Beyond Gender

Greta Olson is Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of Giessen, Germany, and general editor of the European Journal of English Studies.Daniel Hartley is a Leverhulme Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Languages, Cultures and Societies at the University of Leeds, UK.Mirjam Horn-Schott is Head of Division Conferences, Programme Assistance at the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Bonn, Germany.Leonie Schmidt is a lecturer and PhD fellow in English and American Literature and Culture at Justus-Liebig-University Giessen, Germany.

• Contents Beyond Gender: Towards a Decolonized Queer Feminist FutureGreta Olson and Mirjam Horn-SchottPart I Undoing Gender Studies – Theoretical Positionings1. The Rise and Fall (and Rise) of Mars and Venus in Language and Gender ResearchJennifer Coates 2. Masculinity Studies: Contemporary Approaches and Alternative Perspectives Stefan Horlacher3. Where Are We Going, Where Have We Been, Where Do We Return to, Repeatedly? The Seriality of Feminist Critique and Gender Studies Sabine Sielke4. "Slavery to an Assembly Line is Not a Liberation from Slavery to the Kitchen Sink": Assessing Social Reproduction Theory’s Challenge to Liberal-Feminist and Classical-Marxist ParadigmsDaniel Hartley5. Modes of Being vs. Categories – Queering the Tools of IntersectionalityGabriele Dietze, Elahe Haschemi Yekani, and Beatrice MichaelisPart II Forms of Practice – Doing the ‘After’ of Gender Studies6. Fictions of Sexual AmnesiaIna Schabert7. Loving Feminism: Negotiating Differences in the ClassroomGreta Olson8. Unseemly Desire – Disciplining and Othering the Sexuality of Women in Later LifeKatharina Zilles 9. The Politics of Neo-Liberal Postfeminist Bridal Culture Franka Heise10. Small-Screen Tweenage Angst: Feminist Icons and (Anti-)Heroines in Twenty-First Century American Popular Culture Mirjam Horn-Schott11. The "Yes" Which Is Not One: Consent, the Law, and the Limits of False Consciousness FeminismJordana Greenblatt12. Autonomous Sri Lankan Women’s Organizations and Their Engagements with LBT Advocacy Shermal Wijewardene 13. "It’s a space shuttle!" Opening up Queer* Spaces through the Performing Arts

Beyond Gender lucidly reviews how 21st-century feminist theories and practices have moved beyond Butlerian gender studies into a more deeply politicized engagement with heterogeneous intersectional identities and movements. Interdisciplinary in scope, the handbook usefully posits an evolution beyond "second" and "third-wave feminism" into what the editors call a "decolonized queer feminist future."Susan Stanford Friedman, Professor of English and Women's Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USAAlthough there have been many recent publications on gender theory, there has not yet been a volume with the expansive scope and ambition of Beyond Gender. It provides a thorough advanced introduction to the field as well as an updated and rigorous scholarly overview of contemporary debates in queer, intersectionality, transgender and decolonial feminism. A must read!Sara R. Farris, author of In the Name of Women’s Rights. The Rise of Femonationalism, Duke University Press, 2017How can we theorize gender, sex and sexuality in a post-Butler era? What does intersectional feminist and queer scholarship look like today? What does it mean to queer and decolonize feminist theory and praxis across shifting social, cultural, economic and geo-political contexts and relations? Grappling with these vital and challenging questions, Beyond Gender offers a novel, incisive and generative vision of, and guide to, contemporary feminist and sexuality studies.Carolyn Pedwell is Reader in Cultural Studies at the University of Kent, UK. She is an Editor of Feminist Theory journal and the author of Affective Relations: The Transnational Politics of Empathy (Palgrave, 2014) and Feminism, Culture and Embodied Practice: The Rhetorics of Comparison ​(Routledge, 2010). Despite so many announcements of the death and demise of feminism and queer theory, they are prodigiously still with us. But in what form, in which guise? The collected volume Beyond Gender offers a valuable contribution to setting the terms of the present-day critique, and directs us towards decolonized feminist and queer futures. Adriana Zaharijević, University of Belgrade, SerbiaArguing for decolonized and radical queer feminisms; this handbook takes on the ambitious task of moving "beyond gender studies" and destabilizing the concept of ‘gender.’ In so doing it puts forward a number of epistemological challenges to mainstream feminist and queer scholarship and praxis arguing for closer engagement between queer/sexuality studies and decolonial feminisms. As a volume aimed at advanced study but also based on real life experiences, Beyond Gender opens up new and exciting areas for reflection and debate with important implications for future thought and action across generations.Rhoda Reddock, Professor of Gender, Social Change and Development, The University of the West Indies, St. Augsutine Campus, Trinidad and TobagoThis book is an important contribution which emphasises, celebrates, and problematises the plurality of current political, methodological, and theoretical approaches to gender and sexuality studies. The diverse and exciting contributions will challenge what many scholars in this field too often take for granted and, I am certain, provoke lively and fruitful debateMatthew Weait is Professor of Law and Society and Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Portsmouth, UK