Philosophical Feminism and Popular Culture

(Paperback)

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The eight essays contained in Philosophical Feminism and Popular Culture explore the portrayal of women and various philosophical responses to that portrayal in contemporary post-civil rights society. The essays examine visual, print, and performance mediastand-up comedy, movies, television, and a blockbuster trilogy of novel. These philosophical feminist analyses of popular culture consider the possibilities, both positive and negative, that popular culture presents for articulating the structure of the social and cultural practices in which gender matters, and for changing these practices if and when they follow from, lead to, or perpetuate discrimination on the basis of gender. The essays bring feminist voices to the conversation about gender and attests to the importance of feminist critique in what is sometimes claimed to be a post-feminist era.

Reviews

Joanne Waugh and Sharon Crasnow's volume is a valuable addition to contemporary feminist work. From 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' to television and beyond, the book helps the reader along with the underexamined intersection between feminism, philosophy and popular culture. The introduction is especially valuable as an explanatory piece on the sets of distinctions between popular art and other varieties. -- Jane Duran, University of California, Santa Barbara
Feminist philosophy gives attention to everyday life and social practices and the discourses that accompany these. Everyday popular culture remains an enormously influential source for both sexist constructions of womens role and character as well as potent and vivid challenges to these. These essays by noted feminist philosophers range over topics including Black female comics, Sex and the City, Mad Men, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series, and Battlestar Gallactica. They will enliven classroom discussions and be of interest to popular culture theorists as well as philosophers. -- Jane Caputi, author of Goddesses and Monsters: Women, Myrth, Power, and Popular Culture

Author Bio

Sharon Crasnow is Professor of Philosophy at Norco College in Southern California. She is a co-editor (with Anita M. Superson) of Out from the Shadows: Analytical Feminist Contributions to Traditional Philosophy (Oxford University Press 2012). Her current research is focused on feminist epistemology and philosophy of science, science and values, and epistemological questions relevant to the methodology in the social sciences. Joanne Waugh is the American Foundation for Greek Language and Culture Professor of Greek Culture and Director of its Interdisciplinary Center of Hellenic Studies at the University of South Florida. She is also a member of the Department of Philosophy and serves as its director of Graduate Studies.