Current Issue

The latest issue of Feminist Studies is a potent mix of commentaries on contemporary events, political art, and scholarly analyses. It marks two anniversaries: the 40th year since the Roe v. Wade decision and 10 years since the US invasion of Iraq. A forum on Roe v. Wade critically assesses a range of frames and labels used in discussing abortion, while an art essay explores the effects of the “War on Terror” on Iraqi art.

The News & Views forum presents two reflections on the December 2012 gang rape in Delhi. One cluster of scholarly articles examines the transnational circulation of cultural products: musician Miriam Makeba’s antiapartheid politics, belly dancing in the United States, and religious fundamentalist responses to a feminist play in the United Kingdom.

Another set of articles explores how ideal bodies are imagined: women’s discomfort and ignorance about their genitalia in the context of vulvar cancer detection and treatment, South African athlete Caster Semenya’s compulsory “gender verification” test, and sex education in early twentieth-century United States. The featured poetry positions bodies as sites of both domination and resistance.