Is Academic Feminism Dead? Is Academic Feminism Dead? Theory in Practice edited by The Social Justice Group at The Center for Advanced Feminist Studies, University of Minnesota a New York University Press new york and london new york university press New York and London © 2000 by New York University All rights reserved Chapter 5 has been reprinted from Akhil Gupta and James Fergu- son, eds., Anthropological Locations: Boundaries and Grounds of a Field Science,courtesy of the University of California Press. © 1997 The Regents of the University of California. Chapter 13 has been reprinted from Joanna Kadi, Thinking Class: Sketches from a Cultural Worker,by permission of South End Press. © 1996. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Is academic feminism dead? : theory in practice / edited by The Social Justice Group at The Center for Advanced Feminist Studies, University of Minnesota. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8147-2705-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 0-8147-2704-2 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Feminist theory. 2. Feminism and education. 3. Women’s studies. I. University of Minnesota. Social Justice Group. II. Title. HQ1190 .I76 2000 305.42'01—dc21 00-009147 New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability. Manufactured in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Contents Acknowledgments vii Introduction 1 part i Theory Binds: The Perils of Retrofit 5 1 Retrofit: Gender, Cultural, and Class Exclusions in American Studies 8 VèVè A. Clark 2 Ethnocentrism/Essentialism: The Failure of the Ontological Cure 47 Marilyn Frye 3 Maternal Presumption: The Personal Politics of Reproductive Rights 61 Alice Adams 4 Sex, Gender, and Same-Sex Marriage 86 Peggy Pascoe part ii Storytelling: Sites of Empowerment, Sites of Exploitation 131 5 The Virtual Anthropologist 137 Kath Weston 6 How History Matters: Complicating the Categories of “Western” and “Non-Western” Feminisms 168 Mrinalini Sinha 7 Bringing It All Home to the Bacon: APh.D. (Packinghouse Daughter) Examines Her Legacy 187 Cheri Register v vi Contents 8 Blood Ties and Blasphemy: American Indian Women and the Problem of History 204 Kathryn Shanley 9 Ella Que Tiene Jefes y No Los Ve, Se Queda en Cueros: Chicana Intellectuals (Re)Creating Revolution 233 Edén E. Torres part iii Starting Here, Starting Now: Challenges to Academic Practices 261 10 Being Queer, Being Black: Living Out in Afro-American Studies 266 Rhonda M. Williams 11 Learning to Think and Teach about Race and Gender despite Graduate School: Obstacles Women of Color Graduate Students Face in Sociology 283 Mary Romero 12 Anger, Resentment, and the Place of Mind in Academia 311 Diana L. Vélez 13 Stupidity “Deconstructed” 327 Joanna Kadi 14 To Challenge Academic Individualism 347 Sharon Doherty Editors and Contributors 375 Index 381 Acknowledgments This anthology was made possible by the generous support of the Rockefeller Foundation, which allowed us to bring many of the con- tributors to this collection to the University of Minnesota campus as visiting scholars and to hold the conference, Thinking, Writing, Teach- ing, and Creating Social Justice. We also are grateful for the support of the Center for Advanced Feminist Studies at the University of Min- nesota. We further thank those individuals who contributed to this project at various stages in its development, including Asha Vahara- jadan, Brit Abel, Melissa Buchard, Lisa Disch, David Zopfi-Jordan, and Lou Huckbody. A special thanks goes to Shannon Olson, who demonstrated in uncountable ways her dedication to this project as well as her editorial skills. We especially appreciate the many long hours she spent preparing the manuscript for publication. Finally, we thank the editorial staff at New York University Press, Despina Gim- bel, Rosalie Morales Kearns, and Niko Pfund. We are grateful not only for their insights and extraordinary efforts, but also the kindness they showed us throughout the editing process. vii Introduction Feminist struggles for social justice—against inequality, exclusionary practices, political disenfranchisement, and economic exploitation— are struggles of theory and practice. So when activists took feminism into the university in the 1970s, our aim was to transform all three: theory, practice, and the university. Feminists challenged the ten- dency of those privileged by and in academia to claim knowledge while remaining indifferent to those they ignored or objectified. Today such willed ignorance is constantly challenged by feminists and others both inside and outside the university who refuse to place uncritical faith in conventional figures of authority, even (or espe- cially) when we slide back into those old practices ourselves. Scholars who do transgressive work look outside the university for new sources of knowledge and experience, but we need to do more than mine those sources for what they can contribute to our work. More than new “material,” transgressive scholarship demands a widened community of knowers and knowledge producers and de- mocratic critical engagement among them. This collection of essays is an effort to build such an exchange, in which, as María Lugones says, a crucial aspect of respectful engagement is regarding the other as a faithful mirror of the self—as giving back an image of oneself one has to take seriously—but also as someone with projects and engage- ments of her own.1 The collection includes authors who are differently located in their relationships to the university, not just “inside” or “outside.” These writers highlight the ways the university perpetuates exclusionary practices: alienating working-class people and promoting a middle- class ethic, demanding too much of its faculty of color, and blocking attempts at learning social justice or at changing the system from within. These writers demonstrate the ways a commitment to social justice demands critical consciousness regarding one’s location; the 1