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Ohio University Press · Swallow Press · www.ohioswallow.com

Women’s Studies

Women’s Studies Book List

Cover of 'African Womanhood in Colonial Kenya, 1900–1950'

African Womanhood in Colonial Kenya, 1900–1950
By Tabitha Kanogo

This book explores the history of African womanhood in colonial Kenya. By focussing on key sociocultural institutions and practices around which the lives of women were organized, and on the protracted debates that surrounded these institutions and practices during the colonial period, it investigates the nature of indigenous, mission, and colonial control of African women.The

Winner of the 2022 Martin A. Klein Prize in African History, awarded by the American Historical Association
Cover of 'The Great Upheaval'

The Great Upheaval
Women and Nation in Postwar Nigeria
By Judith A. Byfield

In this finely textured social and intellectual history of gender and nation making, Byfield captures the dynamism of women’s political engagement in postwar Nigeria. She illuminates the centrality of gender to the study of nationalism, offering new lines of inquiry into the late colonial era and its consequences for the future Nigerian state.

Finalist for the 2022 Best Book Prize from the African Studies Association
Cover of 'Embodied Engineering'

Embodied Engineering
Gendered Labor, Food Security, and Taste in Twentieth-Century Mali
By Laura Ann Twagira

Common narratives about development in Africa miss the critical technological work of women. Twagira’s study instead positions Malian women as rural engineers whose strategic planning and labor over the course of the twentieth century assured their food security.

Finalist for the 2022 Best Book Prize from the African Studies Association
Cover of 'Embodied Engineering'

Embodied Engineering
Gendered Labor, Food Security, and Taste in Twentieth-Century Mali
By Laura Ann Twagira

Common narratives about development in Africa miss the critical technological work of women. Twagira’s study instead positions Malian women as rural engineers whose strategic planning and labor over the course of the twentieth century assured their food security.

Winner of the 2022 Martin A. Klein Prize in African History, awarded by the American Historical Association
Cover of 'The Great Upheaval'

The Great Upheaval
Women and Nation in Postwar Nigeria
By Judith A. Byfield

In this finely textured social and intellectual history of gender and nation making, Byfield captures the dynamism of women’s political engagement in postwar Nigeria. She illuminates the centrality of gender to the study of nationalism, offering new lines of inquiry into the late colonial era and its consequences for the future Nigerian state.

Cover of 'Militarizing Marriage'

Militarizing Marriage
West African Soldiers’ Conjugal Traditions in Modern French Empire
By Sarah J. Zimmerman

By prioritizing women and conjugality in the historiography of African colonial soldiers, Militarizing Marriage historicizes how the subjugation of women was indispensable to military conquest and colonial rule across French Empire.

Cover of 'Exiting the Fragility Trap'

Exiting the Fragility Trap
Rethinking Our Approach to the World’s Most Fragile States
By David Carment and Yiagadeesen Samy

Carment and Samy investigate the dynamics of state transitions in fragile contexts, with a focus on states trapped in fragility. They consider fragility’s evolution in trapped countries; in those that move in and out of it; and in those that have exited it, thus taking a major step toward a new theory of the so-called fragility trap.

Cover of 'Women’s Perspectives on Human Security'

Women’s Perspectives on Human Security
Violence, Environment, and Sustainability
Edited by Richard Matthew, Patricia A. Weitsman, Gunhild Hoogensen Gjørv, Nora Davis, and Tera Dornfeld

This multidisciplinary collection examines women’s security threats stemming from conflict, environmental policy, and economic limitations, as well as the growing repertoire of grass-roots solutions women are creating, demanding, and sharing throughout the world to increase their security.

Cover of 'Militarizing Marriage'

Militarizing Marriage
West African Soldiers’ Conjugal Traditions in Modern French Empire
By Sarah J. Zimmerman

By prioritizing women and conjugality in the historiography of African colonial soldiers, Militarizing Marriage historicizes how the subjugation of women was indispensable to military conquest and colonial rule across French Empire.

Cover of 'Female Monarchs and Merchant Queens in Africa'

Female Monarchs and Merchant Queens in Africa
By Nwando Achebe

Drawing from distinctly African source materials and methods, Achebe’s groundbreaking historical account examines the shared power, influence, and authority that uniquely African, female-gendered entities—people, diviners, and deities—exert across Africa’s interconnected physical and spiritual worlds.

Cover of 'Radical Utu'

Radical Utu
Critical Ideas and Ideals of Wangari Muta Maathai
By Besi Brillian Muhonja

In Radical Utu: Critical Ideas and Ideals of Wangari Muta Maathai, Wangari Maathai is presented as a scholar whose contributions to gender equality, democratic spaces, economic equity and global governance, and indigenous African languages and knowledges paralleled her renowned environmental activism.

Shortlisted for the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) Awards (South Africa).
Cover of 'Josie Mpama/Palmer'

Josie Mpama/Palmer
Get Up and Get Moving
By Robert R. Edgar

The latest in the Ohio Short Histories of Africa series, Josie Mpama/Palmer: Get Up and Get Moving tells the story of Josie Mpama/Palmer’s activism and political legacy in South Africa and around the world.

Cover of 'Wangari Maathai'

Wangari Maathai
By Tabitha Kanogo

This concise biography tells the story of Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner who devoted her life to campaigning for environmental conservation, sustainable development, democracy, human rights, gender equality, and the eradication of poverty.

Cover of 'Exiting the Fragility Trap'

Exiting the Fragility Trap
Rethinking Our Approach to the World’s Most Fragile States
By David Carment and Yiagadeesen Samy

Carment and Samy investigate the dynamics of state transitions in fragile contexts, with a focus on states trapped in fragility. They consider fragility’s evolution in trapped countries; in those that move in and out of it; and in those that have exited it, thus taking a major step toward a new theory of the so-called fragility trap.

Winner of the 2019 Oskar Halecki Prize from the Polish American Historical Association · Winner of the 2020 Wacław Lednicki Award in the Humanities from the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America (PIASA)
Cover of 'Writing the Polish American Woman in Postwar Ethnic Fiction'

Writing the Polish American Woman in Postwar Ethnic Fiction
By Grażyna J. Kozaczka

Through close readings of several Polish American and Polish Canadian novels and short stories published over the last seven decades, Kozaczka demonstrates how Polish American women writers have acknowledged their patriarchal oppression and tells the complex story of how they sought empowerment through resistive and transgressive behaviors.