If women's interest and participation in the advancement of science has a long history, the academic study of their contributions is a far more recent phenomenon, to be placed in the wake of second wave feminism in the 1970s and the advent of women's studies which have, since then, given impetus to research on female figures in specific fields or, more generally speaking, on women's battles to gain access to knowledge, education and recognition in the scientific world. These studies-while providing a useful insight into the contributions of a few more or less well-known figures-have mostly focused, however, on the obstacles that women have had to overcome in the field of education and employment or in their quest for acknowledgement by their male peers. The aim of this volume is to try and approach the issue from a different and more comprehensive point of view, taking into account not only the position of women in science, but also the link between women and science through the analysis of various kinds of discourse and representation such as the press, poetry, fiction, biographies and autobiographies or professional journals-including that of women themselves. The questions of the presentation or re(-)presentation of science by women are thus at the core of this study, as well as that of the portrayal and self-portrayal of women in the sciences (whether in the educational, or the professional field). A final part examines how women are represented in science fiction which, like science itself, has traditionally been a field dominated by men.
About the Author: Donna Spalding Andreolle is Professor of American Studies at Stendhal University-Grenoble III, France, where she teaches American history as well as popular culture courses. Her research centers on low-brow cultural objects, notably Hollywood blockbusters and American television series, as sites of social commentary and shifting cultural values. She is also a specialist of American women's science fiction from the 1960s to the 1990s and its connection to the second wave feminist movement. She is co-editor (with Catherine Delmas and Christine Vandamme) of Science and Empire in the 19th Century: A Journey of Imperial Conquest and Scientific Progress (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010) and the author of several articles on television series such as Big Love, Star Trek the Original Series and The Middle. Veronique Molinari is Senior Lecturer in British Studies at Stendhal University-Grenoble III, France. Her research focuses on the women's movement in Edwardian and Interwar Britain as well as on women's participation in politics. Her publications include Le vote des femmes et la Premiere Guerre mondiale en Angleterre (Women's Vote and the First World War in England; L'Harmattan, 1996), Les femmes dans l'Angleterre victorienne et edouardienne (Women in Victorian and Edwardian England; L'Harmattan, 2008) and Citoyennes, et apres ? Le droit de vote des femmes et ses consequences en Grande-Bretagne, 1918-1939 (Female Citizens, and Afterwards? Women's Right to Vote and its Consequences in Britain, 1918-1939; Peter Lang, 2009).