Feminism, Culture and Embodied Practice

Carolyn Pedwell is Lecturer in Media and Cultural Studies at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. Her research interests include feminist and postcolonial theory; gender, cultural difference and ‘the body’; and the transnational politics of emotion and affect. Her work has been published in Feminist Theory, Feminist Review, and Body and Society.

• Introduction: Feministm, Culture and Embodied Practice: The Rhetorics of Comparison 1. Comparing Cultures: Feminist Theory, Anti-Essentialism and New Humanisms 2. Critical Frameworks: Intersectionality, Relationality and Embodiment 3. Continuums and Analogues: Linking 'African' Female Genital Cutting and 'Western' Body Modifications 4. Constitutive Comparisons: Producing Muslim Veiling, Anorexia and 'Western' Fashion and Beauty Practices 5. Weaving Relational Webs: Theorising Cultural Difference and Embodied Practice

'...[Demonstrates] both robust theoretical knowledge and clarity of perspective...''...[A] highly complex endeavour and a thoroughly enjoyable read for the complexity of its debates, the clarity of its structure and argument, the scope of its critique and the development of the relational web, which is not just a theoretical model but a credible (collective) project for the future. Pedwell has argued her case convincingly but above all with modesty, in full awareness that her critique is not about discrediting previous efforts to address comparisons but about taking the debates to the next stage. The book is consistently mindful of the ethics relating to how this should be done.'-Angie Voela, University of East London in European Journal of Women's Studies vol 18 no 3