Rowman & Littlefield Publishers / Rowman & Littlefield International
Pages: 246
Trim: 6 x 9
978-1-78348-245-0 • Paperback • November 2015 • $57.00 • (£44.00)
978-1-78348-246-7 • eBook • November 2015 • $54.00 • (£42.00)
Maria Tamboukou is Professor of Feminist Studies, co-director of the Centre for Narrative Research at the University of East London, UK and co-editor of the journal Gender and Education.
Introduction - Charting lines of light: the Parisian seamstress / Chapter 1 - Adventures in a culture of thought: genealogies, narratives, process / Chapter 2 - Mapping the archive: mnemonic and imaginary technologies of the self / Chapter 3 - ‘From my work you will know my name’: materialising utopias / Chapter 4 - Feeling the world: love, gender and agonistic politics / Chapter 5 - Living, writing and imagining the revolution / Chapter 6 - Creativity as process: writing the self, rewriting history / Conclusion - Reassembling radical practices / Bibliography
Concerned with women who were materially poor, Parisian seamstresses, what riches lie within Maria Tamboukou’s wonderful Sewing, Writing and Fighting. She provides an analytically outstanding feminist genealogy of the submerged histories of some fascinating women, who were socialist revolutionaries, unionised workers, militant feminists, thinkers and writers as well as seamstresses, and in a way that is both engaging and thought-provoking.
— Liz Stanley, Professor of Sociology, University of Edinburgh
This highly original, richly theorised account draws us into the storyworlds of revolutionary seamstresses who struggled for recognition of the importance of women’s work. Maria Tamboukou’s meticulous scholarship brings a sense of personal connection, respect and reverence to her philosophical reflections on gendered power relations and the importance of association.
— Marty Grace, Professor and Head of Social Work, Victoria University
The meticulous and detailed approach to exploring women’s lives that we have come to expect from Maria Tamboukou is turned in this book to the voices of Parisian seamstresses during the July Monarchy (1830–1850) … So often our research into women’s lives yields an enormous amount of apparently disconnected and potentially irrelevant information that we reluctantly return to the depths of an archive box. Tamboukou’s careful theoretical framing provides an excellent example of why, and how, the minutiae of women’s lives can be brought together to make sense of both the past and the present.
— Women's History Review
Focuses on the radical practices of women workers, writers and revolutionaries from the industrial revolution period and explores their neglected contribution to the formation of modernity.
Combines archival research with narrative analysis, drawing on a wide range of unpublished documents and untranslated publications.
The theoretical framework brings together Foucault, Arendt and Whitehead to make an original contribution to contemporary debates in social and political theory.
Four areas of radical practice are highlighted and discussed in their interrelation: work, love, agonistic politics and creativity through writing.