By Chloe Dominique ‘Rowling’s world of fantasy is one of hierarchy and prejudice’ (Mendelsohn, 2002:117) Leve argues that there is a ‘specificity of assumptions that underlie conventional understandings of-identity’ (Leve, 2011:516). If Leve is correct, then does Rowling’s globally celebrated Harry Potter series feed into discourses of a neoliberal quest to find one’s true identity? A notion predicated on…
Author: Laura Clancy
Doctoral Students’ Perceptions of Academia
By Rachel Handforth Doctoral study has traditionally been thought of as the start of an academic career, with doctoral students working as ‘apprentices’. However, the influx of PhD students into UK higher education over recent years, and the lack of investment in early career positions in universities, has led to increased competition for academic jobs.…
Celebrating Fictional Female Friendships
By Stephanie Hammerwold If you took your cues from the Real Housewives franchise or other such shows, it would appear that female friendships are full of constant bickering, going behind each other’s backs and betrayal. Whenever I see relationships between women represented this way, I cringe. I think of my own female friendships and just how far…
Review of Mobilizing Transnational Gender Politics in Post-Genocide Rwanda by Rirhandu Mageza-Barthel
Mobilizing Transnational Gender Politics in Post-Genocide Rwanda, by Rirhandu Mageza-Barthel Review by Saide Mobayed The image on the cover of Mobilizing Transnational Gender Politics in Post-genocide Rwanda depicts a cubist style grey woman carrying over her head what can be interpreted as a coffin with four skulls: the burden of being genocide victims. They represent hate,…
Review of Corporeality and Culture: Bodies in Movement, edited by Karin Sellberg, Lena Wånggren and Kamillea Aghtan
Corporeality and Culture: Bodies in Movement, edited by Karin Sellberg, Lena Wånggren and Kamillea Aghtan Review by Veronika Schuchter For Rosi Braidotti the “cartography is not the moment of movement [but] the moment of stillness” and functions as a navigational as well as dialogical tool and, most importantly, cartographies need to be exchanged.[1] This edited collection…
FWSA 2015 Book Prize competition Winner
We are pleased to announce the winner of the FWSA 2015 Book Prize competition: Alison Phipps. Thanks to everyone who participated and helped make the competition a success. Further information about the FWSA Book Prize competition can be accessed online here. 2015: Dr Alison Phipps for ‘The Politics of the Body: Gender in a Neoliberal…
Are You the Mothering ‘Type’?
By Annemarie Ní Churreáin “I don’t think you’ll ever be a mother. You’re just not the type” You can’t stop people from talking nonsense. I realise that. But sometimes, and especially if you’re a woman in Ireland, it’s hard not to feel like the nonsense is a rather insidious slur on who or what you…
Review of Mobility in the Victorian Novel: Placing the Nation by Charlotte Mathieson
Mobility in the Victorian Novel: Placing the Nation by Charlotte Mathieson Review by Lena Wånggren For those of us who enjoyed Charlotte Mathieson’s chapter in the recent collection Transport in British Fiction: Technologies of Movement, 1840-1940 (2015, ed. Adrienne Gavin & Andrew Humphries), her full-length monograph Mobility in the Victorian Novel: Placing the Nation comes as…
FWSA essay competition winners published
We are pleased to announce that the special issue of the Journal of International Women’s Studies featuring the winning and shortlisted essays from the 2015 FWSA essay competition has now been published. “New Directions in Feminist Studies – Winning and Shortlisted Entries from the 2015 FWSA Student Essay Competition” is edited by Charlotte Mathieson and…
The Role of Women in Pro Sports
By Holly Whitman In a historic moment for female athletes, Sports Illustrated named tennis star Serena Williams its 2015 Sportsperson of the Year. As a new year dawns, it’s a good time to look both forward and back at women in professional sports. How much progress have we made in women’s access to athletics and…