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Two Decades Later: Approaches to Teaching Alice Walker's Possessing the Secret of Joy, an Edited volume of Essays
No full textIn 1992, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker performed a laudable act for humanity: she
became the first major author to dedicate a novel “to the blameless vulva” and thereby set an
egregious abuse of girl’s and women’s rights -- female genital mutilation or FGM -- in the public
spotlight. 2012 marks the twentieth anniversary of this landmark publication. In response,
UnCUT/VOICES Press will bring out a collection of essays on the book and its global reception – Two
Decades Later: Revisiting Walker’s Possessing the Secret of Joy [working title]. Dr. Levin wrote the Chapter 1: Introduction by Tobe Levin drawing on and adding to reception histories in the following sources:
- Levin, Tobe. “Feminist (and “Womanist”) as Public Intellectuals: Elfriede Jelinek and Alice Walker.”
In The New York Public Intellectuals and Beyond. Exploring Liberal Humanism, Jewish Identity,
and the American Protest Tradition. Eds. E. Goffman and D. Morris. W. Lafayette, IN: Purdue
U.P., 2009. 243-274.
- Levin, Tobe. “FGM or Cutting the Rose in Alice Walker’s Garden.” Rose Lore. Essays in Cultural
Criticism and Semiotics. Ed. Frankie Hutton. NY: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008. 19-32. [rpt.
UnCUT/VOICES Press, 2012, 45-71]
- Levin, Tobe. "Alice Walker: Matron of FORWARD." Black Imagination and the Middle Passage. Eds.
Maria Diedrich, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Carl Pedersen. NY: Oxford UP, 1999. 240-254.
[Germany]Tobe Levin’s Faculty Research Grant Report
In 1992, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker performed a laudable act for humanity: she
became the first major author to dedicate a novel “to the blameless vulva” and thereby set an
egregious abuse of girl’s and women’s rights -- female genital mutilation or FGM -- in the public
spotlight. 2012 marks the twentieth anniversary of this landmark publication. In response,
UnCUT/VOICES Press will bring out a collection of essays on the book and its global reception – Two
Decades Later: Revisiting Walker’s Possessing the Secret of Joy [working title]. The outlook is
deliberately laudatory, for the controversy generated by this text challenges those who would praise
it to do so.
Evelyn C. White’s biography, Alice Walker. A Life (NY: Norton, 2004) opens its prologue with a scene
in which Walker, guest at “an elite college near Boston in the early 1990s” (xiii) [my very good guess
is Wellesley where a considerable amount of criticism emerged], has just read from Possessing the
Secret of Joy only to be confronted by a “middle-aged white woman who identified herself as a
college official” (xiii). The very first question is really a finger-wagging, for the “luncheon guests”
have purportedly been so shocked by the words “clitoris” and “vagina” that a firestorm of ire is
expected along with fear that financial support will be withheld. Asked for advice on how to deal
with the “complaints,” Alice gives a restrained but passionate response. Like her heroine Tashi, she
instructs the college employee to set the callers straight, specifically to understand that their issues
as privileged, presumed rich white women differ from those of “impoverished women of color” (xiv).
Clearly, Alice sees herself as representing African-American demography in terms of class and
history. The exchange is therefore framed in terms of Black and White.
Imagine Walker’s pain on finding out that the categories slip, and that addressing FGM elicits even
greater, more virulent hostility from those whose support had been taken for granted – namely
“women of color” who had emigrated from Africa and were not, like Walker, descendants of
American slaves. The early outcry against the book was in fact fueled not by white opposition but by
black: early opponents resented Walker’s assumption of kinship. They resented the misrecognition of
their status and conflation of it with persons whose ancestors had been abducted and enslaved (this
being my interpretation of the subtext). Among outspoken African critics had been scions of national
leaders; turbulence in their countries, coup d’états, and political upheavals had led to their
resettlement in the USA. And most were wealthy, even ‘aristocratic’ or, at the very least, well-educated
and upper middle class.
My introduction to the collection cites these critics whose clout enabled them to publish in places
like the New York Times. In important academic positions, they set the tone for reception in major
feminist outlets like The Women’s Review of Books and Meridians. And when Walker pushed on to
reach an even broader audience through film, debate exploded. Co-authored and produced with
Pratibha Parmar, Warrior Marks, a video and a book that appeared in 1993, elicited the following
comments from biographer White: “Screened primarily at film festivals and at fund-raising events,
Warrior Marks was repudiated, in the United States and abroad, by a cadre of activists who branded
Alice a ‘cultural imperialist’ for bringing attention to a practice they asserted was a ‘private affair’
best left to Africans” (459).
White is mistaken. Perhaps the phrase “in the U.S. and abroad” slipped without thought from her
pen. In fact, reception abroad was positive – in both Europe and in Africa. After all, Possessing the
Secret of Joy and Warrior Marks were created in consultation with African pioneers in the struggle to
end FGM – none of whom resided in the USA but included African women with whom I’ve had a
close working relationship for three decades: Efua Dorkenoo, Comfort Ottah, Awa Thiam and others.
This collection of essays by an international group of scholars has among its aims to show how
Walker served the global movement against FGM with her fiction; to broaden the parochial
viewpoint floated in the United States concerning ‘ownership’ of the issue; and to present, perhaps
too long after the fact, a counter-portrait of successful intervention and thereby contribute to
justifying this contorted aspect of Walker’s legacy.
Chapters include
Chapter 1. Introduction by Tobe Levin drawing on and adding to reception histories in the following
sources:
Levin, Tobe. “Feminist (and “Womanist”) as Public Intellectuals: Elfriede Jelinek and Alice Walker.”
In The New York Public Intellectuals and Beyond. Exploring Liberal Humanism, Jewish Identity,
and the American Protest Tradition. Eds. E. Goffman and D. Morris. W. Lafayette, IN: Purdue
U.P., 2009. 243-274.
Levin, Tobe. “FGM or Cutting the Rose in Alice Walker’s Garden.” Rose Lore. Essays in Cultural
Criticism and Semiotics. Ed. Frankie Hutton. NY: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008. 19-32. [rpt.
UnCUT/VOICES Press, 2012, 45-71]
Levin, Tobe. "Alice Walker: Matron of FORWARD." Black Imagination and the Middle Passage. Eds.
Maria Diedrich, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Carl Pedersen. NY: Oxford UP, 1999. 240-254.
[Germany]
Chapter 2. Verena Stefan. “Die Verstümmelung der Vulva und andere Beschneidungen der
weiblichen Freiheit – Die vollkommene Vulva und ihr Glanz – Widerstand” [Mutilation of the
Vulva and the circumcision of other female freedoms or the perfect vulva, its aura and revolt]
from “Why was the Little Girl Crying?” in Rauh, wild & frei. Mädchengestalten in der
Literatur. [Tough, Wild and Free. Images of Girls in Literature] Frankfurt am Main: Fischer,
1997. Trans. Tobe Levin. With permission. [Germany/Switzerland]
Chapter 3. Claudia Landi. “Rappresentazione e Simbologia degli Animali in Possessing the Secret of
Joy” [Representation and Symbols of the Body in Possessing the Secret of Joy] from Les
Parole di Cassandra. [Cassandra’s Words] Eds. Ilaria Bellini, et. al. Firenze: Facoltà di Lettere e
Filosofia (University of Florence), 1995. Trans. Tobe Levin. With permission. [Italy]
Chapter 4. Elisabeth Bekers. “Walker’s Traumatized Woman Warrior in Possessing the Secret of Joy.”
From Rising Anthills. African & African American Writing on Female Genital Excision 1960-
2000. Madison: U. of Wisconsin P., 2010. [156-164.] With permission. [Belgium]
Chapter 5. M. Giulia Fabi. “Sexual Violence and the Black Atlantic. On Alice Walker’s Possessing the
Secret of Joy.” From Black Imagination and the Middle Passage. Eds. Maria Diedrich, Henry
Louis Gates, Jr., and Carl Pedersen. NY: Oxford UP, 1999. [228-239]. With permission. [Italy]
Chapter 6. John Gruesser. “Breaking the Silence about Female Genital Mutilation in Possessing the
Secret of Joy.” Adapted from CONFLUENCES: POSTCOLONIALISM, AFRICAN AMERICAN
LITERARY STUDIES, AND THE BLACK ATLANTIC. Athens: U. of Georgia P., 2005; paperback
2007. With permission. [USA]
Chapter 7. Mihaela Mudure. “Comparative Blacknesses in Walker’s Possessing the Secret of Joy:
African-Americans, the Roma people, early marriage and excision.” Original contribution.
[University of Cluj, Romania]
Chapter 8. Jennifer Browdy de Hernandez. “The Fictionalized Universal or Possessing the Secret of Joy
in the classroom.” Original contribution. [Simon’s Rock College of Bard. USA]
Chapter 9. Sachiko Mitsumori. “Alice Walker’s Possessing the Secret of Joy. Towards the Universal
Self.” Original contribution. [University of Hiroshima. Japan]
Chapter 10. Hilda Twongyeirwe. “Possessing the Secret of Joy and Women’s Fiction against FGM in
Uganda.” Original contribution. [FemRite Women’s Writers’ Collective, Kampala. Uganda]
UNCUT/VOICES PRESS
Publishing against Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)
Blood Stains
A Child of Africa Reclaims Her Human Rights
by KHADY with Marie-Thérèse Cuny
Translated by Tobe Levin
Frankfurt am Main: UNCUT/VOICES PRESS, 2010
ISBN: 978-3-9813863-0-1. PB. 29.90 plus postage & handling (1.50 for each additional book for
U.S. addresses). By VISA, Mastercard, PayPal: www.uncutvoices.com
By check payable to UnCUT/ VOICES Press c/o R. Levin, 7 Maryland Ave. West Long Branch, N.J. 07764-1725.
IN the U.K.: 22,00 BP plus 3,00 BP postage by PAYPAL or bank transfer:
IN EUROPE: €24,90 plus €5,00 postage by PAYPAL or bank transfer:
UnCUT/VOICES Press
Frankfurter Sparkasse, BLZ 500 502 01 Account 0200420470.
IBAN: DE11 5005 0201 0200 4204 70. SWIFT-BIC: HELADEF1822
Email your address, please: [email protected]
Geschäftsnummer HRB 86527, U.G. Haftungsbeschränkt
Godfrey Williams-Okorodus, Oil on Canvas, 2009
Forthcoming:
Hubert Prolongeau. Undoing FGM. Pierre Foldes, the Surgeon Who Restores the Clitoris. Foreword by Bernard
Kouchner, former French Foreign Minister. Trans. Tobe Levin. ISBN: 978-3-9813863-1-8. Biography of the
sought-after pioneer urologist who discovered how to return sensation to victims of clitoridectomy. JULY
2011. Price: 29.90 pb.
Honorary Advisory Board
Elfriede Jelinek, 2004 Nobel Laureate in Literature
Vera I. Grant, Executive Director, W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African
and African American Research, Harvard University
Diane Rosenfeld, Associate Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
Maria Jaschok, Director, International Gender Studies, Oxford Depart-ment
of International Development, University of Oxford
Owolabi Bjalkander, former Parliamentary Assistant to Christine
McCafferty, MP (2003 UK Female Genital Mutilation Bill), Sierra
Leone
Obioma Nnaemeka, Professor of French & Women’s Studies, Indiana
University, Indianapolis, and Founder, AAWS (Association of Afri-can
Women Scholars), Nigeria/ USA
Fatoumata Siré-Diakité, Ambassador from Mali to Germany and
Founder/President, Association pour le Progrès et la Défense des
Femmes Maliennes, Bamako/Berlin
Pierrette Herzberger-Fofana, City Councilwoman and author, Erlangen,
Germany
Angelika Köster-Lossack, FORWARD–Germany board and former Mem-ber
of the German Parliament (MdB)
Florence Howe, Founding Publisher/Director of The Feminist Press at
CUNY
Shulamit Reinharz, Founding Director, Women’s Studies Center and
Hadasseh-Brandeis Institute, Brandeis University, USA
Mariame Racine Sow, Project Officer, Groupe pour l'Etude et l’Enseig-nement
de la Population, Dakar, Senegal
Els Leye, International Centre for Reproductive Health (WHO Colla-borating
Centre), Ghent University, Belgium
Fana Habteab, President, European Network against Harmful Tradi-tional
Practices, especially Female Genital Mutilation (EuroNet-
FGM), Sweden
Frankie Hutton, Amistad Commission Member, State of New Jersey
and founder, The Rose Project
Godfrey Williams-Okorodus, Artist, Nigeria/Belgium
Erica Pomerance, Filmmaker, Montreal, Canada
Etenesh Hadis, African Women’s Organization Coordinator, Vienna,
Austria
Yayehyirad Kitaw, Physician, Advisory Council, Ethiopian Public
Health Authority and Editor-in-Chief, Journal on Female Genital
Mutilation. Scientific Organ of the Inter-African Committee. Uni-versity
of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Berhane Ras-Work, Founding President, Inter-African Committee,
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia/Geneva, Switzerland
Adriana Kaplan Marcusan, Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona and
Founder, Wassukafo, The Gambia
Augustine H. Asaah, Head, Department of Modern Languages,
University of Ghana
Hanny Lightfoot-Klein, Activist and Author, USA
Soraya Mire, Activist, Filmmaker and Author, Somalia/ USA
Nikki Denholm, Director, New Zealand FGM Education Programme,
Auckland, New Zealand
Comfort Momoh, M.B.E., FGM Specialist Midwife, African Well Woman
Clinic, St. Thomas' Hospital, London
Marianne Sarkis, Medical Anthropologist and Director/Webmaster FGM
Education and Networking Project, Worcester, MA
Linda May Kallestein, Journalist and Filmmaker (The CUT), Norway
Marilyn Safir, Professor of Women’s Studies and Psychology, Univer-sity
of Haifa, Israel
Dagmar Schultz, Founding Publisher, Orlanda Frauenverlag, Berlin
Lucy Mashua, Global Ambassador Fighting Female Genital Mutilation
(FGM), Kenya/USA
Waltraud Dumont du Voitel, German Foundation for Gender Studies/
Feminist Europa, Heidelberg
Cristiana Scoppa, FGM project manager, AIDOS, Rome, Italy
Sarah McCulloch, Founder and Director, ACCM – UK
Mary Ann Smorra, Professor of Education, Georgian Court University,
NJ, USA
Sachiko Mitsumori, Women’s Action against FGM, Tokyo, Japan
Raymond Lloyd, Honorary Secretary Council for Parity Democracy, UK
www.shequality.org
Efua Dorkenoo, OBE, Advocacy Director-FGM Programme, Equality
Now; former WHO Technical Expert on FGM (1995-2001) and
Founder, FORWARD UK
Lois A. Herman, Coordinator, Women’s UN Report Network (WUNRN)
Gabi Helfert, Photographer, Sustainability Project Manager and Social
Media Consultant, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Editor-in-Chief: Tobe Levin Art Director, Publications: Kaye Beth Business Development Advisor: Angela
Shaw Sales Manager: Rebecca Sue Levin Contributing editors: Christiane Makward, Stephen Bishop, Dianna
Martin, Sheryl Savina, Samantha Reiser Marketing/Communications Consultants: Sherry Reed, Ginni Stern
Graphic design: Greg Workman Web design: Jeff and Margaret Hicks (Optimize-Interactive.com)
UNCUT/VOICES PRESS
Publishing against Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)
Undoing FGM
Pierre Foldes –
The Surgeon Who Restores the Clitoris
by Hubert Prolongeau
Foreword by Bernard Kouchner
Co-Founder of Doctors without Borders
Translation and Afterword by Tobe Levin
Frankfurt am Main: UNCUT/VOICES PRESS, 2011
ISBN: 978-3-9813863-1-8. PB. 29.90 plus postage & handling (1.50 for each additional book for U.S. addresses).
By VISA, Mastercard, PayPal: www.uncutvoices.com
IN EUROPE: €24,90 plus €5,00 postage by PAYPAL
Email your address, please: [email protected]
Geschäftsnummer HRB 86527, U.G. Haftungsbeschränk
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
Author Under Sail The Imagination of Jack London, 1893-1902
No full textIn Author Under Sail, Jay Williams offers the first complete literary biography of Jack London as a professional writer engaged in the labor of writing. It examines the authorial imagination in London's work, the use of imagination in both his fiction and nonfiction, and the ways he defined imagination in the creative process in his business dealings with his publishers, editors, and agents. In this first volume of a two-volume biography, Williams traverses the years 1893 to 1902, from London's "Story of a Typhoon" to The People of the Abyss. The Jack London who emerges in the pages of Author Under Sail is a writer whose partnership with publishers, most notably his productive alliance with George Brett of Macmillan, was one of the most formative in American literary history. London pioneered many author models during the heyday of realism and naturalism, blurring the boundaries of these popular genres by focusing on absorption and theatricality and the representation of the seen and unseen. London created an impassioned, sincere, and extremely personal realism unlike that of other American writers of the time. Author Under Sail is a literary tour de force that reveals the full range of London as writer, creative citizen, and entrepreneur at the same time it sheds light on the maverick side of machine-age literature.Intro -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. Spirit Truth -- 2. From Absorption to Theatricality and Back Again -- 3. "I Will Build a New Present" -- 4. Sons as Authors -- 5. Fathers as Publishers -- 6. The Daughter as Author -- 7. Lovers as Authors -- 8. At Sea with the Family -- 9. Yellow News, Yellow Stories -- 10. The Return Home -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- About Jay WilliamsIn Author Under Sail, Jay Williams offers the first complete literary biography of Jack London as a professional writer engaged in the labor of writing. It examines the authorial imagination in London's work, the use of imagination in both his fiction and nonfiction, and the ways he defined imagination in the creative process in his business dealings with his publishers, editors, and agents. In this first volume of a two-volume biography, Williams traverses the years 1893 to 1902, from London's "Story of a Typhoon" to The People of the Abyss. The Jack London who emerges in the pages of Author Under Sail is a writer whose partnership with publishers, most notably his productive alliance with George Brett of Macmillan, was one of the most formative in American literary history. London pioneered many author models during the heyday of realism and naturalism, blurring the boundaries of these popular genres by focusing on absorption and theatricality and the representation of the seen and unseen. London created an impassioned, sincere, and extremely personal realism unlike that of other American writers of the time. Author Under Sail is a literary tour de force that reveals the full range of London as writer, creative citizen, and entrepreneur at the same time it sheds light on the maverick side of machine-age literature.Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, YYYY. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries
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