The Women's Review of Books articles from September 2003

The Women's Review of Books archives from September 2003

Taking back the camera.(The Black Female Body: A Photographic History & Skin Deep, Spirit Strong: The Black Female Body in American Culture)(Book Review)
September 1, 2003... The Black Female Body: A Photographic History by Deborah Willis and Carla Williams. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2002, 228 pp., $60.00 hardcover. Skin Deep, Spirit Strong: The Black Female Body in American Culture edited by Kimberley...

Letters.(Letter to the Editor)
September 1, 2003... Dear Editor: I have been a subscriber since the Review's inception. There have been many goods and not-so-goods along the years. However, the latest issue, devoted to aging, is, to me, the best ever. Perhaps because I am 67, the feelings...

Feminism's opposite.(Nothing Sacred: Women Respond to Religious Fundamentalism and Terror )(Book Review)
September 1, 2003... Nothing Sacred: Women Respond to Religious Fundamentalism and Terror edited by Betsy Reed. New York: Thunder's Mouth Press/Nation Books, 2002, 433 pp., $17.95 paper. Neither fundamentalism nor terrorism sprang into being on September 11,...

Sisterhood 23 years later.(Sisterhood is Forever: The Women's Anthology for a New Millennium)(Book Review)
September 1, 2003... Sisterhood is Forever: The Women's Anthology for a New Millennium edited by Robin Morgan. New York: Washington Square Press, 2003, 580 pp., $18.00 paper. In 1970, Robin Morgan published Sisterhood is Powerful, and it was nothing short of...

Adolescence.(Poem)
September 1, 2003... Oh that foxtrot! How elusive the glide-- nothing trot-like about it: no up-and-down clip clop, no staccato neat, feet-on-the-beat, but rather a slippery ooze across the floor, sweaty hand on bare back, chin thrust...

Before I Am Born.(Poem)
September 1, 2003... Raids over Brighton this afternoon-- the Germans grumbling in, squeezing out bombs and my mother hurries at the sound of the siren, wooden pegs marking her trail from clothes fine to house as if she might need them...

Sex after 40.(A Round-Heeled Woman: My Late-Life Adventures in Sex and Romance & Sexual Healing )(Book Review)
September 1, 2003... A Round-Heeled Woman: My Late-Life Adventures in Sex and Romance by Jane Juska. New York: Villard, 2003, 273 pp., $23.95 hardcover. Sexual Healing by Jill Nelson. Chicago: Agate Publishing, 2003, 320 pp., $23.95 hardcover. It's rare to...

Saints and science.(The Lives of the Saints by Suzanne Paola)(Book Review)
September 1, 2003... The Lives of the Saints by Suzanne Paola. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2002, 60 pp., $13.95 paper. Suzanne Paola's grim, visionary third book of poems speaks in multiple voices about morality, faith, nature, human nature,...

Compromising positions.(Abortion and Social Responsibility: Depolarizing the Debate)(Book Review)
September 1, 2003... Abortion and Social Responsibility: Depolarizing the Debate by Laurie Shrage. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003, 173 pp., $19.95 paper. A compromise can be an act of good faith or one of desperation, usually offered in the...

Lesbians through the ages.(The Literature of Lesbianism: A Historical Anthology from Ariosto to Stonewall)(Book Review)
September 1, 2003... The Literature of Lesbianism: A Historical Anthology from Ariosto to Stonewall edited by Terry Castle. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003, 1079 pp., $45.00 hardcover. One way to know whether an academic discipline has arrived is to...

Geisha reality.(Autobiography of a Geisha)(Book Review)
September 1, 2003... Autobiography of a Geisha by Sayo Masuda. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003, 186 pp., $24.95 hardcover. For most Westerners, the word geisha conjures up the vague fantasy of a sex worker crossed with an artist, perhaps similar to...

Words as words.(The Feminist Avant-Garde in American Poetry)(Book Review)
September 1, 2003... The Feminist Avant-Garde in American Poetry by Elizabeth Frost. Iowa City, IA: University of Iowa Press, 2003, 244 pp., $24.95 hardcover. Contemporary American poetry can be seen as falling into two categories: mainstream and small press....

Stage vs. page.(Getting Mother's Body)(Book Review)
September 1, 2003... Getting Mother's Body by Suzan-Lori Parks. New York: Random House, 211 pp., $23.95 hardcover. There's a special form of suffering reserved for those of us who don't live in New York City (and don't have a friend there with a spare bed):...

Living philosophically.(The Philosopher Queen: Feminist Essays on War, Love, and Knowledge)(Book Review)
September 1, 2003... The Philosopher Queen: Feminist Essays on War, Love, and Knowledge by Chris Cuomo. Lanham, ME): Rowman & Littlefield, 2003, 161 pp., $21.95 paper. The term "essay" in the subtitle of this collection may be taken in a loose and generous...

Who needs paradise?(Reinventing Eden: The Fate of Nature in Western Culture )(Book Review)
September 1, 2003... Reinventing Eden: The Fate of Nature in Western Culture by Carolyn Merchant. New York: Routledge, 2003, 292 pp., $25.00 hardcover. Why indeed did we invent Eden, let alone try to re-invent it? On a lush afternoon alone in the woods near my...

Modernists at fotomat.(Modernist Women and Visual Cultures: Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell, Photography and Cinema )(Book Review)
September 1, 2003... Modernist Women and Visual Cultures: Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell, Photography and Cinema by Maggie Humm. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2003, 244 pp., $24.00 paper. When Virginia Woolf in her diary (April 15, 1937) bemoans...

Two remarkable lives.(Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision & Subversive Southerner: Anne Braden and the Struggle for Racial Justice in the Cold War South)(Book Review)
September 1, 2003... Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision by Barbara Ransby. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2003, 470 pp., $34.95 hardcover. Subversive Southerner: Anne Braden and the Struggle for Racial...

The bookshelf.(Bibliography)
September 1, 2003... Each month we list the recently published books received during the preceding month or so that we think readers of the Women's Review will want to know about. This is, however, a very partial selection of the books by and about women published...