Thinking Women

Jenny Thigpen is a US Women's and Gender historian with a specialty in the 19th century who teaches at WSU.


Here is a little about her which you might find interesting.  It is also on her blog.

What I'm Reading

I like to maintain a balance between scholarly and "fun" reading. At any given time, I have at least two books going and keep a running list of what I'll read next.

 I'm always looking for books to use in class, fiction or non. If you have suggestions, pass them along!
Current Reads:

• Naked in the Promised Land: A Memoir by Lillian Faderman
• Patrick V. Kirch, How Chiefs Became Kings: Divine Kingship and the Rise of Archaic States in Ancient Hawai‘i

On My List:

• Elaine Tyler May, America and the Pill: A History of Promise, Peril, and Liberation
• Terry Galloway, Mean Little Deaf Queer
  

Below, in no particular order, are some of my all-time favorites. Some of these are "old" but none feel dated. 


"Top Ten" Fiction 
J.D. Salinger, Catcher in the Rye 
Jim Carroll, The Baseketball Diaries 
Lori Lansens, The Girls 
Alice Walker, The Color Purple 
Susanna Kaysen, Girl, Interrupted 
Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street  
David Sedaris, Dress Your Family in Courderoy and Denim  
T.C. Boyle, Tortilla Curtain 
Alice Sebold, The Lovely Bones 
Cormac McCarthy, The Road

"Top Ten" Non-Fiction 
Barbara Ehrenreich, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America
Annette Gordon Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy 
Sharon Block, Rape and Sexual Violence in Early America
Cathy Peiss, Cheap Amusements: Working-Class Women and Leisure in Turn-of-the-Cenutry
           New York 
Daniel Richter, Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America
Kathleen Brown, Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious Patriarchs
Sarah Deutsch, Women in the City: Gender, Space and Power in Boston 1870-1940
Antoinette Burton and Tony Ballantyne, Bodies in Contact: Rethinking Colonial Encounters in 
           World History
Allan Greer, Mohawk Saint: Catherine Tekakwitha and the Jesuits
Elaine Tyler May, American Families in the Cold-War Era 

So go check out her blog here which contains information about each of the courses she teaches.  There are many interesting readings, pictures and video clips she has links to!