Abstracts of Books

Abstracts of Books Toni Morrison, ed. and intro. Race-ing Justice, En-gendering Power: Essays on Anita Hill, Clarence Thomas, and the Construction of Social Reality. New York: Pantheon, 1992. xxx + 475 pp. ISBN 0-679-74145-3 (pb); $14.00. To American cultural theorists, the Thomas-HUl hearings constituted the same sort of rupture that the Rushdie controversy provided for English cultural studies a few years before: they exposed the fault lines within and between dispossessed and marginalized groups and shook up comfortable assumptions about common interests and agendas. The nineteen essayists in Morrison's coUection seek to understand what the Thomas-HUl hearings reveal about the intersection of gender and racial discourses, espedaUy the privüeging of a particular construction of black masculinity. Individual essayists consider the role of the media, the black community, AfricanAmerican leadership, white feminists, the Senate committee, and Thomas's White House backers; they analyze Thomas's self-construction in autobiography and his rhetoric; they consider HUTs sodal positioning and the roots of black women's disempowerment. They conclude that HUl, as a single black professional woman, lacked a discursive place in American racial poHtics from which to chaUenge Thomas's seLf-construction. Sidonie Smith and JuHa Watson, eds. De/Colonizing the Subject: The Politics of Gender in Women's Autobiography. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1992. xxxi+484 pp. ISBN 0-8166-1991-3 (d); 0-8166-19921 (pb); $44.95 (d); $19.95 (pb). This coUection of twenty essays examines the autobiographies of women from around the globe who have Hved under the "structural domination" of colonialism. The authors of the essays also come from diverse geographical regions, thus giving the book its "transnational" perspective on women's Hfe-writings. WhUe the volume does not present a chronological history of women's autobiography, the works range from colonial through transitional periods to the postcolonial and neocolonial present. CoUectively , the essays examine the multi-faceted "colonial subjecf ' as a crossroads for differing ideologies and explore the potential autobiography holds for subverting women's oppression through voicing an alternative history and vision for the future. © 1993 Journal of Women's History, Vol s No. ι (Fall) 1993 Abstracts of Books 171 Barrie Thorne, ed., with Marilyn Yalom. Rethinking the Family: Some Feminist Questions. Revision of 1982 ed. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1992. xiH + 316 pp. ISBN 1-55553-144-X (cl); 1-55553-145-8 (pb); $37.50 (cl); $14.95 (pb). For this revised edition of their 1982 coUection on feminist thought on the famüy, the editors have retained five essays from the original coUection, supplementing them by reprinting eight later essays on rdated themes. The editors' opening essay outlines major themes in feminist criticism of traditional scholarship on the famüy, and the first section of the book (five essays) develops the basic dimensions of the problem by exploring anthropological understandings of famüy; the interplay among gender, class, and race in famüy dynamics; and the particular problems presented to traditional notions by gay famihes. Three essays consider reproductive technologies , with new selections emphasizing the problem of defining fatherhood in the wake of the Baby M case. Three explore the meaning of motherhood, with a particular emphasis on the involvement of mothers in the maintenance of kinship networks. The final two essays consider violence against women and male resistance to feminism. Although the editors aim for broad coverage, the selection favors American cases and contemporary debates over historical reviews. Ellen M. Umansky and Dianne Ashton, eds. Four Centuries of Jewish Women's Spirituality: A Sourcebook. Boston: Beacon Press, 1992. xvü + 350 pp. ISBN 0-8070-3612-9 (cl); 0-8070-3613-7 (pb); $40.00 (d); $18.00 (pb). Produced primarily by Western women and IsraeHs, the writings in this coUection indude private letters and diaries, pubHshed essays, poetry, and sermons from 1560 to the present day. The book is divided into four chronological sections, each prefaced by a detaUed historical essay on the material presented. The texts presented chronicle the change for these women from largely passive nonpartidpants in pubhc Judaism to active shapers of the tradition. Leshe Kanes Weisman. Discrimination by Design: A Feminist Critique of the Man-Made...