Book dossier

Feminist academics

by Louise Morley, Val Walsh

This volume explores questions of feminist interventions in higher education. Feminism is located as a force for change, empowering women to gain a political understanding and providing a methodology for new approaches to teaching, learning, research and writing in the academy. The chapters cover the structure and culture of academic institutions, for example, Lesley Kerman's 'The Good Witch: Advice to Women in Management'; Liz Stanley's 'My Mother's Voice?: On Being A 'Native' in Academia'; and Heidi Mirza's 'Black Women in Higher Education: Defining a Space/Finding a Place'. The authors also explore the social divisions between women, for example, Jo Stanley's 'Pain(t) for Healing: The Academic Conference and the Classed/Embodied Self', and demonstrate how an analysis of the micropolitics of the academy in terms of power, policies, discourses, pedagogy and interpersonal relationships, provides a framework for de-privatising women's experiences and influencing change.