Doing Feminist Research with Texts

Introduction

This festschrift honours the work of Liz Stanley, whose scholarship has been highly influential in opening new paths in feminist research across the human sciences. Bringing together contributions from scholars shaped by her thinking, the volume reflects both on the intellectual reach of her work and on its continuing capacity to inspire feminist inquiry.

Key Themes

The chapters engage with key strands of Stanley’s intellectual legacy, including feminist epistemologies, the auto/biographical I, letters and correspondences, the epistolarium, and her concept of archigraphics as a way of opening the black box of the archive. Through a wide range of studies, contributors explore her challenge to mainstream sociology, her distinctive approach to feminist research with texts, her foundational role in auto/biography studies, her systematic analysis of letters and correspondences, and her pioneering work on archives, temporality, and the writing of history. Collectively, the contributions trace an intellectual lineage and demonstrate the enduring relevance and generative power of Stanley’s scholarship across disciplines.

Intended Audience

This volume is intended for scholars and postgraduate students in the social sciences and humanities, particularly those working in feminist theory, qualitative methods, archival studies, auto/biography, and the sociology of knowledge.