Singing in the fire : stories of women in philosophy /

In this collection, a dozen contemporary American and British women present autobiographical pieces on their careers in philosophy. Claudia Card and Andrea Nye may be familiar to lay readers as well as scholars; others less known to the public include Alison Jaggar, Uma Narayan, Martha Nussbaum, and Ofelia Schutte. Each approaches the project of talking about herself in relation to academic philosophy with an independent angle so that readers may learn about her birth family, her involvement with founding organizations, and even her personal epiphanies. In spite of the book's brevity and the essays' relative concision, the spheres of ethnicity and sexual orientation, as well as of analytical and continental philosophy, are represented and discussed. Gender politics in academia, tenure struggles, experiences with sexual harassment, and the evolution of feminist studies also receive attention. To boot, managing life in high school and graduate school, with parents and with children, respectively, are examined, making this good company for a thinking woman in any of those circumstances. Each piece is well written, and the editing retains each woman's voice. An excellent addition to public as well as academic collections.-Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley P.L., CA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.