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Feminist Interpretations of Jane Addams

Maurice Hamington editor

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Pennsylvania State University Press

Published:20th Jul '10

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Feminist Interpretations of Jane Addams cover

Although Jane Addams’s Twenty Years at Hull-House is considered an American classic, her dozen books and hundreds of published articles have sometimes been thought of as quaint examples of an overly optimistic era. Beginning in the 1990s, feminist scholars rediscovered the vitality of Addams’s social philosophy and challenged the marginalization of her ideas. Today, following a war-laden twentieth century and the failure of militarism and “get tough” approaches to solve domestic and global problems, Addams’s social theorizing, which emphasizes cosmopolitan experiences and sympathetic connections, provides a provocative alternative to Western notions of individualism, transactional relations, and spectator epistemology. Feminist Interpretations of Jane Addams brings together many of the leading Addams scholars in North America to consider Addams’s ongoing relevance to feminist thought.

Aside from the editor, the contributors are Victoria Bissell Brown, Marilyn Fischer, Judith M. Green, Shannon Jackson, Katherine Joslin, Louise W. Knight, L. Ryan Musgrave Bonomo, Wendy Sarvasy, Charlene Haddock Seigfried, Eleanor J. Stebner, and Judy D. Whipps.

“This well-crafted collection of essays recognizes Jane Addams as the inspiring and occasionally provocative feminist she was. Connecting Addams’s pragmatism to social theory, political philosophy, queer theory, postcolonial theory, and more, the book’s twelve authors sympathetically and critically explore Addams’s ongoing relevance to issues of art, culture, sexuality, prostitution, religion, cosmopolitanism, public/private divisions, and community organization. Scholarly experts on Addams, as well as those discovering her feminist pragmatism for the first time, will find this volume valuable.”

—Shannon Sullivan, The Pennsylvania State University


“Maurice Hamington has brought together an exciting, readable, and intellectually challenging group of articles on Jane Addams. The holistic approach of several essays highlights Addams’s own views, which linked people’s well-being, human rights, women’s equality, democracy, and world peace. The collection will delight Addams’s admirers and enlighten her detractors.”

—Harriet Alonso, City College of New York and the CUNY Graduate Center


Feminist Interpretations of Jane Addams forms a valuable resource for scholars interested in pragmatism and feminism but crucially also constitutes an instance of canonical re-reading, which lovers of philosophy more generally benefit from.”

—Clara Fischer The Pluralist

ISBN: 9780271036939

Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 31mm

Weight: 653g

352 pages