‘Feminism, Politics and Social Change in Modern
Britain’
Dr. Laura Schwartz
Wednesday 10am-12pm, Room H103
Key Texts:
Sue Morgan (ed.), The Feminist History Reader (London: Routledge, 2007) [It would
definitely be worth buying this.]
Heidi Safia Mirza, Black British Feminism: A Reader (London: Routledge, 1997)
[Worth buying this too]
Special Issue: ‘Rethinking the History of Feminism’, Women: A Cultural Review 21:3
(2010) [Available online]
Margaret Walters, Feminism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: OUP, 2005) [This is
a good overview, worth buying]
Barbara Caine, English Feminism 1780-1980 (Oxford: OUP, 1995) [And this would
be very useful to always have on hand as a reference guide.]
P. Hollis (ed.), Women in Public: The Women’s Movement 1850-1900 (1979)
[available in library, collection of extracts from primary sources]
Feminist Anthology Collective (ed.) No Turning Back: Writings from the Women’s
Liberation Movement 1975-1980 (London: Women’s Press, 1981) [available in
library, more primary sources]
M. Wandor (ed.), The Body Politic: Women’s Liberation in Britain 1969-1972 (1972)
[You’ll have to buy this online as it’s out of print but you should be able to access it
very cheaply. Definitely worth having.]
Databases
Feminist Review [Seminal articles now online open access.]
Sisterhood and After: An Oral History of the Women’s Liberation Movement
http://www.bl.uk/learning/histcitizen/sisterhood/browsesubcategories.html#id=143429
[ This is an amazing project – you should check it out each week as there will be
something there which relates to every theme in this module.]
Women in the National Archives [Online primary sources. Access via Warwick
Library: Databases – History]
Many relevant primary sources from our own Modern Records Centre have been
digitised here
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/library/mrc/studying/modules/docs/feminism
BBIH [bibliography for British and Irish History – allows you to search by theme and
person. Lists articles as well as monographs]
ISS [bibliography for Social Science – ditto]
Note on Terminology
There is no clear distinction between primary and secondary sources in this course.
Reading is divided into ‘documents’ (those primary sources emerging directly from
the debates within the feminist movements we are studying) and ‘histories’ (work
taking a more analytical approach to and overview of these debates). Some weeks,
when we look specifically at debates occurring within the scholarship and history of
feminism and at more contemporary issues, there will be no such distinction.
Reading
Because there are no lectures, this module really won’t work if you haven’t done the
reading. Don’t let your fellow students down by turning up and expecting just a few
people to do all the work!
You must read a minimum of 1 ‘document’ and 2 ‘histories’.
All of the readings are either online or in the Library. Some of those for which there
are fewer copies have been digitised (they are marked in bold on the reading list).
They are available at
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/library/electronicresources/extracts/hi/hi31x
A little light reading/ listening for the summer holidays…
Podcasts
Episode 1. ‘4th Wave Feminism Gender Equal or Gender Different’ 4th Wave
Feminism
http://www.newsuittheatre.com/podcast.html
[a good place to start as describes different waves of feminism. See whether you agree
with the definition and historical periodisation of different waves.]
Dr. Rashmi Varma,‘Global Feminism’, Warwick University Podcasts:
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/atoz/thinkingaloud/podcasts/?podcastItem
=global_feminism.mp3
[bit more serious. Reminds us that feminism exists outside of UK and US!]
Episode 2. ‘Gender and Feminism’ LSE Review of Books Podcast:
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/podcasts/
[Different interviews with feminist historians and theorists]
Autobiographies
S. Rowbotham, Promise of a Dream: Remembering the Sixties (2000)
L. Segal, Making Trouble: Life and Politics (2007)
A. Dowkin, Heartbreak: The Political Memoir of a Feminist Militant (2002)
Ellen Kuzwayo, Call Me a Woman (1985)
June Jordan, Soldier: A Poet’s Childhood (2001)