Feminist Studies – 2005

Feminist Studies, a glossy, intellectual journal that balances its essays on research and theory with literary fiction, poetry, and art, manages again to spark interest in its intelligent, clearly written essays—this time, my favorite essays were on a post-post structuralist approach to feminism in Simone de Beauvoir’s writings by Sonia Kruks and a study of beauty pageants relations to college life by Karen W. Tice.

Feminist Studies, a glossy, intellectual journal that balances its essays on research and theory with literary fiction, poetry, and art, manages again to spark interest in its intelligent, clearly written essays—this time, my favorite essays were on a post-post structuralist approach to feminism in Simone de Beauvoir’s writings by Sonia Kruks and a study of beauty pageants relations to college life by Karen W. Tice. The art work consisted of photo reproductions of mixed media work by Jehanne-Marie Gavarini; sometimes mixed media work doesn’t translate well to the page, but at least you get the idea of what the artist was trying to do in the photos, which looked interesting. I particularly liked a poem called “Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, Lived” by Eloise Klein Healy, describing the speaker’s childhood in North Hollywood, which ends: “…where Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, / really did walk around her backyard / in leopard skin lingerie, / and her hair was blonde, truly blonde, / and it was rumored / she occasionally did swing from her trees.” This journal continues to prove that cutting-edge feminist studies are still vibrant, and integral to our understanding of contemporary culture. [Feminist Studies, 0103 Taliaferro, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742. E-mail: [email protected]. www.feministstudies.org]
—Jeannine Hall Gailey