Power Trips and Other Journeys : Essays in Feminism As Civic Discourse PB 1990

Description: Power Trips and Other Journeys Essays in Feminism as Civic Discourse Jean Bethke Elshtain "Ranging from the needs of children to the claims of just war, Jean Bethke Elshtain's essays stretch the moral and intellectual boundaries of feminism. With a rare blend of learning, intellectual nuance, and forthright polemic, Elshtain insists that any worthy feminist ideal must respect, defend, and cherish the complexity of civic life against the twin threats of utopian idealism and the leviathan state. Urging feminists to build upon women's special experience with power and powerlessness, she urges us to imagine a feminism that is at home in the world." -Elizabeth Fox-Genovese Emory University "Jean Bethke Elshtain has become one of our leading philosophical and moral essayists.... Her work differs dramatically from that of many others in cutting across established 'party lines' to create an unexpected synthesis. Because it fits no one's mold, Elshtain's work will always be controversial, but it is controversy designed to make the reader think." —Jane Mansbridge Northwestern University Each chapter of this book treats a particular historical or contemporary topic of civic concern. Some are centered on current family crises and issues (the "family wage," child abuse, the "new eugenics") while others look to the wider national and international polity. Yet each, insistently, returns to common themes: the many faces and forms of power; struggles for auton-omy; the need for human sociality and community. Elshtain's essays on controversial domestic subjects demonstrate her independence of mind, her understanding of politics as the art of the possible, and her openness to debate. In the last section, related essays on women's power and powerlessness, on patriotism, and on just war track a movement from domestic politics to foreign affairs. They are cautionary tales which simultaneously express realizable hopes and honor those, like the Mothers of the Disappeared in Argentina, who have taught us, through their desperation and triumph, what it means to fashion a politics of hope and justice against a politics of vengeance and despair. Jean Bethke Elshtain is Centennial Professor of Political Science at Vanderbilt University. Among her best-known works are Public Man, Private Woman: Women in Social and Political Thought and Women and War.

Price: 17.5 USD

Location: New Orleans, Louisiana

End Time: 2025-01-27T22:30:36.000Z

Shipping Cost: 4.63 USD