A Community of Disagreement: Feminism in the University (Counterpoints) - Softcover

Bouchard, Danielle

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1433117304 ISBN 13: 9781433117305

Publisher: Peter Lang Inc., International Academic Publishers, 2012

Synopsis

As academic feminism has critiqued the often-violent inscriptions of institutionality, it has also produced a narrative of its role in the university fraught with difficulties of its own. The understanding of difference – as an object to be agreed upon and as the foundation for a diversity model of inclusion – that has emerged as the defining feature of this narrative has also come to serve as the suture point between feminism and the university, a site of presumed resistance to institutionality. Engaging in a close reading of the literature on the current state of academic feminism as well as a variety of bureaucratic, organizational, and scholarly texts on the US university, Danielle Bouchard draws from contemporary political philosophy, postcolonial and women of color feminisms, and poststructuralist social theory in order to examine feminism’s relationship to what has become one of the central missions of the US university: the management of difference. Proposing that the possibility of imagining alternative university formations rests on a difference that cannot be fully accounted for, Dr. Bouchard understands feminism as a community of disagreement, a formation that resists political resolution and interpretive closure.

About this title

About the Author:

Danielle Bouchard is Assistant Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro.

Review:

«‘A Community of Disagreement’ is a provocative, original, compelling critique of the institutionalization of feminism in the university from a perspective that remains sympathetic to feminist thought and politics [...] As a theoretically sophisticated approach to much-debated questions that have plagued academic feminism and the university more broadly for the past thirty years, the book is refreshing, timely, and persuasive.» (Lynne Huffer, Emory University, Author of ‘Mad for Foucault’)
«Danielle Bouchard boldly interrogates feminism’s ambivalent location within the neoliberal university, urging us to invigorate our postcolonial theorizations of difference and disciplinarity in the context of globalized feminist knowledge production. A Community of Disagreement passionately challenges us to seek a responsible future for feminism that lies in the form of a tenacious committed critique, rather than an argument for exceptionalism. The implications of Bouchard’s argument are salient to all scholars committed to interdisciplinary and political academic work.» (Jigna Desai, University of Minnesota)

«‘A Community of Disagreement’ is a provocative, original, compelling critique of the institutionalization of feminism in the university from a perspective that remains sympathetic to feminist thought and politics [...] As a theoretically sophisticated approach to much-debated questions that have plagued academic feminism and the university more broadly for the past thirty years, the book is refreshing, timely, and persuasive.» (Lynne Huffer, Emory University, Author of ‘Mad for Foucault’)
«Danielle Bouchard boldly interrogates feminism’s ambivalent location within the neoliberal university, urging us to invigorate our postcolonial theorizations of difference and disciplinarity in the context of globalized feminist knowledge production. ‘A Community of Disagreement’ passionately challenges us to seek a responsible future for feminism that lies in the form of a tenacious committed critique, rather than an argument for exceptionalism. The implications of Bouchard’s argument are salient to all scholars committed to interdisciplinary and political academic work.» (Jigna Desai, University of Minnesota)

About this edition

• Publisher: Peter Lang Inc., International Academic Publishers
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1433117304
• ISBN 13: 9781433117305
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 180