True Confessions: Feminist Professors Tell Stories Out of School

Twenty-seven pioneering thinkers share their discovery of and commitment to feminism in this essential collection.

In a series of autobiographical reflections, the contributors to True Confessions, including Gayatri Spivak, Sandra M. Gilbert, Hortense Spillers, and Martha Nussbaum, among others, tell us what experiences ground their activism and how they confronted the dilemmas they faced in the course of their training and careers. Why do a family's religious practices captivate or repel girls grappling with their parents' faith? What happens when a lesbian graduate student assumes she must be closeted, or when a female professor encounters hostility from other women on the faculty, or when a feminist professor is accused of sexually harassing her graduate students?


Susan Gubar has selected the most influential thinkers in the humanities to elucidate the origins as well as the consequences of their commitment to feminism and its institutionalization in higher education. This is an indispensable book for anyone who cares about the place of feminism in today's landscape.