ABSTRACT

Wise Women is a collection of autobiographical essays by important and renowned teachers at mid-life. The essays, which are deeply personal, will focus on how these women negotiate the psychological, physical, and social changes brought on by menopause and how the aging process affects their lives as professionals, feminists, writers, mentors, and instructors in the academy. The book addresses such questions as the following: What challenges are left for the feminists who came of age during the women's movement and now have achieved academic success? How do women teachers experience their aging selves in the classroom? What legacy will mid-life women leave their younger women colleagues? All of these questions, as well as many others, are covered in this insightful and groundbreaking work.

part |36 pages

Body & Time

chapter |6 pages

Teaching Where I Was Taught

Coming Home

chapter |6 pages

Game Plans

chapter |3 pages

“Pregnant with [Myself], at Last”

Images of Midlife/A Journal Entry

chapter |10 pages

“Saturating Language with Love”

Variations on a Dream

chapter |8 pages

The Time of Our Lives

The Public Life of Teaching

part |48 pages

Feisty & Girls

part |56 pages

Teaching in Time

chapter |5 pages

Ecstasy

Teaching and Learning without Limits

chapter |12 pages

Re-viewing Our Professional Lives

Talking (and Listening) for a Living

chapter |14 pages

Exploring Critical Feminist Pedagogy

Revelations and Confessions about Teaching at Midlife

part |34 pages

Community & Generativity

chapter |10 pages

Naming, Sharing, Speaking

Teaching in Midlife

chapter |9 pages

“Thinking Back through [My] Mother”

Reclaiming Anger, Advocacy, and Pleasure in Teaching