Description: Often perceived as unbridgeable, the boundaries that divide humanity from itself--whether national, gender, racial, political, or imperial--are rearticulated through friendship. Elora Halim Chowdhury and Liz Philipose edit a collection of essays that express the different ways women forge hospitality in deference to or defiance of the structures meant to keep them apart. Emerging out of postcolonial theory, the works discuss instances when the authors have negotiated friendship's complicated, conflicted, and contradictory terrain; offer fresh perspectives on feminists' invested, reluctant, and selective uses of the nation; reflect on how the arts contribute to conversations about feminism, dissent, resistance, and solidarity; and unpack the details of transnational dissident friendships. Contributors: Lori E. Amy, Azza Basarudin, Himika Bhattacharya, Kabita Chakma, Elora Halim Chowdhury, Laurie R. Cohen, Esha Niyogi De, Eglantina Gjermeni, Glen Hill, Alka Kurian, Meredith Madden, Angie Mejia, Chandra T. Mohanty, A. Wendy Nastasi, Nicole Nguyen, Liz Philipose, Anya Stanger, Shreerekha Subramanian, and Yuanfang Dai.
Review Quotes: "Elora Halim Chowdhury and Liz Philipose's dazzling collection invites readers to consider the politics of feminist friendships, alliances, and collaborations. The volume explores the powerful ways that we can be transformed by our connections with others, and urges a new attention to feminist friendships as sites of generosity and empathy, alliance and resistance. Chowdhury and Philiopose's volume reminds us that friendship is fraught terrain, that we encounter each other across borders and boundaries of multiple kinds, and that the language of friendship can be co-opted by discourses of neoliberalism and imperialism. Yet their contributors urge us to continue to dream of the promise of connection, consciousness, and transformation that dissident friendships make possible."--Jennifer Nash, author of The Black Body in Ecstasy: Reading Race, Reading Pornography