Women's and Gender Studies: Collection Resources

Reviewed by Alexis Pavenick, California State University-Long Beach

This group of essays, loosely arranged in the historical order of the filmmakers and their work, opens up a landscape of storytelling and sociopolitical discussion that has been greatly overlooked by media historians and critics. Approachable, sensitive, thorough and evocative, this contemplation and analysis of African American lesbian filmmaking is a must-have text that looks at the huge impact of social creative expression that blossoms through the support of community. The collection of interviews and analysis, along with rich, clear descriptions of the films and their makers, offers a host of commentary on voice, content, performance, truth, identity, love, and curiosity. As an exploration of film, it is a solidly reliable and reputable text for students. As a read, it is engrossing and enlivening. Highly Recommend.

Reviewed by Erin Hvizdak, Washington State University

Brianna Theobald uses the case of reproductive health policies and practices on the Crow Reservation to demonstrate that settler colonialism is not something that happened “in the past,” but rather its legacies of violence and conquest continue to permeate Native communities. Her book joins a growing body of research that examines the ways in which women’s bodies remain central to the development of racist colonial politics. Her book is particularly rich as in addition to examining the activism of WARN: Women of All Red Nations, it provides a century-plus history of the ways in which Crow women, on and off the reservation in their everyday lives, continually fight for reproductive autonomy and self-determination, and draw on and develop women’s networks and structures that both actively resist and co-exist with medical institutions. Theobald’s writing is highly accessible and I especially appreciated her sources and methods. In particular, in addition to archival documents, she integrated stories and oral histories of Crow women. She explains that one of her contacts introduced her to other female kin, and this circle continued to expand: “Working through families is an Indigenous methodology - Jackson referred to it as “the Crow way” - and it is one that has particular value for a history of reproduction, as my inquiries involved stories and knowledge that have historically been and, in many cases, continue to be transmitted through female networks” (Theobald, 15). This attention to integrating knowledge that is produced in multiple spheres is crucial to writing new historical narratives that are inclusive and amplify the voices of those that are silenced in the documents of the oppressors. This book has been recognized as exemplary in other spheres as it recently won the John C. Ewers Award of the Western History Association (2020) and the Armitage-Jameson Prize of the Coalition for Western Women's History (2019).