Review: The Good Mother Myth
The persistent myth of the perfect mother is a narrative that shapes and limits women's lives even as family structures and women's choices expand and change in the new millennium. Developing ways to...
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Review: The Man Booker Prize Shortlist 2013
The 2013 Man Booker Prize will be announced on Tuesday (15 October), which is somewhat exciting for prize list junkies and book nerds such as myself. Although I always find Man Booker day...
Review: Annamarie Jagose, Orgasmology
Annamarie Jagose, Orgasmology, Duke UP, 2013. Does orgasm have a history? Queer theorist Annamarie Jagose’s new book attempts to answer this question with a carefully researched journey through the...
A Non-Zionist Jewishness? Judith Butler’s Parting Ways
Judith Butler, Parting Ways: Jewishness and the Critique of Zionism. Columbia UP, 2013 Having made her name in the early 90s with Gender Trouble, a densely-written look at the ways in which gender is...
Review – Don’t Call Me Inspirational: A Disabled Feminist Talks Back by Harilyn Rousso
With a humorous take on both the personal and cultural critique essay, writer and feminist disability activist Harilyn Rousso grabs readers’ attention starting with the wry title of her new book,...
Hunger Games: The Revolution Might Be Televised
Fans of Suzanne Collins’ dark teen trilogy as well as newcomers to the series should find the film of The Hunger Games satisfying. It’s a gripping story, well-told. Four weeks after its release,...
Review: Bumbling into Body Hair
Everett Maroon, Bumbling Into Body Hair (Booktrope 2012) Cis people have a seemingly endless fascination with transition, particularly the minutia and the deeply personal details. They want to know...
Review: Sex and Disability
Sex and Disability (ed. Robert McRuer and Anna Mollow), Duke University Press, 2012. Sex and Disability is a fascinating collection of essays bringing together two taboo topics, discussed from a...
Genre trouble: Re-reading Stella Gibbon’s Starlight
Stella Gibbons is best known for 1932’s Cold Comfort Farm, a sublimely comic novel that satirised the grim, rural works of writers like Mary Webb and Sheila Kaye-Smith. Cold Comfort Farm is...
Review: The Quest for the Historical Satan
The Quest For the Historical Satan, Miguel A. De La Torre and Albert Hernandez, Fortress 2011. It’s a familiar image to most people in (post) Christian societies - the red, pitchforked Satan. but...