By TODD GOTTULA
UNK Communications
KEARNEY – University of Nebraska at Kearney’s Lorna Bracewell has been recognized by the American Political Science Association for having the nation’s best research paper on feminist political theory.
An assistant professor of political science, Bracewell received the Okin-Young Award for her 2016 article “Beyond Barnard: Liberalism, Anti-pornography Feminism and the Sex Wars.” She was the top recipient in the Women and Politics Research Section.
“Feminism’s sex wars are often portrayed as a two-sided conflict pitting anti-pornography feminists versus sex-radical feminists, a conflict that began at the 1982 conference “The Scholar and The Feminist IX: Towards a Politics of Sexuality” held at Barnard College,” Bracewell says in her abstract.
In her article, Bracewell challenges another view also central to the sex wars: the relationship between anti-pornography feminism and liberalism.
“… I tell the story of how anti-pornography feminism emerged in the early 1970s as an emphatic critique of liberalism and was transformed over the course of the 1980s and1990s into a widely accepted tenet of liberalism itself,” she writes.
“… I reflect on the implications of this transformation for a more recent development: the mobilization of feminist critiques of gender-based violence in the service of a politics of criminalization and incarceration that Elizabeth Bernstein has dubbed ‘carceral feminism.’”
ABOUT THE OKIN-YOUNG AWARD
The Okin-Young Award in Feminist Political Theory – co-sponsored by Women and Politics, Foundations of Political Theory and Women’s Caucus for Political Science – commemorates the scholarly, mentoring and professional contributions of Susan Moller Okin and Iris Marion Young to the development of the field of feminist political theory. The award recognizes the best paper on feminist political theory published in an academic journal.
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Writer: Todd Gottula, Director of Communications, 308.865.8454, gottulatm@unk.edu
Source: Lorna Bracewell, Assistant Professor Political Science, 308.865.8724, bracewellln@unk.edu
