'A crucial and compelling read' NATALIE COLLINS @GodLovesWomen 'The story of Josephine Butler is astonishing, shocking, inspiring, recounted here by a narrator who understands the very core of her subject. A powerful read.' CLAIRE GILBERT, author of I, Julian 'When Courage Calls allows us to hear Butler's message afresh at a time when women's value and safety is again at risk.' ALISON MILBANK, Professor of Literature and Theology, University of Nottingham 'This is an inspiring book written by an inspiring writer' RACHAEL TREWEEK, Bishop of Gloucester Millicent Fawcett, the leader of the British suffragist movement, described Josephine Butler as 'the most distinguished English woman of the nineteenth century'. Among the first feminist activists, Butler raised public awareness of the plight of destitute women, worked to address human trafficking and led a vigorous campaign to secure equal rights for women before the law. In her pursuit of justice, Butler did as much for women as William Wilberforce did for African slaves within the British Empire, and yet, while Wilberforce remains a household name, Butler is forgotten. Social historian Sarah C. Williams presents a re-examined biography of the radical political activist Josephine Butler. From the beauty of her childhood in Northumbria, to the stifling intellectual environment of mid-Victorian Oxford; from the impoverished streets of Liverpool and the brothels of London, Brussels and Paris, to the offices of Westminster and the Houses of Parliament. Butler's relentless drive to secure rights for women against the sexual double standard of her day captures a remarkable woman with deeply held values for equality. Underpinning Butler's public life of political activism lies the full corpus of her writing and the spirituality that grounded her activism. When Courage Calls offers a profound examination of Butler's inner life of prayer, defined by her radical sense of justice that was able to transform Victorian society. Such conviction offers us a taste of the possibility for our time and culture. This biography presents a fresh interpretation of the relationship between Josephine Butler's public leadership, her political activism and her spirituality.

This book sheds new light on the ongoing fight to end prostitution through a historical study of its emotional communities. An issue that has long been the subject of much debate amongst feminists, governments and communities alike, the history of the fight to end prostitution has an important bearing on feminist politics today. This book identifies key abolitionist emotional communities, tracing their origins, interactions and evolutions with various historical and contemporary emotional styles. In doing do, Emotional Histories in the Fight to End Prostitution highlights a more nuanced view of the movement's history. From Moral Liberals in 19th century Britain to the American anti-pornography movement and Swedish 'Nordic Model', Emotional Histories in the Fight to End Prostitution shows how emotional styles and practices have influenced the evolution of the fight against prostitution in Britain, the United States and Western Europe. From the fear of sin, to maternal compassion and survivor shame and loss, Michele Greer historicizes emotions and studies them as dynamic forms of situated knowledge. In doing so, she sheds light on how women's lived experiences have been transformed and politicized, and raises important questions around how feminist emotions in social protest can not only challenge but unknowingly defend existing socio-political conventions and inequalities. Highlighting the links between past and present forms of abolitionism, it shows that this connection is more complex and far-reaching than currently assumed, and offers new perspectives on the history of emotions.

"Not Drowning but Waving...gestures both at the difficulties faced by feminists in the humanities in Canada and at the possibilities of hope, of new 'waves' of feminism." Twenty-two essays explore topics such as feminism in the liberal arts disciplines; the relationship of the liberal arts to the larger university; the costs and rewards for women in administration; the corporatization of university campuses; intergenerational and transcultural tensions within feminist communities; balancing personal life with professional aspirations; the relationship of feminism to cultural studies; women, social justice, and the liberal arts. Not Drowning But Waving is a welcome progress report on the variety of feminisms at work in academe and beyond. It provides crucial insights for university administrators, faculty, and literate non-specialists interested in the Arts and Humanities.

This book offers a spatial history of the decades in which women entered the universities as students for the first time. Through focusing on several different types of spaces – such as learning spaces, leisure spaces, and commuting spaces – it argues that the nuances and realities of everyday life for both men and women students during this period can be found in the physical environments in which this education took place, as declaring women eligible for admittance and degrees did not automatically usher in coeducation on equal terms. It posits that the intersection of gender and space played an integral role in shaping the physical and social landscape of higher education in England and Wales in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, whether explicitly – as epitomised by the building of single-sex colleges – or implicitly, through assumed behavioural norms and practices.