Feminist Solidarity at the Crossroads : Intersectional Women’s Studies for Transracial Alliance

In the current economic climate, where many colleges and universities across the US find themselves facing budget crises and cutbacks for historically marginalized academic disciplines such as women’s studies, a politics of solidarity is needed, perhaps more than ever. In the spirit of previous feminist bridge-work, the editors and contributors of Feminist Solidarity at the Crossroads offer pragmatic case studies in women’s studies alliance across the "color line" in the face of institutional crisis.

Women’s studies programs and departments face ongoing fall-out from an economic crisis in higher education. Taking the form of budget-cuts, reduction of faculty lines and other resource allocations, for some programs and departments it has meant at best, a loss of disciplinary autonomy through consolidation, and at worst, academic foreclosure. Feminist Solidarity at the Crossroads articulates a politics of commitment, hope, and possibility wrought in the coming-together of a group of feminist women and men—across racial, cultural, nation/state, sexual, and gender differences—during a tough budgetary time threatening Women’s Studies programs across the nation. This anthology affirms the continued necessity of bridge-building alliances in women’s studies and contemplates with promise the theory and practice of feminist solidarity forged through the course of its production. While the essays in this book display a complex diversity of feminist thought and modes of intersectional strategies, they reflect a unity of comradery and a spirit of collectivity so necessary for these turbulent times.