Piepmeier, Alison. Out in Public: Configurations of Women's Bodies in Nineteenth- Century America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004. 278 pp.

by Lisa Cochran Higgins

For years, feminist scholars viewed nineteenth- century women in terms of binary categories like public/private or victim/agent. Alison Piepmeier's ambitious book contributes to the growing scholarship that calls for a re-examination of the nineteenth century through a more complex lens. Applying poststructuralist body theory and historical analysis, Piepmeier discusses the ways the female body was constructed in the writing and speeches of five significant nineteenth-century American women. Based on her dissertation, this is Piepmeier's first book; she was also a co-editor of Catching a Wave: Reclaiming Feminism for the Twenty- first Century (2003).