Continuing the responses in Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women?, Yael Tamir agrees with Okin’s original essay, and elaborates upon her thesis by asking us to look within the ethnocultural groups that would benefit from the group rights multiculturalism promises. Tamir suggests that these groups are divided amongst themselves regarding the issue of ( Read more... )

In “Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women?,” Susan Okin’s argument is that minority ethnocultural groups that are more patriarchal than the Western societies to which they have emigrated should not be given the special groups rights that multiculturalism offers, if these group rights impede on the individual rights of group members, particularly those ( Read more... )

Though I had some problems with Nancy J. Hirschmann’s “Difference as an Occasion for Rights: A Feminist Rethinking of Rights, Liberalism, and Difference” (most notably, its being unnecessarily repetitive and convoluted), I appreciated one of its critique of liberalism as it is similar to (one of) my own critique(s) of capitalism ( Read more... )

In the Liberal Feminism chapter of Feminist Thought: A More Comprehensive Introduction, Rosemarie Putnam Tong describes Betty Friedan’s progression as one towards humanism and away from feminism. She then quotes Friedan, who says we need a “new [human] politics that must emerge beyond reaction” (31). A critique of this transition by other feminist ( Read more... )

Hit upon both in “A Vindication Of The Rights Of Woman” by Mary Wollstonecraft (1792) and “The Subjection Of Women” by John Stuart Mill (1870) is the idea of the attractiveness of women-how it has, historically, been the aim in life of women and on which their worth is solely measured (which, naturally, perpetuate each other). What I find ( Read more... )

In “Theory As Liberatory Practice”, bell hooks spoke about being a theorist at a very young age, even though it wasn’t intentional-it was her way of making sense of a chaotic world that she simply did not fit into. I had a similar experience, of never feeling quite right in my surroundings, and thus constantly searching for either an explanation or ( Read more... )

The definitions of “Feminism” and “Feminist” from “The Feminist Dictionary” (Paula Treichler and Cheris Kramarae) and “Lexicon Of The Debates” (Wendy K. Kolmar and Frances Barttowski) provided a nicely succinct overview of the histories and components of the major feminist theories ( Read more... )

from "Inside The Live Reptile Tent: The Twilight World Of The Carnival Midway" by Bruce Caron (text) & Jeff Brouws (photos)

"[Sideshow freaks'] lives were tracked with the same ardor that fans would later show for Hollywood's own freaks: its movie stars. For it takes a parellel heroic to live with either deformity or celebrity in an age of ( Read more... )

"Here I want to show that the carnival is not a trivial cultural anomaly, and not simply a sideshow to 'more serious' cultural practices. First we need to rethink the idea of cultural 'importance ( Read more... )

from "Artaud, Grotowski, Brook, Me", a paper for Directing Seminar:In studying these directors and their philosophies on theatre in class, and in particular during the research for this paper, I have begun to develop my own ideas and ideals and ideology about directing. Though, the only chance I have had to apply them is as one half of The ( Read more... )