Feminist Literacies is a history of the truly radical feminist literary practices and pedagogies that flourished during a brief era of volatility and hope. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, ordinary women affiliated with the women's movement were responsible for a veritable explosion of periodicals, poetry, and manifestos, as well as performances designed to support ''do-it-yourself'' education and consciousness-raising. Kathryn Thoms Flannery discusses this outpouring and the group education, brainstorming, and creative activism it fostered as the manifestation of a feminist literacy quite separate from women's studies programs at universities, or from the large-scale political workings of second-wave feminism. Seeking to break down traditional barriers such as the writer/reader or student/teacher dichotomies, these new works also forged polemical alternatives to the forms of argumentation traditionally used to silence women, creating a space for fresh voices. Feminist Literacies explores the reasons and mechanisms underlying lay pedagogies and literacies that excited a diverse audience of women and served as a vital part of the liberation movement--and why such an effort was ultimately not sustained.
