Feminists Reclaim Mentorship

"In an era overtly hostile to academic freedom, in which a spate of state initiatives have restricted educators' ability to teach race and Indigeneity, and gender and sexuality, what if we were to reimagine mentorship as reciprocal relationships that draw strength from community and a collective vision of change? In its invitation to reconceive not just how we mentor but also the elite professional boundaries of the concept lies the promise of this anthology and its radical potential." — Biography

"I picked up Feminists Reclaim Mentorship expecting reminiscences about boys'-club academia, open-secret sexual harassers, older women hardened by their own ascents to power, commitments to reimagining old and broken systems, communities of peer mentors, and reiterations of the importance of reciprocity and listening. I was not expecting such a thoughtful, ambivalent, and sharp book; not expecting to be forced to put it down in order to think deeply about the mentors I've had, the almost-mentors I wish I'd had, my mother mentors and peer mentors; not expecting to end up less sure than ever about the right way forward or even the meaning of the word. In short, I underestimated this book. Feminists Reclaim Mentorship has teeth." — Maya von Ziegesar, WSQ: Women's Studies Quarterly

"The editors of Reclaiming Feminist Mentorship span a remarkable reach, crossing, intermixing—intergenerational, interracial, interdisciplinary, LGBTQ, inter-media-platform. Towering above this expanse of views, voices, positions, sweet and bitter sentiments, light and darkling, are the individual stories, like Scheherazade's, irresistible, each a teaching moment, their collective brilliance resetting for the twenty-first century the classic male hierarchy of binary patronage. You turn the pages, mesmerized by insights, gripes, confessions, undercover tales, the entirety composed by the marvelous writers who have trodden their own version of the mentoring cycle." — Shirley Geok-lin Lim, author of Among the White Moon Faces

"We need pioneers. Feminists Reclaim Mentorship is a revelatory, pioneering text. A rich diversity of voices tells us how women with power and authority can support other women in the future. These voices also warn us about the failures to have done so. Their essays are angry, sorrowful, poignant, loving, and hopeful. In a cruel, callous, and predatory world, women—and men—need to help each other out with common sense, care for our differences, imagination, and grace. I am grateful to Nancy K. Miller and Tahneer Oksman for being our mentors in marking out paths toward a better future." — Catharine R. Stimpson, Professor and Dean Emerita, New York University

"An excellent collection—diverse in style, voice, perspective, and context. While many contributors come from academia and the literary world, their writing touches on a range of experiences (mothering, therapy, military service) and fields (disability studies, Aboriginal studies) and are full of evocative formulations (horizontal mentorship, collaborative mentorship) that will resonate more broadly. Feminists Reclaim Mentorship makes clear both the persistence of old professional hierarchies and the potential for new, more equitable relationships across generations." — Nan Bauer-Maglin, coeditor of Staging Women's Lives in Academia: Gendered Life Stages in Language and Literature Workplaces

"The generation of feminist scholars who created the field of Women's Studies were marked by the experience of having intellectually come of age 'when men were the only models we had,' as Carolyn Heilbrun put it in her book of that name. Many of these scholars later dedicated themselves to providing feminist mentorship for their own students, creating a mode of apprenticeship that has now served as a thread connecting several generations of women in and beyond the academy. In this richly engaging collection of essays, scholars and writers share their experiences of mentoring and being mentored—intellectually foundational, sometimes fractious, often deeply felt."—Ari M. Brostoff, culture editor at Jewish Currents and author of Missing Time: Essays