Pedagogy of Democracy re-interprets the U.S. occupation of Japan from 1945 to 1952 as a problematic instance of Cold War feminist mobilization rather than a successful democratization of Japanese women as previously argued. By combining three fields of research—occupation, Cold War, and postcolonial feminist studies—and examining occupation records and other archival sources, Koikari argues that postwar gender reform was one of the Cold War containment strategies that undermined rather than promoted women’s political and economic rights.

From Donald Trump in the U.S. to Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, Viktor Orbán in Hungary, and Narendra Modi in India, right-wing populist leaders have taken power in many parts of the world. While each country’s populist movement is distinct, they are united by several key features, including the presence of a boastful strongman leader and the scapegoating of vulnerable populations, especially immigrants, people of color, LGBTQ people, and women.
 
The Perils of Populism shows how a feminist lens can help diagnose the factors behind the global rise of right-wing populism and teach us how to resist the threat it presents to democracy. Featuring interdisciplinary essays about politics in the United States, the Middle East, Europe, and India from a variety of acclaimed theorists and activists, the volume contributes to a rapidly expanding literature on gender and the far right. Together, these chapters offer a truly intersectional analysis of the problem, addressing everything from how populism has thrived in a “post-truth” era to the ways it appeals to working-class voters looking for an alternative to neoliberalism. Yet the authors also find reasons to be hopeful, as they showcase forms of grassroots feminist activism that challenge right-wing populism by advocating for racial and economic justice.

In June 2015, Bree Newsome scaled the flagpole in front of South Carolina’s state capitol and removed the Confederate flag. The following month, the Confederate flag was permanently removed from the state capitol. Newsome is a compelling example of a twenty-first-century woman rhetor, along with bloggers, writers, politicians, activists, artists, and everyday social media users, who give new meaning to Aristotle’s ubiquitous definition of rhetoric as the discovery of the “available means of persuasion.” Women’s persuasive acts from the first two decades of the twenty-first century include new technologies and repurposed old ones, engaged not only to persuade, but also to tell their stories, to sponsor change, and to challenge cultural forces that repress and oppress.

Persuasive Acts: Women’s Rhetorics in the Twenty-First Century gathers an expansive array of voices and texts from well-known figures including Hillary Rodham Clinton, Malala Yousafzai, Michelle Obama, Lindy West, Sonia Sotomayor, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, so that readers may converse with them, and build rhetorics of their own. Editors Shari J. Stenberg and Charlotte Hogg have complied timely and provocative rhetorics that represent critical issues and rhetorical affordances of the twenty-first century.

In Politics with Beauvoir Lori Jo Marso treats Simone de Beauvoir's feminist theory and practice as part of her political theory, arguing that freedom is Beauvoir's central concern and that this is best apprehended through Marso's notion of the encounter. Starting with Beauvoir's political encounters with several of her key contemporaries including Hannah Arendt, Robert Brasillach, Richard Wright, Frantz Fanon, and Violette Leduc, Marso also moves beyond historical context to stage encounters between Beauvoir and others such as Chantal Akerman, Lars von Trier, Rahel Varnhagen, Alison Bechdel, the Marquis de Sade, and Margarethe von Trotta. From intimate to historical, always affective though often fraught and divisive, Beauvoir's encounters, Marso shows, exemplify freedom as a shared, relational, collective practice. Politics with Beauvoir gives us a new Beauvoir and a new way of thinking about politics—as embodied and coalitional.

Though many pioneering feminists were deeply influenced by American pragmatism, their contemporary followers have generally ignored that tradition because of its marginalization by a philosophical mainstream intent on neutral analyses devoid of subjectivity. In this revealing work, Charlene Haddock Seigfried effectively reunites two major social and philosophical movements, arguing that pragmatism, because of its focus on the emancipatory potential of everyday experiences, offers feminism its most viable and powerful philosophical foundation.

With careful attention to their interwoven histories and contemporary concerns, Pragmatism and Feminism effectively invigorates both traditions, opening them to new interpretations and appropriations and asserting their timely philosophical relevance. This foundational work in feminist theory simultaneously invites and guides future scholarship in an area of rapidly emerging significance.

     "A major contribution in women's studies and in other disciplines
        dealing with issues of agency. The authors raise issues that are very
        important . . . and they raise them as they must be raised--by bridging
        theory and action." -- Kathryn Pine Addelson, author of Moral
        Passages: Toward a Collectivist Moral Theory
      Both the women's liberation movement and those who have studied it characterize
        agency as the capacity to make change in individual consciousness, personal
        lives, and society. The seventeen contributors to Provoking Agents
        explore whether--and how--feminist theory, writing, and other social practices
        can help readers move beyond seeing women as a powerless group to effecting
        changes in their own lives and, ultimately, becoming social activists.
        Topics in this multi-disciplinary collection range from maternal surrogacy
        to writing, from consciousness-raising to AIDS activism, from pornography
        to local organizing
 

How can scientific theories contribute to contemporary accounts of embodiment in the humanities and social sciences? In particular, how does neuroscientific research facilitate new approaches to theories of mind and body? Feminists have frequently criticized the neurosciences for biological reductionism, yet, Elizabeth A. Wilson argues, neurological theories—especially certain accounts of depression, sexuality, and emotion—are useful to feminist theories of the body. Rather than pointing toward the conventionalizing tendencies of the neurosciences, Wilson emphasizes their capacity for reinvention and transformation. Focusing on the details of neuronal connections, subcortical pathways, and reflex actions, she suggests that the central and peripheral nervous systems are powerfully allied with sexuality, the affects, emotional states, cognitive appetites, and other organs and bodies in ways not fully appreciated in the feminist literature. Whether reflecting on Simon LeVay’s hypothesis about the brains of gay men, Peter Kramer’s model of depression, or Charles Darwin’s account of trembling and blushing, Wilson is able to show how the neurosciences can be used to reinvigorate feminist theories of the body.