The editors are committed to destroying perceptions and stereotypes of third world women as passive victims who need to be "liberated" by Western feminists. The essays address cases in which women have challenged and resisted the political formations-nationalist struggles, revolutions, religious fundamentalist practices, and authoritarian regimes-that shape their daily lives. Each critic presents a close reading of the circumstances under which the feminist writers and film-makers.

The Intervening Configuration: Gender and Feminist Practice: National Identities, Tradition, and Feminism: The Novels of Ama Ata Aidoo Read in the Context of the Works of Kwame Nkrumah, Nationalism and Feminism in the Writings of Santa Devi and Sita Devi, Mother-Country and Fatherland: Re-Membering the Nation in Sara Suleri's Meatless Days, Race, Gender, and the Caribbean Narrative of Revolution, The Transformation of Nation and Womanhood: Revisionist Mythmaking in the Poetry of Nicaragua's Gioconda Belli, The Censored Argentine Text: Griselda Gambaro's Ganarse la Muerte and Reina Roffe's, Transgressions: Female Desire and Postcolonial Identity in Contemporary Indian Women's Cinema, The Intervening Discourse: Problematizing Transnational Feminist Dialogues: Feminist Critiques of Nationalism and Communalism from Bangladesh and India: A Transnational Reading, Of Tortillas and Texts: Postcolonial Dialogues in the Latin American Testimonial, Writing the Difference: Feminists' Invention of the "Arab Woman", Third World Women's Cinema: If the Subaltern Speaks, Will We Listen?, From Third World Politics to First World Practices: Contemporary Latina Writers in the United States