Feminist Theory Reader: Local and Global Perspectives, and: Feminisms Redux: An Anthology of Literary Theory and Criticism, and: The Gloria Anzaldúa Reader (review)

As an instructor who teaches intermediate-level feminist literature and Asian American feminist cultural criticism, I constantly face the challenge of teaching feminism to students with preconceptions about feminism. One common preconception is that feminism is a "white women's contribution," which has been shaped by European and U.S. feminists, adopted by women of color, and spread throughout the world. Rectification of this Euro-American-centric preconception demands not only a multicultural feminist pedagogy, but also teaching materials that deconstruct this view. After a close reading of the three anthologies under review, I find that they meet our demands for transformative teaching materials.

Each distinct in its own theoretical focus, the three books address a number of common questions in feminist theorizing: How to decenter hegemonic feminism? How to engage feminism from different locations and positions in a constructive way? And how to envision new feminist frameworks that simultaneously acknowledge differences and commonalities and embrace solidarity without privileging certain types of feminisms in a time of globalization, friction, and reshaping of power relations?

In the second edition of Feminist Theory Reader: Local and Global Perspectives, Carole R. McCann and Seung-kyung Kim employ local and global perspectives to decenter Western hegemonic feminism. They use the term "local" to refer to "'indigenous and regional' feminist theories and movements, in whatever region they arise" (3). Theories based upon white middle-class, heterosexual northern women are designated as another variety of local feminism and juxtaposed with those from other locations. Arranging readings this way breaks the convention of situating Western hegemonic feminism as the genesis of feminist genealogy. For example, the first chapter starts with Yosano Akiko's poem "The Day the Mountains Move," instead of the more commonly seen Simone de Beauvoir's introduction to The Second Sex. Admittedly, Akiko's poem does come before de Beauvoir's introduction chronologically; nonetheless, the placement of the poem at the beginning of the book symbolically challenges the prioritization of Western hegemonic feminism in feminist anthologizing. I read the structure of an anthology as part of and an act of theorizing.

To shift away from a traditional women's studies core curriculum that "remain[s] exclusively oriented to U.S. content and Western feminist perspectives" (2), McCann and Kim situate the local within a global framework. They use the term "global" to refer to "theories and movements that emerge within 'transnational' locations and discourses" (3). Compared with the first edition, this present one gives greater attention to transnational and global feminist movements and theories. For example, writings by Arab and Muslim feminists are given substantial space here. These readings explore the possibilities and limitations of transnational and global feminist frameworks through new interpretations of intersecting identities and intersections of local, transnational, and global feminist politics.

In company with these new insights, theorizing of intersecting identities is massively reorganized in this second edition. While the first separated intersecting identities under three subsections of "Race and Nation," "Class," and "Sexuality," the second reorganizes this section into two subdivisions of "Social Processes/Configuring Differences" and "Boundaries and Belongings." Readings in "Social Processes/Configuring Differences" discuss feminist macro-analytical methods of understanding intersecting differences resulting from the social processes of race, gender, class, nation, and sexuality. Readings in "Boundaries and Belongings" represent individual experiences of differences and their ways in seeking coalition. These readings reveal that despite hegemonic social differentiation, feminist individuals ceaselessly explore fissures to form new identities and new forms of coalition. Arrangement of the readings into these subdivisions signifies a new...