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Preface.

Article Excerpt
IN THIS ISSUE, we reexamine the 1970s, when, in Marge Piercy's words, "the movement opened up." As we write this preface, the nation is awaiting the inauguration of President-Elect Barack Obama, and we hope that his presidency will be the catalyst for the next wave of the civil rights movement that is commemorated and explored in these pages. One of the tasks our contributors have set themselves in this issue is to try and tease apart the multiple feminisms that grew out of and alongside the civil rights movement in the 1960s and 1970s, and all the articles in this issue highlight the fluidity and the promise of that historical moment, when new theories and practices emerged with breathtaking speed. In their reassessment of early women's studies programs, Judith Kegan Gardiner and Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy investigate not only the achievements but also the inevitable compromises that marked the debut of the academic arm of the women's movement. Roberta Salper reminds us of the counterforce of state surveillance during those years, while Georgina Hickey takes women's fight against their exclusion from certain bars and restaurants as emblematic of the broader fight for inclusion and empowerment. Breanne Fahs revisits the writings of Valerie Solanas to show the ways in which Solanas evolved her own political practices that were militantly at odds with the mainstream of the feminist movement, even as many of her ideas were later taken up by it. Review essays by Rosalyn Baxandall and Mary Ann Clawson examine the latest wave of scholarship on the early years of the women's movement, with a special emphasis on memoirs and testimony from those who were directly involved. Several retrospective art exhibits are reviewed by Josephine Withers as she poses questions about canon-making and feminist art. Creative work by Judith Arcana, Marie E. Goyette, Marge Piercy, and Christine Stark dramatizes many of the experiences that led women in the 1960s and 1970s to feminism in the first place: unexpected pleasures, misunderstood pain, and a growing sense that the world could change if only enough people wanted it to.

That emphasis on personal experience also shapes three of...

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