Joan Scott is internationally recognized for writings that theorize gender as an analytic category, positioning her as a leading figure in critical history. Her groundbreaking work has challenged conventional historical practices, fundamentally altering the understanding of historical evidence, experience, and the role of narrative. Scott's contributions have been instrumental in transforming intellectual history, with her recent focus on gender and democratic politics offering vital insights into contemporary social and political landscapes.
Joan Wallach Scott critically examines the belief that history will redeem us, revealing the implicit politics of appeals to the judgment of history. She argues that the notion of a linear, ever-improving direction of history hides the persistence of power structures and hinders the pursuit of alternative futures.
How gender inequality is built into the conception of modern secular nation-statesJoan Wallach Scott’s acclaimed writings have been foundational for the field of gender history. With Sex and Secularism , she challenges one of the central claims of the "clash of civilizations" polemic―that secularism guarantees gender equality. Drawing on a wealth of scholarship, Scott shows that the gender equality invoked today as an enduring principle was not originally associated with the term "secularism" when it first entered the nineteenth-century lexicon. In fact, the inequality of the sexes was fundamental to the separation of church and state that inaugurated Western modernity. Scott reveals how the assertion that secularism has been synonymous with equality between the sexes has distracted our attention from difficulties related to gender difference―ones shared by Western and non-Western cultures alike.
The analysis delves into the biases present in French interpretations of secularism and feminism towards Islam and North African and Arab Muslims. Through a sharp and insightful examination, it reveals how these perspectives affect the integration and acknowledgment of diverse identities, extending its relevance beyond France to other post-colonial contexts. Scott's work challenges reductionist views and advocates for a more nuanced understanding of cultural differences and the struggles for recognition faced by marginalized communities.
A real tour de force . . . evidence of the value of Scott's project to rethink gender and history simultaneously. New York Times
Joan Wallach Scott, a historian who helped to shape the fields of gender and womens history, argues for the usefulness of psychoanalytic concepts, particularly fantasy, for feminist historical analysis.
In this book Joan Wallach Scott discusses the role history has played as an arbiter of right and wrong and of those who claim to act in its name―"in the name of history." Scott investigates three different instances in which repudiation of the past was conceived as a way to a better the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg in 1946, the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1996, and the ongoing movement for reparations for slavery in the United States. Scott shows how in these cases history was not only used to explain the past but to produce a particular future. Yet both past and future were subject to the political realities of their time and defined in terms of moral absolutes, often leading to deep contradictions. These three instances demonstrate that history is not an impartial truth, rather its very meaning is constructed by those who act in its name.
Was hat der Kampf für eine säkulare politische Öffentlichkeit mit Gleichberechtigung zu tun? Nichts, sagt Joan Wallach Scott, der Säkularismus kann die Fortschritte der Gleichberechtigung nicht für sich reklamieren. Joan Wallach Scott, seit Jahrzehnten eine Schlüsselfigur der Gender Studies, entwickelt in diesem Buch ihre Kritik des aktuellen Säkularismusdiskurses, insbesondere mit Blick auf jene Kultur, die sich als Wiege des Säkularismus begreift: Frankreich. Wer heute Säkularismus und Geschlechtergleichheit in einem Atemzug nennt, geht dem aktuellen Säkularismusdiskurs auf den Leim. Wenig hatte der historische Säkularismus mit Geschlechtergleichheit zu tun, ganz im Gegenteil, er diente als Waffe gegen die vorgeblich dem Religiösen näherstehenden, letztlich die Kirche unterstützenden Frauen. Die Erfolge des Kampfes um Geschlechtergleichheit kann der historische Säkularismus kaum für sich reklamieren. Erst mit der Wendung des Säkularismus von einer anti-kirchlichen zu einer anti-islamischen Waffe tritt Säkularismus als Kampf für die Befreiung der islamischen Frau auf. Der Schleier im öffentlichen Raum wird zum Manifest der Unterdrückung. Dahinter steht die in Frankreich seit dem Imperialismus gepflegte Ideologie, dass Integration nur als Assimilation denkbar ist.