics Edited by Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy and Agatha Beins New Brunswick, N J: Rutgers University Press, 2005, 347 pp., $24.95, paperback This collection of nineteen essays...

Solidarity's disappearing women.(Solidarity's Secret: The Women Who Defeated Communism in Poland )(Book review)
July 1, 2006... Solidarity's Secret: The Women Who Defeated Communism in Poland By Shana Penn Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 200S, 372 pp., $34.95, hardcover Women comprised half of the membership of Solidarity, the first free trade union in...

The moral imagination.(The Collected Poems of Muriel Rukeyser )(Book review)
July 1, 2006... The Collected Poems of Muriel Rukeyser Edited by Janet E. Kaufman and Anne F. Herzog, with Jan Heller Levi Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005, 670 pp., $37.50, hardcover "Prinzip's year bore us," Muriel Rukeyser wrote in...

The stuff of wonder.(WillFul Creatures:)(Magic For Beginners)(Nice Big American Baby)(Book review)
July 1, 2006... WillFul Creatures: Stories By Aimee Bender New York: Doubleday, 2005, 224 pp., $22.95, hardcover Magic For Beginners By Kelly Link Northampton, MA: Small Beer Press, 2005, 272 pp., $24.00, hardcover Nice Big American Baby By Judy...

The priests were women.(The Woman in the Shaman's Body: Reclaiming the Feminine in Religion and Medicine )(Book review)
July 1, 2006... The Woman in the Shaman's Body: Reclaiming the Feminine in Religion and Medicine By Barbara Tedlock New York: Bantam Books, 2006, 350 pages, $16.00, paperback Barbara Tedlock has written an important, readable book that combines the...

The rebel's daughter: Algerian novelist Maissa Bey.(Interview)
July 1, 2006... Algerian novelist, teacher, community activist and co-editor of the literary journal, Etoile d'Encres, dedicated to Mediterranean women's writing, Maissa Bey is a "fille de chahid"--the daughter of a martyr. Her father was one of the 300,000...

Green in their windows for hope.(May Sarton to Valeria Knapp: Letters and Poems to a Secret Muse )(Book review)
July 1, 2006... In Belgium when it was German in the last war and flags were forbidden on the national day everyone simultaneously put green in their windows for hope. I have on a green shirt today for hope's sake. It is not true that in a moment of great...

Birthday.(Poetry)(Poem)
July 1, 2006... BIRTHDAY A current strokes the pear tree and a fall of petals feathers the asphalt and confettis my hair. The afternoon is full of exuberant ruin, of beauty dissolved in the pushing forth of small...

A Genius For Silence.(Poetry)(Poem)
July 1, 2006... A GENIUS FOR SILENCE The trees insist on breaking into leaf and blurring the old distinctions of winter. She died when your grandmother was two. She'd sent no letters and no letters came. No scared cousin showed up in...

The ghostwriter.(Comic)(Cartoon)
July 1, 2006... I'M A HIRED GUN. I PUT WORDS IN FAMOUS PEOPLE'S MOUTHS, AND EVERYONE READS 'EM. NOBODY THINKS TWICE ABOUT THE GHOSTWRITER. I GOT GOOD. I GOT BORED, THE I GOT AN IDEA. DANG... I BET YOU COULD WRITE ANYTHING AND THEY'D PRINT IT! ...

New dreams, new faces.(Defending Our Dreams: Global Feminist Voices for a New Generation)(Imagining Ourselves: Global Voices from a New Generation of Women)(Book review)
July 1, 2006... Defending Our Dreams: Global Feminist Voices for a New Generation edited by Shamillah Wilson, Anasuya Sengupta, and Kristy Evans New York: Zed Books, 2005, 254 pp, $27.50, paperback Imagining Ourselves: Global Voices from a New Generation...

The male obsession.(Hung: A Meditation on the Measure of Black Men in America)(Book review)
July 1, 2006... Hung: A Meditation on the Measurement of Black Men in America By Scott Poulson-Bryant New York: Doubleday, 2005, 209 pp., $22.95, hardcover In a world where size absolutely does matter, it takes boldness and courage to openly discuss male...

A Becky Sharpe kind of life.(The Story of Chicago May )(Book review)
July 1, 2006... The Story of Chicago May By Nuala O'Faolain New York: Riverhead Books, 2005, 310pp., $24.95, hardcover Nuala O'Faolain's memoir Are You Somebody? made quite a splash here and in her native Ireland. It arrived at a propitious moment--an...

Gender and everything else.(Their Right to Speak: Women's Activism in the Indian and Slave Debates )(Book review)
July 1, 2006... Their Right to Speak: Women's Activism in the Indian and Slave Debates By Alisse Portnoy Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005, 290 pp., $49.95 hardcover Scholars focusing on the history of women's rhetoric often fall into one of...

Our computing kin.(My Mother Was a Computer: Digital Subjects and Literary Texts)(Book review)
July 1, 2006... My Mother Was a Computer: Digital Subjects and Literary Texts By N. Katherine Hayles Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005, 288 pp., $22.00, paperback Whatever happened to those hard scientists who gave us the hysterical womb and the...

Recovering cultural knowledge.(Holding Yawulyu: White Culture and Black Women's Law)(Book review)
July 1, 2006... Holding Yawulyu: White Culture and Black Women's Law By Zohl de Ishtar North Melbourne, Australia: Spinifex Press, 2005, 388 pp., $22.95, paperback In April 1999, the elder women of the village of Wirrimanu, in Australia's Great Sandy...

The first feminist.(Vindication: A Life of Mary Wollstonecraft)(Book review)
July 1, 2006... Vindication: A Life of Mary Wollstonecraft By Lyndall Gordon New York: HarperCollins, 2005, 562 pages, $29.95, hardcover While I was studying abroad in England during college, I was in search of role models who could show me how to live...