Gender History Across Epistemologies

348 Pages·2013·2.95 MB·English

by  Donna R. Gabaccia

Gender History Across Epistemologies
GenderandHistorySpecialIssueBookSeries
Gender and History, an international, interdisciplinary journal on the history of femininity,
masculinity, and gender relations, publishes annual special issues which are now available in
bookform.
Bringingtogetherpath-breakingfeministscholarshipwithassessmentsofthefield,eachvolume
focusesonaspecificsubject,questionortheme.Thesebooksaresuitableforundergraduateand
postgraduate courses in history, sociology, politics, cultural studies, and gender and women’s
studies.
Titlesintheseriesinclude:
GenderHistoryAcrossEpistemologies
EditedbyDonnaR.GabacciaandMaryJoMaynes
GenderandtheCitybeforeModernity
EditedbyLinFoxhallandGabrieleNeher
HistoricisingGenderandSexuality
EditedbyKevinP.MurphyandJenniferM.Spear
HomesandHomecomings:GenderedHistoriesofDomesticityandReturn
EditedbyK.H.AdlerandCarrieHamilton
GenderandChange:Agency,ChronologyandPeriodisation
EditedbyAlexandraShepardandGarthineWalker
TranslatingFeminismsinChina
EditedbyDorothyKoandWangZheng
VisualGenders,VisualHistories:AspecialIssueofGender&History
EditedbyPatriciaHayes
Violence,VulnerabilityandEmbodiment:GenderandHistory
EditedbyShaniD’CruzeandAnupamaRao
DialoguesofDispersal:Gender,SexualityandAfricanDiasporas
EditedbySandraGunning,TeraHunterandMicheleMitchell
MaterialStrategies:DressandGenderinHistorialPerspective
EditedbyBarbaraBurmanandCaroleTurbin
Gender,CitizenshipsandSubjectivities
EditedbyKathleenCanningandSonyaRose
GenderingtheMiddleAges:AGenderandHistorySpecialIssue
EditedbyPaulineStaffordandAnnekeB.Mulder-Bakker
GenderandHistory:RetrospectandProspect
EditedbyLeonoreDavidoff,KeithMcClellandandEleniVarikas
FeminismsandInternationalism
EditedbyMrinaliniSinha,DonnaGuyandAngelaWoollacott
GenderandtheBodyintheAncientMediterranean
EditedbyMariaWyke
GenderedColonialismsinAfricanHistory
EditedbyNancyRoseHunt,TessieP.LiuandJeanQuataert
Gender History Across
Epistemologies
EDITED BY
DONNA R. GABACCIA
AND
MARY JO MAYNES
A John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Publication
Thiseditionfirstpublished2013
OriginallypublishedasVolume24,Issue3ofGender&History
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Genderhistoryacrossepistemologies/editedbyDonnaR.GabacciaandMaryJoMaynes.
pagescm
“OriginallypublishedasVolume24,Issue3ofGender&History.”
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN978-1-118-50824-4(pbk.)
1.Sexrole–History. 2.Genderidentity–History. 3.Women–Identity–History. 4.Women–
History. I.Gabaccia,DonnaR.,1949– II.Maynes,MaryJo. III.Gender&history
HQ1075.G46322013
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2012048065
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Coverimage:Postcard(AttheGoldenGate)2009
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1 2013
CONTENTS
NotesonContributors vii
Introduction:GenderHistoryAcrossEpistemologies 1
DONNAR.GABACCIAANDMARYJOMAYNES
1 MasterNarrativesandtheWallPaintingoftheHouseoftheVettii,Pompeii 20
BETHSEVERY-HOVEN
2 ‘MoreBeautifulthanWords&PencilCanExpress’:BarbaraBodichon’s
ArtisticCareerattheInterfaceofherEpistolaryandVisualSelfProjections 61
MERITXELLSIMON-MARTIN
3 PublicMotherhoodinWestAfricaasTheoryandPractice 80
LORELLESEMLEY
4 ProfilingtheFemaleEmigrant:AMethodofLinguisticInquiryfor
ExaminingCorrespondenceCollections 97
EMMAMORETON
5 BeyondConstructivism?:Gender,MedicineandtheEarlyHistoryofSperm
Analysis,Germany1870–1900 127
CHRISTINABENNINGHAUS
6 ‘IJustExpressMyViews&LeaveThemtoWork’:OliveSchreinerasa
FeministProtagonistinaMasculinePoliticalLandscapewithFigures 157
LIZSTANLEYANDHELENDAMPIER
7 GenderwithoutGroups:Confession,ResistanceandSelfhoodinthe
ColonialArchive 181
CHRISTOPHERJ.LEE
8 ThePowerofRenewableResources:Orlando’sTacticalEngagementwiththe
LawofIntestacy 198
JAMIEL.MCDANIEL
9 ThePoliticsofGenderConceptsinGeneticsandHormoneResearchin
Germany,1900–1940 215
HELGASATZINGER
10 TheLanguageofGenderinLovers’Correspondence,1946–1949 235
SONIACANCIAN
vi Contents
11 Gender-BendinginElTeatroCampesino(1968–1980):AMestiza
EpistemologyofPerformance 246
MEREDITHHELLER
12 ChangingParadigmsinMigrationStudies:FromMentoWomentoGender 262
NANCYL.GREEN
13 ReconsideringCategoriesofAnalysis:PossibilitiesforFeministStudies
ofConflict 279
SHIRINSAEIDI
14 AnEpistemologyofCollusion:Hijras,KothisandtheHistorical
(Dis)continuityofGender/SexualIdentitiesinEasternIndia 305
ANIRUDDHADUTTA
Index 331
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
ChristinaBenninghausisanAffiliatedResearchScholarattheDepartmentofHistory
andPhilosophyofScienceatCambridgeUniversity,wheresheconductsresearchonthe
historyofinfertility.SincereceivingherPhDfromtheEuropeanUniversityInstitutein
Florencein1994,shehastaughtGermanandEuropeanhistoryatHalle,Bielefeldand
Bochum.Herareasofspecialisationincludegenderhistoryandthehistoryofyouth.A
socialandculturalhistorianbytraining,shehasbecomeincreasinglyinterestedinthe
historyofscienceandmedicine.
SoniaCancianisleadscholaroftheDigitisingImmigrantLettersprojectattheUniver-
sityofMinnesota’sImmigrationHistoryResearchCenter.InMontreal,sheisaffiliated
with Concordia University’s History Department and the Simone de Beauvoir Insti-
tute. Dr Cancian is the author of Families, Lovers, and their Letters: Italian Postwar
MigrationtoCanada(Winnipeg:UniversityofManitobaPress,2010).Sheiscurrently
editingacollectionofloveletterswrittenbymigrantsandnon-migrantstobepublished
byMcGill-Queen’sUniversityPress.
HelenDampierstudiedatRhodesUniversityinSouthAfricaandobtainedherdoctor-
atefromtheUniversityofNewcastle,UK.Herresearchinterestsfocusonlifewriting
andalsohistoriographyanditsclaims,andsheiscurrentlyaSeniorLecturerinHistory
attheSchoolofCulturalStudies,LeedsMetropolitanUniversity.
Aniruddha Dutta is a PhD candidate in Feminist Studies and Development Studies
at the University of Minnesota, with research interests in globalisation, social move-
ments and media studies. Dutta’s dissertation, ‘Globalizing through the Vernacular:
The Making of Indian Sexual Minorities within Gender/Sexual Transnationalism’,
studies gender/sexual identity and rights-based politics at the interface of subaltern
queersubculturesandthetransnationaldevelopmentindustry.
Donna R. Gabaccia is Professor of History at the University of Minnesota. She is
author of many books and articles on immigrant life in the US, on gender, class
and labour (Foreign Relations: Global Perspectives on U.S. Immigration, Princeton:
PrincetonUniversityPress2012),onfoodstudies(WeArewhatEat:EthnicFoodand
theMakingofAmericans,Cambridge:HarvardUniversityPress,1998)andonItalian
migrationaroundtheworld(Italy’sManyDiasporas,Seattle:UniversityofWashington
Press, 2000). Gabaccia also teaches and publishes about migration in world history,
has longstanding interests in interdisciplinary methodologies and served as president
viii NotesonContributors
of the Social Science History Association in 2008. Her ongoing research includes
an interdisciplinary collaboration that seeks to explain the so-called ‘feminisation’
ofinternationalmigrationandanindividualresearchprojectthataskswhytheUnited
States,almostaloneamongthemanycountriesformedthroughinternationalmigration,
labelsitselfproudlyasanationofimmigrants.
Nancy L. Greenis Professor (directrice d’e´tudes)of History at the E´cole des Hautes
E´tudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris) and a specialist of migration history, comparative
methods and French and American social history. Her most recent book (edited with
Marie Poinsot) was Histoire de l’immigration et question coloniale en France (Paris:
Documentationfranc¸hiaise,2008).
MeredithHellerisadoctoralcandidateintheatreandfeministstudiesattheUniversity
of California, Santa Barbara. Her dissertation focuses on the signification of gender,
sex and identity in US gender-bending stage acts. Her research interests are feminist
performance, gender and body theory, queer, transgender and sexuality studies and
drag.
Christopher J. Lee is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the editor of Making a World After Empire: The Ban-
dungMomentandItsPoliticalAfterlives(Athens:OhioUniversityPress,2010).Heis
currentlycompletingabookonBritish-ruledCentralAfricathatisundercontractwith
DukeUniversityPress.
Mary Jo Maynes is a Professor in the Department of History at the University of
Minnesota. She is a historian of modern Europe with interests in comparative and
worldhistory.Herspecialitiesinclude:Europeansocialandculturalhistory,historyof
thefamily,historyofwomenandgenderandpersonalnarrativesashistoricalsources.
Her recent books include: The Family: A World History (Oxford: Oxford University
Press,2012),TellingStories:TheUseofPersonalNarrativesintheSocialSciencesand
History (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008) and Secret Gardens, Satanic Mills:
PlacingGirlsinEuropeanHistory(Bloomington:IndianaUniversityPress,2004).
Jamie L. McDaniel is Assistant Professor of English at Pittsburg State University
in Kansas. His research focuses on cultural constructions of gender normativity and
propriety in legal, economic, political, cinematic and literary discourses. He has an
articleonpropertyandeconomicrecognitioninJeanRhys’snovelsforthcominginthe
Journal of Liberal Arts and Sciences, as well as an examination of the connections
among disability, trauma and gendered deviance in Italian horror films forthcoming
in Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry. He is currently preparing a biography of the
contemporaryBritishwriter,PenelopeFitzgerald.
Emma Moreton is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of English and Languages
at Coventry University, where she teaches undergraduate and postgraduate modules
in literary stylistics and corpus linguistics. She is currently in the fourth year of a
PhD at the University of Birmingham. Her research interests include Text Encoding
Initiative (TEI) markup as a means of digitally representing historical documents and
usingcorpusmethodstoinvestigateimmigrantlettercollections.
NotesonContributors ix
Shirin Saeidi’s research concentrates on gender, conflict and the state in the Middle
East.Herdoctoralthesis,entitled‘HeroofHerOwnStory:GenderandStateFormation
inContemporaryIran’,wasrecentlydefendedattheUniversityofCambridge.Saeidi’s
2010article‘CreatingtheIslamicRepublicofIran:WivesandDaughtersofMartyrs,
and Acts of Citizenship’, Citizenship Studies 14 (2010) was selected as the editor’s
choice article of the edition. She is currently conducting archival and ethnographic
researchontheexperiencesofAfghanrefugeesinIran.
DrHelgaSatzingerisabiologist,historianofscienceandReaderintheDepartment
of History at University College London (UCL). She was previously an Assistant
Professor at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Women and Gender Studies (ZIFG) at
Technical University Berlin (1997–2004) and a reader at the Wellcome Trust Centre
fortheHistoryofMedicineatUCL(2005–2011).
LorelleSemleyistheauthorofMotherIsGold,FatherIsGlass:GenderandColonial-
isminaYorubaTown(Bloomington:IndianaUniversityPress,2011).SheisAssistant
ProfessorofHistoryattheCollegeoftheHolyCrosswheresheteachesAfrican,African
diaspora and gender history. Her current book examines black citizenship during the
Frenchcolonialempire.
BethSevery-HovenreceivedherPhDinAncientHistoryandMediterraneanArchae-
ology from Berkeley, CA, and teaches Classics at Macalester College. Following her
2003 book, Augustus and the Family at the Birth of the Roman Empire (New York
and London: Routledge, 2003), she has begun to focus her research on slavery and
Petronius’Satyrica.
MeritxellSimon-MartinisaPhDcandidateattheCentrefortheHistoryofWomen’s
Education,UniversityofWinchester.Sheistheauthorof‘LetterExchangeintheLife
ofBarbaraLeighSmithBodichon:theFirstFemaleSuffrageCampaigninBritainSeen
throughherCorrespondence’inClaudetteFillardandFranc¸oiseOrazi(eds),Exchanges
andCorrespondence:TheConstructionofFeminism(Newcastle:CambridgeScholars
Publishing,2010).
Liz Stanley is Chair of Sociology at the University of Edinburgh, Director of the
University’s Centre for Narrative and Auto/Biographical Research (NABS) and Prin-
cipal Investigator of the Olive Schreiner Letters Project (www.oliveschreinerletters.
ed.ac.uk and www.oliveschreiner.org). Recent research has focused on aspects of
memory-making, with her most recent book Mourning Becomes... Post/Memory and
Commemoration of the South African War published in the UK and USA by Manch-
ester University Press and in South African by Wits University Press. A feminist
theorist who engages with lots of practical action, her work more generally has theo-
risedtheauto/biographicalgenreandbeenconcernedwithoperationalisingafeminist
epistemology.
Introduction: Gender History Across
Epistemologies
DonnaR.GabacciaandMaryJoMaynes
The cover image, Postcard (At the Golden Gate) 2009, is Ruth Claxton’s re-working
of a Victorian oil painting by Valentine Cameron Prinsep. Prinsep’s original evokes
orientalistfantasiesofthelanguorous,passiveandsubmissivewomanoftheEastand
embodies the masculine gaze so pervasive in western art. Claxton’s pointed slashing
givestheformerlypassivesubjectagazeofherown,andasharponeatthat.Shestill
looksdownward,butthepassivitysuggestedbyherstanceiscontestedbythepotential
for her instantly to turn her gaze toward the viewer; with beams emanating from her
eyes,shehasbecomethegazer,theseer.Atthesametime,Claxton’salterationdraws
criticalattentiontotheembodiedstereotypeoftheeasternfemale.Itleadsustonotice
theperformanceofgender:underneaththelushexterior,thehyper-femininedraperies
and bracelets, who is actually there? Viewed this way, the image provokes episte-
mological insights even as it re-represents gender stereotypes. The familiar gendered
image becomes ambiguous and indeterminate. The once passive object of scrutiny, in
becomingtheviewer,focusesourattentionontherelationshipbetweenknowledgeand
perspectivethathaslongheldacentralplaceinfeministepistemology.ThusPostcard
(At the Golden Gate) 2009 provides a perfect point of entry into a special issue of
Gender&Historydevotedtothethemeof‘GenderHistoryacrossEpistemologies’.
Epistemological critiques – questions about how we know what we know – are
intrinsictogenderhistory.Indeed,theclaimthatallknowledgesareviewsfromsome-
where has been a core insight of modern western feminist theory since its emergence
inthe1960s.Thisclaim,insum,hasinsistedthattheperspectiveoftheknowershapes
whatheorshelooksat,seesandultimatelycanknow.Questioningtheclaimtoobjec-
tive truth prevalent in many disciplines, feminists undertook analyses of masculinist
biases inherent in theory and practice in many fields of knowledge. Parallel critiques
that subsequently emerged within disciplinary fields leapt over their borders and thus
contributed to a wider awareness of perspectivity as a key element of feminist episte-
mology.
Feminist historians, in bringing a gendered perspective into history, in deploy-
ing gender as an analytic category and in studying it as an historical construct,
have nevertheless proceeded from a variety of epistemological frameworks and used
a correspondingly wide range of methods, developed through debate as well as
through interdisciplinary borrowing.1 Among these debates, the most pervasive and
GenderHistoryAcrossEpistemologies,FirstEdition.EditedbyDonnaR.GabacciaandMaryJoMaynes.
Chapters©2013TheAuthors.Bookcompilation©2013BlackwellPublishingLtd.