Women's Studies on the Edge engages with the state of Women's Studies as a discipline in the early twenty-first century. In her introduction to the collection, editor Joan Wallach Scott argues that during the 1990s "feminism began to lose its critical edge," due to both internal and external pressures on institutionalized Women's and Feminist Studies programs (6). This collection of writings attempts to restore this edge, both through its vision of feminism "not as a set of prescriptions but as a critical stance" (6) and by asking incisive questions about the current shape – and even the necessity – of the discipline.

The first iteration of Women's Studies on the Edge was published as a special issue of the journal differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies in 1997. Some of the original essays have been retained, and remain relevant challenges to the discipline, both as it was a decade ago and as it develops today. The new essays respond and add contemporary voices to the debates, a feature that makes the collection read as a highly engaging conversation among feminist critics.

The essays in the collection are divided into three sections. Part One, "Over the Edge," provides an assessment of the impact of Women's Studies programs. Wendy Brown's provocative essay, "The Impossibility of Women's Studies" (1997), asks if Women's Studies has outlived its time and value, and suggests that "the desire [of the discipline] to persist over time has resulted in a certain conservatism" (23). The tough questions Brown asks of the discipline remain as relevant as ever, and are contextualized by Robyn Wiegman in the second essay of the section, "Feminism, Institutionalism, and the Idiom of Failure." In her chapter, Wiegman argues that despite the varied perspectives on what Women's Studies 'is,' the institutionalization of the program is frequently equated with failure. Wiegman takes exception to Brown's assertion that refiguring Women's Studies without gender at its core would cease to be 'Women's Studies,' arguing instead that "it is only under the auspices of women's studies that feminism can emerge as a legitimate object of study embroiled in rethinking and remaking identity as a critical category of inquiry" (59).

Part Two, "Edged Out," addresses subject positions that have been excluded by the unmarked category "woman." The essays in this section are all particularly strong contributions towards more complex and nuanced understandings of how identities are brought into being through relations of power. In "Teaching and Research in Unavailable Intersections," Afsaneh Najmabadi addresses the inadequacy of identity categories, arguing that the process of multiplication and hybridization of categories compounds rather than solves the problem, with the addition of more adjectives as markers of 'authenticity.' Saba Mahmood examines the emerging genre of auto-biographical Muslim women's accounts of abuse following the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, and their mobilization as a tool for bolstering support for imperialist incursions into the Middle East, ultimately arguing that "perhaps a dialogue across political and religious differences – even incommensurable ones – can yield a vision of coexistence that does not require making certain life worlds extinct or provisional" (108). The final essay of this section, Gayle Salamon's "Transfeminism and the Future of Gender," makes a case for the alignment of Women's Studies with Transgender Studies. Women's Studies, Salamon argues, needs Transgender Studies because it challenges feminism to keep pace with non-normative genders as they are currently embodied and lived; likewise, Transgender Studies needs Women's Studies, because of its theorizations both of gender as a historical category and of the ways in which power figures and disfigures bodies.

The final section, "Edging In," claims to reaffirm the continued importance of Women's Studies, from Ellen Rooney's discussion of Women's Studies as a critique of disciplinary knowledge, to Evelynn Hammonds interview with Beverly Guy-Sheftall on the importance of Black Women's Studies, and to Biddy Martin's argument that, although feminist studies must work to revitalize and re-envision the curriculum, the work of Women's Studies – and feminism – is far from over. Despite the professed optimism of this final section, to this reader the collection seems to conclude on a somewhat fatalistic note. Indeed, while each of these chapters offers a perceptive, nuanced discussion of the value of discipline, it is disappointing that there are no recently written articles in this section.

The 'edge' of Women's Studies on the Edge is a space of indeterminacy and precariousness, but it is also an exciting space that evokes being on the verge of new discoveries and disruptions. Given the further intensified pressures on the discipline of Women's Studies in the current economic climate, the publication of this collection is timely and valuable. Overall, this collection suggests that the current challenges faced by Women's Studies should be viewed as opportunities for reinvention and innovation, rather than as a time for contraction into the perceived safe space of 'the known.' With its combination of landmark and new contributions, Women's Studies on the Edge will be a valuable addition to the library of any feminist scholar.

Elizabeth Groeneveld, University of Guelph