Vol. 18, No. 4	Sept. 24, 1998

Five faculty contribute to book on women's studies

As the Women's Studies Program celebrates its 25th anniversary, the University of Delaware Press has published Women's Studies in Transition: The Pursuit of Interdisciplinarity, an anthology of lectures from the program's Conference in Celebration of Women's Studies in 1994.

The book is edited by Kate Conway-Turner, individual and family studies, and Suzanne Cherrin, Jessica Schiffman and Kathleen Doherty Turkel, all women's studies.

Conway-Turner wrote the introduction, calling the volume "an expression of joy," commemorating the Women's Studies Program's "legacy of scholarship, curriculum development and application of feminist research that frames our current academic work."

According to Conway-Turner, the essays "address the need for women's studies scholarship to cut across disciplines, to be located within a feminist framework, to continually redefine and develop appropriate methodologies and to translate our academic work into products that address critical issues and concerns facing women and women's creative scholarship."

The first section, "Feminist Theory," a series of five essays on topics ranging from Nicaraguan feminists to volunteerism, is introduced by Cherrin. Discussing the essays, Cherrin writes, "theories are constructed from real-life observations....[and] all feminist theories critique patriarchy. They seek nothing less radical than to equalize the distribution of power between men and women.

"The essays in this section represent some of the most exciting examples of the uses of feminist theory and offer suggestions to enhance personal growth, to bridge differences and to effect positive change of transforming theory into action."

"Feminist Methodology," containing four essays dealing with such topics as African-American feminism to women and music, is introduced by Turkel. She writes, "What these essays share is an interdisciplinary research approach, a frustration with the limitations of traditional discipline and methods, and the use of innovative methodological approaches for understanding women's experiences."

Conway-Turner wrote the introduction for "Translating Feminist Work into Action" with the sub-headings medicine, science/math and family and public policy. In this section, Cherrin contributed an essay "Breast Cancer: A Critical Evaluation of the Current Advice to Women"; Turkel wrote "Midwifery and the Medical Model"; and Bonnie Kime Scott, English, discussed "Rebecca West's Traversals of Yugoslavia: Essentialism, Nationalism, Fascism and Gender."

Discussing this section, Conway-Turner writes, "A significant accomplishment of feminist scholars has been the ability to utilize feminist theories and methodologies to tackle women's 'real-life' concerns.... In all cases, these authors tackle issues that are fundamental to understanding women, family and public policy issues."

Conway-Turner concludes in her introduction to Women's Studies in Transition, "These sections together represent scholarly work that is centered in feminist theory, focused on the continual refinement of feminist methodologies and primed to continue the challenge of translating the academic to action."

Women's Studies in Transition is available at the University Bookstore.

-Sue Swyers Moncure