Transnational Feminism in the United States

Leela Fernandes is the Glenda Dickerson Collegiate Professor of Women's Studies and Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan, and author of India's New Middle Class: Democratic Politics in an Era of Economic Reform; Producing Workers: The Politics of Gender, Class and Culture in the Calcutta Jute Mills; and Transforming Feminist Practice.

• 1. Introduction2. U.S. State Practices and the Rhetoric of Human Rights3. Transnational Economies of Representation and the Labor of the Traveling Subaltern4. Regimes of Visibility and Transnational Feminist Knowledge 5. Institutional Practice and the Field of Women's Studies 6. Race, Transnational Feminism, and Paradigms of Difference 7. Afterword: The Moment of Transnational Feminism in the United States

"With a clear introduction that offers each chapters argument, this text is simultaneously challenging and approachable. It is accessible for specific purposes, as each essay can stand alone. The arguments are clearly and systematically laid out in this thoroughly research and articulate text." (Journal of American Culture) "Leela Fernandes focuses a sharp analytic lens on the representational practices, cross-border politics, and symbolic constructions of transnationalism within U.S. feminism. Her call for accountability and interrogation of feminist knowledge production is one that should be heard by all those interested in challenging inequalities and resisting disciplining tendencies within transnational feminist praxis." - Nancy Naples,author of Grassroots Warriors: Activist Mothering, Community Work, and the War on Poverty "Unveiling the reproduction of the national in the transnational and the disciplining of interdisciplinarity, Fernandes deftly illustrates the minefields that women's and gender studies, postcolonial, and other interdisciplinary scholars traverse as they seek to produce transformative knowledge. Transnational Feminism in the United States is essential reading, ushering us into a more ethical practice of feminism and politics." - Nikol G. Alexander-Floyd,author of Gender, Race, and Nationalism in Contemporary Black Politics "Will help [readers] realize how transnational feminism has been influenced by the dominant language of human rights . . . [and]sharpens a critical sensibility on how to study women's issues globally." (Hypatia) "Through this collection's five loosely connected essays...full of provocative arguments, Fernandes offers a cautionary analysis of the trajectory of 'transnational feminism' in women's studies in the U.S. academy." (WSQ: Women's Studies Quarterly)