This volume of recent Signs articles offers some of the most significant contributions to the debates on history and theory. Illustrating the uses of theories in recent feminist historical research and the often contentious arguments that surround them, the articles speak to a number of discussions, including the theoretical tradition of political economy, the importance of class relations for understanding historical events and social relationships, and the expansion of concepts from political economy to include race. Included as well are the workings of gender signification in terms of the body, moving it from its traditionally lesser position in the hierarchical Enlightenment mind/body split. A further group of articles concerns the discursive character of power relations and the dialogic quality of language. The volume will be extremely useful for feminist historians in a variety of disciplines as well as women's studies students interested in issues of interdisciplinarity.

Why is it that some women have created successful careers in science, when historically there have been so many barriers that exclude women from engaging in scientific work? At last, here is a comparative history that illuminates some of the patterns that have emerged in the history of women in science.

This book features some of the most influential and pioneering studies of women in the sciences, with a special focus on patterns of education, access, barriers, and opportunities for women's work in science. Spanning the 17th through the 20th centuries, the book demonstrates the meaning and power of gender experienced by women in the sciences.

Individual chapters focus on exceptional women whose unusual initiativee and particular circumstance led them to engage in science: Laura Bassi, Nettie Stevens, Maria Winkelmann, and others. Chapters on women's access to science discuss collaboration with family members in the domestic sphere, the impact of primers and popular science writing, and formal education in public schools and advanced research institutions. There are examinations of the reasons for clusters of women working in "female friendly" sciences such as botany and physiology in the 19th century and astronomy in the U.S. during the early 20th century.

This important and useful book provides a thoughtful and detailed overview for scholars and students in the history of science, as well as for feminist historians, scientists, and others who who want a comparative and historical analysis of women in the sciences.

Contributors include Janet Browne, Paula Findlen, Peggy Aldrich Kidwell, Ann Hibner Koblitz, M. Susan Lindee, Carolyn Merchant, Margaret W. Rossiter, Londa Schiebinger, Nancy Leys Stepan, and Deborah Jean Warner.

What do research on women in science and research on science and gender have to do with each other? This volume brings together prominent historians and philosophers of science to examine women's participation in science, gender and science, and the potential for interaction between these two pieces of a larger puzzle. The eleven chapters included here explore a number of interrelated topics: the experiences of individual women working in science; the demographic patterns of and support for women in specific fields; the gendered construction of scientific education and terminology; the impact of feminist critiques on contemporary science; and more. The result is a collection of works that are rich in suggestions, specific in their evidence, and grounded in the complex discussion of gender in late twentieth century cultural and academic life.

The twentieth century was one of astonishing change in science, especially as pursued in the United States. Against a backdrop of dramatic political and economic shifts brought by world wars, intermittent depressions, sporadic and occasionally massive increases in funding, and expanding private patronage, this scientific work fundamentally reshaped everyday life. Science and the American Century offers some of the most significant contributions to the study of the history of science, technology, and medicine during the twentieth century, all drawn from the pages of the journal Isis.

 

Fourteen essays from leading scholars are grouped into three sections, each presented in roughly chronological order. The first section charts several ways in which our knowledge of nature was cultivated, revealing how scientific practitioners and the public alike grappled with definitions of the “natural” as they absorbed and refracted global information. The essays in the second section investigate the changing attitudes and fortunes of scientists during and after World War II. The final section documents the intricate ways that science, as it advanced, became intertwined with social policies and the law.