Book Notes
This edited collection, which is part of the Re-Reading the Canon series edited by Nancy Tuana, seeks to understand Maurice Merleau-Ponty's impact on feminist philosophy, both positive and negative. In exploring and critiquing Merleau-Ponty's work on the relationship between the body and the space it inhabits, the authors cover a wide range of issues, such as race, motherhood, violence, and sexual difference. The authors also examine the work of other philosophers, including Luce Irigaray, Carol Gilligan, and Emmanuel Levinas, as they relate to Merleau-Ponty. Contributors are Jorella Andrews, David Brubaker, Judith Butler, Laura Doyle, Helen A. Fielding, Vicki Kirby, Sonia Kruks, Ann V. Murphy, Johanna Oksala, Dorothea Olkowsi, Beata Stawarska, and Gail Weiss
The goal of this collection is to "bring together an assortment of writings about the sex industry by people who are generally interested in questions about the status of women, the role of law in affecting that status, and the place of sex in our lives, in order to make some sense of the very different ways prostitution, pornography, and other parts of the sex industry are treated in the U.S. culture, and to think about how the principles of feminism and liberalism conflict with and compliment one another" (4). The collection is divided into four sections. Part 1, "Critiques of the Sex Industry," consists of essays by Vednita Carter and Evelina Giobbe, Christine Stark, Carole Pateman, Catherine MacKinnon, and Margaret A. Baldwin, all taking a "radical" perspective in discussing the various harms the sex industry causes women. In Part 2, "Liberalism and Prostitution," authors Norma Jean Almodovar, Martha Nussbaum, Sibyl Schwarzenbach, and Laurie Shrage argue that prohibitions on prostitution are wrong, harmful, or both. The authors in Part 3, "Liberalism and Pornography" (Theresa A. Reed a.k.a. "Darklady," Joshua Cohen, Ronald Dworkin, and Laura Kipnis), worry about the negative consequences of restricting pornography in addressing feminist liberal treatments of pornography. Unlike the previous sections, [End Page 224] Part 4, "The Limits of Liberalism," does not have a unified theme or argument. Instead, the authors (Tracy Quan, Julian Marlowe, Scott A. Anderson, Debra Satz, and Jessica Spector) engage very different sorts of questions about the sex industry.
Defining "the concept of socializing care as the theoretical understanding and application of care ethics in public life," the editors of this collection have compiled eleven essays, all of which address both theory and practice of an ethics of care as it factors into a variety of social policies and institutions (xiii). "Ultimately," declare the editors, "this collection responds to the question of how society might be different if care ethics were taken seriously in terms of policy and practice" (xv). The collection is divided into two sections. Part I, "Care, Society, and the State," addresses care theory on the broader level, using the concept of care as an evaluative framework to reconsider social institutions, liberal society, and citizenship. This section consists of essays by Joan Tronto, Nel Noddings, Eloise A. Buker, Maurice Hamington, Deborah L. Little, and a multi-authored piece by Selma Sevenhuijsen, Vivienne Bozalek, Amanda Gouws, and Marie Minnaar-Mcdonald. Part II, "Care in Social Action and Context," focuses on how particular social practices (such as live kidney donations) and particular settings (such as long-term care facilities) can integrate care into their policies and practices. Contributors for this section include Margaret Urban Walker, Fiona Robinson, Judith Stadtman Tucker, and Cheryl Brandsen.
The Fall 1999 Special Issue of Hypatia (Vol. 14, no. 4), titled "The Philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir," forms the basis of this collection. Margaret A...
