Women Who ‘Interrupt’ Processes: The First Feminist Anthologies in Cultural Studies

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyse the process of elaboration and production of the first two anthologies which were edited by women in the academic discipline known as Cultural Studies. Information about the role played by women in the development of that discipline has been taken from both publications. After a brief overview of the history of Cultural Studies, and of the contributions which it offered to the academic world, there will be a section analysing the birth of Women’s Studies, and its relationship with Cultural Studies. Finally, I will focus on the analysis of the processes of publication of both anthologies, which were a result of the incorporation of feminism to the discipline. The analysis will endeavour to show how what some critics have called the feminist ‘interruption’ of the development of the process which Cultural Studies was undergoing at the end of the 70’s in the 20th century, was in fact an enormous contribution to the discipline. The inclusion of new subjects and concepts in the academic debate, as well as new tools of analysis, provide evidence of that contribution, despite the difficulties which feminist intellectuals had to face at the start.