Feminism and Pornography (Oxford Readings in Feminism)

Rating:
Summary: nuanced and interesting!
Review: feminism and pornography is a collection of nuanced and complicated essays about pornography. this collection moves away from the pro/anti discussion about pornography and theorizies about pornography in more complicated and more interesting ways. the collection includes essays from a multitude of perspectives giving the reader an opportunity to witness the variety of feminist views on pornography. my only wish is that cornell had included more narratives, more voices of sex workers. (she does include a piece by candida royalle.) highlights include: bell hooks, audre lorde, isabelle barker's essay "editing pornography," and an excerpt from drucilla cornell's book the imaginary domain.

Rating:
Summary: A great collection about feminist views on porn.
Review: This is the best collection of its kind, and perhaps the only one to deal directly with the issue of pornography from a feminist view-point. Sure, some of the same issues and perhaps even the same essays can be found in other feminist studies anthologies, but this 600 page book has everything written to date of importance on the subject in one neat package. Drucilla Cornell is a great writer, and its good to see an inclusion of Catharine MacKinnon-who started the whole idea of feminist inquiry into porn-in her anthology, despite epistemological differences between MacKinnon and Cornell (see Cornell's book Transformations for more about that).

Rating:
Summary: A great collection about feminist views on porn.
Review: This is the best collection of its kind, and perhaps the only one to deal directly with the issue of pornography from a feminist view-point. Sure, some of the same issues and perhaps even the same essays can be found in other feminist studies anthologies, but this 600 page book has everything written to date of importance on the subject in one neat package. Drucilla Cornell is a great writer, and its good to see an inclusion of Catharine MacKinnon-who started the whole idea of feminist inquiry into porn-in her anthology, despite epistemological differences between MacKinnon and Cornell (see Cornell's book Transformations for more about that).

Rating:
Summary: Great for a survey course or just getting started...
Review: This was the textbook for a graduate course, "Issues Surrounding Pornography" at my university. I found it to be a thorough, multi-faceted exploration of the adult industry, feminist theory (both anti-porn and anti-censorship) and the wide range of opinions and thinking on this hot-button issue. This book also includes writings on the politics of sex work. Were I the editor, I would have included Laura Mulvey and I would have included more writings about sex workers lives from the point of view of the sex worker herself/himself, as well as more pro-sex work writings. The book seems to have mainly anti-sex work writings. I would have balanced it out more. This is easily corrected by a savvy professor who can assign extra readings from a book such as "Global Sex Workers" or "Whores and Other Feminists." Overall, it's a excellent resource, one I refer to again and again as I write on the subject.

Rating:
Summary: Great for a survey course or just getting started...
Review: This was the textbook for a graduate course, "Issues Surrounding Pornography" at my university. I found it to be a thorough, multi-faceted exploration of the adult industry, feminist theory (both anti-porn and anti-censorship) and the wide range of opinions and thinking on this hot-button issue. This book also includes writings on the politics of sex work. Were I the editor, I would have included Laura Mulvey and I would have included more writings about sex workers lives from the point of view of the sex worker herself/himself, as well as more pro-sex work writings. The book seems to have mainly anti-sex work writings. I would have balanced it out more. This is easily corrected by a savvy professor who can assign extra readings from a book such as "Global Sex Workers" or "Whores and Other Feminists." Overall, it's a excellent resource, one I refer to again and again as I write on the subject.