New Books In Gender Studies

Black Women's Bodily Autonomy, Sexual Freedom, and Pleasure: Explorations of the Hot Girl Movement (Routledge, 2025) explores scholarship, practice, and advocacy for Black women’s pursuit of bodily autonomy, sexual freedom, and pleasure. Inspired by Megan Thee Stallion’s song "Hot Girl Summer" and pleasure activism, Dr. Clarissa E. Francis ("The Real Hot Girl Doc") examines the cultural and social impacts of "hot girl" music and its transformative effects on Black women’s sexual liberation journeys. Francis introduces readers to the Hot Girl Movement, addressing intergenerational trauma, denial of bodily autonomy, and pleasure politics. This book offers a historical review and current documentation of Black women’s role in the evolving movement for sexual liberation in the United States, with a particular focus on Atlanta, Georgia. Chapters delve into the history of systemic oppression, presenting research on Black women’s experiences with gendered racism while demonstrating the socio-cultural influences sha

During the American Civil War, clothing became central to the ways people waged war and experienced its cost. Through the clothes they made, wore, mended, lost, and stole, Americans expressed their allegiances, showed their love, confronted their social and economic challenges, subverted expectations, and, ultimately, preserved their history. As the collections they left behind make clear, Civil War Americans believed clothing was not merely a reflection of one’s class, gender, race, military rank, political ideology, or taste. Instead, Northerners and Southerners alike understood that clothing—from the weave of a fabric to the style and make of a coat—had the power to affect people’s way of living through the war’s tumult.In A Nation Unraveled: Clothing, Culture, and Violence in the American Civil War Era (UNC Press, 2026), Dr. Sarah Jones Weicksel reveals the meanings clothing had for Civil War Americans. Contributing to the growing body of scholarship on the material culture of the Civil War, Dr. Weicksel

The revelatory and urgent story of how an explosion of misogyny is driving a surge of mass and far-right violence throughout the West--from an internationally recognized extremism expert and media commentator What two things do most mass shooters, terrorists, or violent extremists have in common? Most of us know the first: they are almost always men or boys. But the second? They are almost always virulent misogynists, homophobes, or transphobes--even if they are also motivated by racism, antisemitism, or xenophobia. The antigovernment militiamen charged with plotting to kidnap and execute Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer used language saturated with misogyny, with one telling an FBI informant, "Just grab the bitch." The men who killed scores at Virginia Tech, the Pulse nightclub, and a Maryland newsroom all had prior reports of stalking, domestic violence, or harassment of women. And in dozens of other incidents--from North America to Norway to New Zealand--an increasing number of misogynist incel (involun

Matchmaking and the Marriage Market in Postrevolutionary France (Cornell UP, 2024) gives an historical account of the evolution of the matchmaking business during the Second Empire in France. The book explores how the matchmaking industry at the Postrevolutionary France was shaped by commodified stories of hope and fantasy, including democratization of the matchmaking business, which aroused the interest of democratized French audience, including lower-middle-class individuals, through exaggerated advertisements in the media productions. The book also gives an exposition on the period of French Revolution and how it significantly altered family legislation and marriage practices, leading to increased freedom in spouse selection and the rise of professional matchmakers like Claude Viome. The book highlights how the revolutionary reforms impact on marriage of the French populace, including the age reduction policy for the majority and lifting of parental consent for marriage, as well as introducing divorce by

When Virginie Despentes (1969) published her provocative debut novel Baise-moi in 1994, no one could have anticipated how she would gradually become a literary, feminist, and punk icon. This book is the first holistic, interdisciplinary approach to Despentes's novels and evolution as an author. Using feminist, queer, literary, and punk theories, the book examines how Despentes has developed and refined her Grrrl writing in Baise-moi, Les Chiennes savantes, and Les Jolies choses. Michèle Schaal's Grrrl Writing: Virginie Despentes's Authorial Politics (Peter Lang, 2026) specifically illustrates how her unique authorial politics, infused with punk, genre- and genderbending praxes, have provided an acerbic critique of still largely heteropatriarchal French society. Despentes's Grrrl writing denounces how this system engenders and thrives on injustice and social inequities, but also how conventions at play in classic or populist literary genres can perpetuate oppression as well Learn more about your ad choices. Vi

In the 1950s, American glamour swept into a war-torn Britain as part of a broader transatlantic exchange of culture and commodities. But in this process, the American ideal of the blonde became uniquely British—Marilyn Monroe transformed into Diana Dors. British Blonde: Women, Desire and the Image in Post-War Britain (Yale UP, 2025) by Professor Lynda Nead examines postwar Britain through the changing ideals of femininity that reflected the nation’s evolving concerns in the twenty-five years following the Second World War. At its heart are four iconic women whose stories serve as prompts for broader accounts of social and culture change: Diana Dors, the quintessential blonde bombshell; Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in Britain; Barbara Windsor, star of the Carry On films; and the Pop artist Pauline Boty. Together, they reveal how class, social aspiration, and desire reshaped the cultural atmosphere of the 1950s and 1960s, complicating gender roles and visual culture in the process. Richly illustrat

Is the home still a site for feminist resistance? In Feminisms and Domesticity in Times of Crisis: The Rise of the Austerity Celebrity Jessica Martin, a Lecturer in Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Leeds, examines the rise of postfeminist celebrities in the era of covid and the cost-of-living crisis. Drawing on 4 case studies, the book demonstrates how much of the seemingly feminist celebrity activism of recent years has reinforced and justified social inequalities. The book explains and contextualises many current media issues, from the ‘trad wife’ and nostalgic gender politics, to the complicated politics of mumsnet, blogging and business coaches. Offering a nuanced account of the possibilities for alternatives, whilst cautioning that even explicitly anti-poverty feminist campaigning is constrained by a reactionary media landscape, the book is essential reading across the humanities and social sciences, as well as for anyone interested in understanding contemporary life. Learn more about you

This episode features a conversation with the founding members of the Feminist Critical Hindu Studies Collective, also known as the Auntylectuals. We began with each of them reflecting on their pathway into Hindu Studies and how the questions of caste and gender shaped their approaches to this field. We then discussed their motivations for starting the collective and what interventions they hoped to make through it. This took us deeper into some thorny topics: caste as a form of embodied knowledge that is often accompanied by the denial of its continued social power; the politics of Hinduism in North America where Hindus are both predominantly upper caste and a racial minority; the relationship between Hinduism and Hindutva, or Hindu nationalism; the traffic in language and tactics between Hindutva and Zionism; and the efforts to push back against the movement to make caste a protected category in U.S. anti-discrimination law. Guests: Shreena Gandhi: Professor of Religious Studies, Michigan State University

In Women, Dance and Parish Religion in England, 1300-1640: Negotiating the Steps of Faith (Boydell & Brewer, 2022) Dr. Lynneth Miller Renberg presents a lively exploration of the medieval and early modern attitudes towards dance, as the perception of dancers changed from saints dancing after Christ into cows dancing after the devil. The devil’s cows, impudent camels, or damsels animated by the devil: late medieval and early modern authors used these descriptors and more to talk about dancers, particularly women. Yet, dance was not always considered entirely sinful or connected primarily to women: in some early medieval texts, dancers were exhorted to dance to God, arm-in-arm with their neighbors, and parishes were filled with danced expressions of faith. What led to the transformation of dancers from saints dancing after Christ into cows dancing after the devil? Drawing on the evidence from medieval and early modern sermons, and in particular the narratives of the cursed carolers and the dance of Salome, t

When young people began disappearing in Argentina, their mothers searched for answers. Despite laws prohibiting protests and political gatherings, the women still met to walk the Plaza de Mayo, a central square in Buenos Aires near the president’s residence. The government worked to deny their reports of the missing, to discredit the women, and to erode their standing among their peers. But the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo persisted. Dr. Laura Tedesco joins us to share about her own childhood in Argentina during the military junta of the 1970s, her expertise on the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, and what authoritarianism then and now looks like, as we take a deep dive into her article “How Government Killings and Kidnappings in Argentina drove mothers to resist and revolt – and eventually win,” published in The Conversation on January 27, 2026. This episode explores: features of authoritarianism, liberation theology, the death flights, Nunca Mas, human rights, fear, mothers’ activism, and how a society can react

In her book Japan Reborn: Race and Eugenics from Empire to Cold War (Columbia UP, 2025), historian Kristin Roebuck grapples with the question: Why did Japan embrace “mixed blood” as an authoritarian empire yet turn to xenophobic racial nationalism as a Cold War democracy? Through in-depth and rigorous historical archival research, Roebuck traces the fraught history of sex, reproduction, race and empire building in Japan from the 1930s to 1950s. Through her scholarship, she crucially demonstrates how discourses on sex, mixed-race children, and adoption revolved around control of women and their bodies to strengthen nationalism and imperialism. This monograph is an important read for listeners who are interested in the topics of race, gender and empire and scholars in Asian Studies, History, and Gender Studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies

Linda Connolly is a professor of sociology at Maynooth University, with research focusing on gender, Irish society, family studies, migration, and Irish studies. Dr Tina O'Toole is a literary scholar with research expertise in Irish and diasporic writing, gender studies, and the history of sexualities; she is a senior lecturer at the University of Limerick. In this interview, they discuss their well-known text Documenting Irish Feminisms, first published in 2005 and now re-released. Documenting Irish Feminisms: The Second Wave (Arlen House, 2022) is a wide-ranging volume that traces the development of second-wave feminism in Ireland. The work draws upon a diversity of rare primary sources, including documents, photos, and publications. Connolly and O’Toole explore several themes in Irish feminist politics from the 1970s to the 1990s, including the emergence of pioneering feminist groups and organizations; reproductive rights and activism; the legal system and the state; the development of cultural projects; f

Hillary Langberg discusses Wisdom of the Goddess, an online exhibition she curated for the Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art featuring nine goddesses across Hindu and Buddhist traditions. Langberg traces her path from fieldwork at western Deccan cave temples to public humanities, and addresses the curatorial choices, pedagogical design, and theological framing involved in presenting devī traditions to diverse audiences. The conversation explores the Hindu-Buddhist interface in goddess worship, visual texts as evidence, and transmission beyond academic containers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies

Women, Theory, Praxis, and Performativities: Transoceanic Entanglements in Francophone Settings (Liverpool UP, 2025) bridges the gap between the Caribbean, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific. It collectively fosters new transoceanic modes of thinking to reframe postcolonial debates and reveal the interconnected dialogues led by women from former French colonies and post-contact island territories. Thus, the volume unsettles the male agenda (captains, missionaries, mariners, ethnographers), and pays attention to the ways in which artists, writers, and activists have theorized or poetized women and the seas, reclaimed agency and created transformative possibilities. To critically map out a gendered conversation with the ocean, the contributors explore activisms and feminisms, intersectional praxes of care, ecological and health impacts of nuclear radiation and chlordecone contamination, queerness, decolonizing dance, the unsettling of official archives and female tidalectical corporeality and embodiments, Mā'ohi

In the high Andean grasslands 4,500 meters above sea level, Quechua alpaca herders live on the edges of glaciers that have retreated more rapidly in the past fifty years than at any point in the previous six millennia. Women are the primary herders, and their specialized knowledge and skill is vital to the ability of high-elevation communities to survive in changing climatic conditions. In the past decade, however, these herders and their animals have traversed a rapidly shifting terrain. Drawing on the Quechua concept of k'ita, or restlessness, Restless Ecologies: Climate Change and Socioecological Futures in the Peruvian Highlands (University of Arizona Press, 2025) explores how herders in the community of Chillca in the Cordillera Vilcanota mountain range of the southeastern Peruvian Andes sense and make sense of changing conditions. Capricious mountains, distracted alpacas, and wayward children deviate from their expected spatial and temporal trajectories. When practices of sociality start to fall apart-

In Cosmosexuals: Screen Acting, Stardom, and Male Sex Appeal (U Texas Press, 2025), Dr. Mark Gallagher presents an examination of male screen sex appeal and the ways that race, ethnicity, and national origin combine with performance tools and film and television style to aid or inhibit actors’ circulation on an increasingly global stage. Sex appeal is complicated, especially for screen actors. Looking good is not enough. Charisma and charm have to register when the camera rolls. And sexiness has to travel. Today’s heartthrobs are expected to raise temperatures all around the world. Cosmosexuals theorizes male sex appeal as a form of capital in an age of international stardom. Screen scholar Dr. Gallagher assembles a diverse cast—Idris Elba, Pedro Pascal, Simu Liu, Ryan Gosling, and more—analyzing how each actor uses his appearance, voice, and movement to perform in ways that viewers across cultural divides register as sexually appealing. Cosmosexuals also explores the intersection of global sex appeal and e

In small villages, bustling cities, and crowded ghettos across early modern Europe, Jewish women were increasingly active participants in the daily life of their communities, managing homes and professions, leading institutions and sororities, and crafting objects and texts of exquisite beauty. In their book, A Woman Is Responsible for Everything: Jewish Women in Early Modern Europe (Princeton UP, 2025), Debra Kaplan and Elisheva Carlebach marshal a dazzling array of previously untapped archival sources to tell the stories of these woman for the first time.Kaplan and Carlebach focus their lens on the kehillah, a lively and thriving form of communal life that sustained European Jews for three centuries. They paint vibrant portraits of Jewish women of all walks of life, from those who wielded their wealth and influence in and out of their communities to the poorest maidservants and vagrants, from single and married women to the widowed and divorced. We follow them into their homes and learn about the possession

In honor of the twentieth anniversary of Mark Anthony Neal’s pivotal text New Black Man (Routledge, 2015), Mickell Carter interviews Neal about the book’s revolutionary model of Black masculinity for the twenty-first century—one that moves beyond patriarchy to embrace feminism and confront homophobia. Now more vital than ever, New Black Man urges us to imagine a redefined Black masculinity grounded in family, community, and diversity. Part memoir and part manifesto, the book celebrates the Black man of our time in all his vibrancy and complexity. The tenth-anniversary edition (2015) of this classic text includes a new foreword by Joan Morgan, as well as a new introduction and postscript by Neal, which bring the book’s central questions into the present. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies

A feminist romp through pop culture that illuminates how women influence and shape the economy. Taylor Swift isn't just a pop megastar. She is a working woman whose astounding accomplishments defy patriarchal norms. And while not all women can be Beyoncé or Dolly Parton or Reese Witherspoon, the successes of these trailblazing stars help us understand the central role of women in today's economy. Swiftynomics: How Women Mastermind and Redefine Our Economy (U California Press, 2026) assesses the complex economic lives of everyday American women through the stories of groundbreakers like Taylor Swift, Misty L. Heggeness digs into the data, revealing women's hidden contributions and aspirations—the unexamined value they create by pursuing their own ambitions. She highlights the abundance of productive activity in their daily lives and acknowledges the barriers they still face. Exploring critical reforms regarding caregiving and gendered labor, this book offers advice for women to thrive in an economy that was

The Heretic of Cacheu: Crispina Peres and the Struggle over Life in Seventeenth-Century West Africa (U Chicago Press, 2025) by Professor Toby Green tells the extraordinary story of seventeenth-century West African slave trader Crispina Peres to explore the shifting, sophisticated world in which she lived. In 1665, Crispina Peres, the most powerful trader in the West African slave-trafficking port of Cacheu, was arrested by the Portuguese Inquisition. Her enemies had conspired to denounce her for taking treatments prescribed by Senegambian healers, the djabakós. But who was Peres? And why was the Inquisition so concerned with policing the faith of a West African woman in today’s Guinea-Bissau? In The Heretic of Cacheu, award-winning historian Dr. Green takes us to the heart of this conundrum, immersing us in the atmosphere of an otherwise distant setting. We learn how people in seventeenth-century Cacheu built their houses; styled their clothes; healed themselves from illness; and worshipped, worked, and pla