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This book explores the thought of Olive Schreiner, the internationally famous writer, feminist theorist, social critic, opponent of imperialism and nationalism, and analyst of violence and war, best known for her novels and short stories, articles and critical commentaries, and her feminist treatise, Women and Labour. Expounding her groundbreaking ideas and analyses to a new generation of sociologists, it presents Schreiner as one of the first proponents of an intersectional analysis, in her treatment of the great questions of the age - on labour, women and race - as mutually reinforcing and also bound together with capitalism, imperialism and war in society. Through an analysis of her use of different genres of writing in representing the complexities of social life and oppressions, the author reveals a combination of social theory with practical substantive examples and analysis at the core of Schreiner's intellectual and moral project - an approach that put her at odds with her contemporaries but shows her to be a forerunner of present-day sociological thinking. An examination of the significance for sociology of the work of a figure, the importance of whose thought is only now being recognised, Reintroducing Olive Schreiner will appeal to scholars of sociology and social theory with interests in the history of the discipline, intersectionality and methods of research and analysis.
List of contents
1. Introducing Olive Schreiner 2. Schreiner, sociology and the public intellectual 3. The woman question: Labour and beyond 4. Imperialism and capitalism: On the sociological agenda 5. The world's great question: Race and racism 6. The state, war and social change 7. Decoloniality, intersectionality and the Schreiner theoria: A sociological conclusion
About the author
Liz Stanley is Professor of Sociology at the University of Edinburgh, UK. She is the editor of
Olive Schreiner's The Dawn of Civilisation & Other Unpublished Wartime Writings and
Documents of Life Revisited: Narrative and Biographical Methodology for a 21st Century Critical Humanism, and the co-author of
The Archive Project: Archival Research in the Social Sciences and
The World's Great Question: Olive Schreiner's South African Letters.
Summary
This book explores the thought of Olive Schreiner, presenting her as both one of the first proponents of an intersectional analysis in her treatment of the great questions of the age, and a forerunner of contemporary sociological thinking, who combined social theory with practical substantive examples and analysis.
