Women's International Thought: A New History

The first cross-disciplinary history of women's international thought, analysing leading international thinkers of the twentieth century.

Patricia Owens (Edited by), Katharina Rietzler (Edited by)

9781108494694, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 7 January 2021

360 pages
15 x 23 x 2 cm, 0.67 kg

'… the book challenges the traditional IR canon and demonstrates how to uncover hidden discourses.' Jan Stöckmann, International Affairs

Women's International Thought: A New History is the first cross-disciplinary history of women's international thought. Bringing together some of the foremost historians and scholars of international relations working today, this book recovers and analyses the path-breaking work of eighteen leading thinkers of international politics from the early to mid-twentieth century. Recovering and analyzing this important work, the essays offer revisionist accounts of IR's intellectual and disciplinary history and expand the locations, genres, and practices of international thinking. Systematically structured, and focusing in particular on Black diasporic, Anglo-American, and European historical women, it does more than 'add women' to the existing intellectual and disciplinary histories from which they were erased. Instead, it raises fundamental questions about which kinds of subjects and what kind of thinking constitutes international thought, opening new vistas to scholars and students of international history and theory, intellectual history and women's and gender studies.

Preface and Acknowledgements Patricia Owens and Katharina Rietzler
Introduction: Toward a History of Women's International Thought Patricia Owens and Katharina Rietzler
I. Canonical Thinkers: 1. Anna Julia Cooper on Slavery's Afterlife: Can International Thought 'Hear' Her 'Muffled' Voice and Ideas? Vivian M. May
2. Revolutionary Thinking: Luxemburg's Socialist International Theory Kimberley Hutchings
3. Of Colonialism and Corpses: Simone Weil on Force Helen M. Kinsella
4. Ideas in Action: Eslanda Robeson's International Thought After 1945 Imaobong Umoren
II. Outsiders: 5. Elizabeth Lippincott McQueen: Thinking International Peace in an Air-Minded Age Tamson Pietsch
6. Women of the Twenty Years' Crisis: The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom and the Problem of Collective Security Lucian Ashworth
7. Theorizing (with) Amy Ashwood Garvey Robbie Shilliam
8. 'The Dark Skin[ned] People of the Eastern World': Mittie Maude Lena Gordon's Vision of Afro-Asian Solidarity Keisha N. Blain
9. Elizabeth Wiskemann, Scholar-Journalist, and the Study of International Relations Geoffrey Field
III. Thinking In or Around the Academy: 10. From F. Melian Stawell to E. Greene Balch: International and Internationalist Thinking at the Gender Margins, 1919–1947 Glenda Sluga
11. Race, Gender, Empire, and War in the International Thought of Emily Greene Balch Catia Confortini
12. Beyond Illusions: Imperialism, Race and Technology in Merze Tate's International Thought Barbara Savage
13. A Plan for Plenty: The International Thought of Barbara Wootton Or Rosenboim
14. Collective Security for Common Men and Women: Vera Micheles Dean and U.S. Foreign Relations Andrew Jewett
15. What Can We (She) Know About Sovereignty? Krystyna Marek and the Worldedness of International Law Natasha Wheatley.

Subject Areas: International relations [JPS], Gender studies: women [JFSJ1], History of ideas [JFCX], 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW]