The Feminist Standpoint Theory Reader Intellectual and Political Controversies

In the mid-1970s and early 1980s, several feminist theorists began developing alternatives to the traditional methods of scientific research. The result was a new theory, now recognized as Standpoint Theory, which caused heated debate and radically altered the way research is conducted. "The Feminist Standpoint Theory Reader" is the first anthology to collect the most important essays on the subject as well as more recent works that bring the topic up-to-date. Leading feminist scholar and one of the founders of Standpoint Theory, Sandra Harding brings together the a prestigious list of scholars--Dorothy Smith, Donna Haraway, Patricia Hill Collins, Nancy Hartsock and Hilary Rose--to not only showcase the most influential essays on the topic but to also highlight subsequent developments of these approaches from a wide variety of disciplines and intellectual and political positions. The Reader will be essential reading for feminist scholars.

Leading feminist scholar and one of the founders of Standpoint Theory, Sandra Harding brings together the biggest names in the field--Dorothy Smith, Donna Haraway, Patricia Hill Collins, Nancy Hartsock and Hilary Rose--to not only showcase the most influential essays on the topic but to also highlight subsequent interrogations and developments of these approaches from a wide variety of disciplines and intellectual and political positions.

Acknowledgments
1. Introduction: Standpoint Theory as a Site of Political, Philosophic, and Scientific Debate, Sandra Harding

I: The Logic of a Standpoint
Introduction
2. Women's Perspective as a Radical Critique of Sociology, Dorothy E. Smith
3. The Feminist Standpoint: Developing the Ground for a Specifically Feminist Historical Materialism, Nancy C. M. Hartsock
4. Feminist Politics and Epistemology: The Standpoint of Women, Alison M. Jaggar
5. Hand, Brain, and Heart: A Feminist Epistemology for the Natural Sciences, Hilary Rose
6. Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective, Donna Haraway
7. Learning from the Outsider Within: The Sociological Significance of Black Feminist Thought, Patricia Hill Collins
8. Rethinking Standpoint Epistemology: What is "Strong Objectivity"?, Sandra Harding

II. Identifying Standpoints
Introduction
9. History and Class Consciousness as an "Unfinished Project", Fredric Jameson
10. Choosing the Margin as a Space of Radical Openness, bell hooks
11. Maternal Thinking as a Feminist Standpoint, Sara Ruddick12. Feminism, Marxism, Method, and the State: Toward Feminist Jurisprudence, Catharine A. MacKinnon
13. Labor, Standpoints, and Feminist Subjects, Kathi Weeks
14. U.S. Third World Feminism: The Theory and Method of Differential Oppositional Consciousness, Chela Sandoval

III. Controversies, Limits, Revisionings
Introduction
15. The Project of Feminist Epistemology: Perspectives from a Nonwestern Feminist, Uma Narayan
16. Truth and Method: Feminist Standpoint Theory Revisited, Susan Hekman
17. Comment on Hekman's "Truth and Method: Feminist Standpoint Theory Revisited": Truth or Justice?, Nancy C. M. Hartsock
18. Comment on Hekman's "Truth and Method: Feminist Standpoint Theory Revisited": Where's the Power?, Patricia Hill Collins
19. Comment on Hekman's "Truth and Method: Feminist Standpoint Theory Revisited": Whose Standpoint Needs the Regimes of Truth and Reality?, Sandra Harding
20. Comment on Hekman's "Truth and Method: Feminist Standpoint Theory Revisited", Dorothy E. Smith
21. Reply to Hartsock, Collins, Harding, and Smith, Susan Hekman
22. Strange Standpoints, or: How to Define the Situation for Situated Knowledge, Dick Pels

IV. Modern or Postmodern? Natural or Only Social Sciences?
Introduction
23. Feminist Epistemologies for Critical Social Theory: From Standpoint Theory to Situated Knowledge, Fernando J. García Selgas
24. Building Standpoints, Sarah Bracke and Maria Puig de la Bellacasa
25. Feminist Standpoint as Postmodern Strategy, Nancy J. Hirschmann
26. The Subsistence Perspective, Maria Mies and Vandana Shiva
27. Why Standpoint Matters, Alison Wylie
28. Feminism and the Social Construction of Scientific Knowledge, Joseph Rouse
Index

Sandra Harding is Professor of Education and Women's Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, and is currently the co-editor of Signs. Her work has won the Jessie Bernard Award from the American Sociological Association, the Critics Choice Award from AERA, and the Choice Outstanding Book Award. A pioneer in the development of Standpoint Theory, she is the author of numerous books, including The Science Question in Feminism and The "Racial" Economy of Science.