BiblioVault - Books about Smith, Bonnie G.

The Gender of History

Men, Women, and Historical Practice

Bonnie G. Smith

Harvard University Press, 1998

In this pathbreaking study of the gendering of the practices of history, Bonnie Smith resurrects the amateur history written by women in the nineteenth century--a type of history condemned as trivial by "scientific" male historians. She demonstrates the degree to which the profession defined itself in opposition to amateurism, femininity, and alternative ways of writing history. The male historians of the archive and the seminar claimed to be searching for "genderless universal truth," which in reality prioritized men's history over women's, white history over nonwhite, and the political history of Western governments over any other. Meanwhile, women amateurs wrote vivid histories of queens and accomplished women, of manners and mores, and of everyday life.

Following the profession up to 1940, The Gender of History traces the emergence of a renewed interest in social and cultural history which had been demeaned in the nineteenth century, when professional historians viewed themselves as supermen who could see through the surface of events to invisible meanings and motives. But Smith doesn't let late twentieth-century historians off the hook. She demonstrates how, even today, the practice of history is propelled by fantasies of power in which researchers imagine themselves as heroic rescuers of the inarticulate lower classes. The professionals' legacy is still with us, as Smith's extraordinary work proves.

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Gendering Disability

Smith, Bonnie G

Rutgers University Press, 2004

Disability and gender, terms that have previously seemed so clear-cut, are becoming increasingly complex in light of new politics and scholarship. These words now suggest complicated sets of practices and ways of being.

Contributors to this innovative collection explore the intersection of gender and disability in the arts, consumer culture, healing, the personal and private realms, and the appearance of disability in the public sphere—both in public fantasies and in public activism. Beginning as separate enterprises that followed activist and scholarly paths, gender and disability studies have reached a point where they can move beyond their boundaries for a common landscape to inspire new areas of inquiry. Whether from a perspective in the humanities, social sciences, sciences, or arts, the shared subject matter of gender and disability studies—the body, social and cultural hierarchy, identity, discrimination and inequality, representation, and political activism—insistently calls for deeper conversation. This volume provides fresh findings not only about the discrimination practiced against women and people with disabilities, but also about the productive parallelism between these two categories.

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Women's History in Global Perspective, Volume 1

Edited by Bonnie G. Smith

University of Illinois Press, 2004

The American Historical Association's Committee on Women Historians commissioned some of the pioneering figures in women's history to prepare essays in their respective areas of expertise. Volume 1 of the three-volume series addresses the comparative themes that the editors and contributors see as central to understanding women's history around the world. Authors like Margaret Strobel, Alice Kessler-Harris, and Mrinalini Sinha provide overviews of the theory and practice of women's and gender history and analyze family history, nationalism, and work. Editor Bonnie G. Smith rounds out the collection with essays on religion, race, ethnicity, and the different varieties of feminism.

Authoritative and wide-ranging, Women's History in Global Perspective, Volume 1, offers an invaluable resource on the thought and methods of a generation's leading figures in feminist scholarship.

Contributors: Marjorie Bingham, Julia Clancy-Smith, Susan Kent, Alice Kessler-Harris, Mary Jo Maynes, Pamela Scully, Mrinalini Sinha, Margaret Strobel, and Ann B. Waltner

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Women's History in Global Perspective, Volume 2

Edited by Bonnie G. Smith

University of Illinois Press, 2005

In Volume 2 of Women's History in Global Perspective, Bonnie G. Smith curates more essays by pioneering thinkers on issues that have shaped the history of women, this time with a focus on particular places and particular eras. The collection examines women from prehistory to ancient civilizations in Egypt, Israel, India, and beyond; a survey of women history in China, Japan, and Korea; women and gender in South and South East Asia; medieval women; women and gender in Colonial Latin America; and the history of women in the United States to 1865.

Inclusive and wide-ranging, Women's History in Global Perspective, Volume 2, offers an invaluable collection of feminist scholarship on overlooked and marginalized topics.

Contributors: Judith M. Bennett, Kathleen Brown, Brady Hughes, Sarah Shaver Hughes, Susan Mann, Barbara N. Ramusack, and Ann Twinam.

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Women's History in Global Perspective, Volume 3

Edited by Bonnie G. Smith

University of Illinois Press, 2005

The concluding volume of Women's History in Global Perspective discusses contemporary trends in gender and women's history. Bonnie G. Smith edits essays that include women and gender in the history of sub-Saharan Africa and Middle Eastern women since the rise of Islam. Other contributors offer a transnational approach to women in early and modern Europe; look at women's history in Russia and the Soviet Union; discuss the national period in Latin American women's history; and provide a global perspective on women in North American history after 1865.

Contributors: Bonnie S. Anderson, Ellen Dubois, Barbara Engel, Cheryl Johnson-Odim, Nikki R. Keddie, Asunción Lavrin, and Judith P. Zinsser

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