A List
1/30/06

SLU PROF AUTHOR OF TWO BOOKS ON EXOTIC DANCE

CANTON - Two new books by St. Lawrence University Assistant Professor of Sociology R. Danielle Egan explore a shadowy topic in the world of "adult entertainment": exotic dance.

Dancing for Dollars and Paying for Love: The Relationships Between Exotic Dancers and Their Regulars, by Egan, was published in January by Palgrave Macmillan. The publishers state, "This book takes an in-depth look at the relationships exotic dancers have with their regular customers, and explores the limits of using feminist theory to discuss sex work. Incorporating interviews, personal accounts and field notes, Egan sheds light on the feminist debates on sex work and women's power. She focuses in on the dynamics of desire and fantasy in exotic dance clubs to illustrate the complexity of gendered relations in everyday life. This is an accessible, revealing and new look at a perennially intriguing and divisive subject."

Egan is also one of three editors of a book of essays, Flesh For Fantasy: Producing and Consuming Exotic Dance, published in January by Thunder's Mouth Press. Its publishers state that the book "moves beyond the old debates and gives the reader a glimpse of what exotic dancing is like through the eyes of the stripper. The essays in Flesh For Fantasy cover everything from workplace policies and conditions, legal restrictions, customer behavior, and the struggle to overcome the stereotypes associated with the profession."

Flesh For Fantasy is edited by Katherine Frank and Lisa Johnson, with Egan.

A faculty member at St. Lawrence since 2000, Egan is a graduate of Goucher College and earned the Ph.D. at Boston College. She has published work in Critical Sociology; Body and Society; Deviant Behavior; and The Journal of Psychoanalysis, Society and Culture. In addition to her work on exotic dance, she has written on post- 9/11 rhetoric, pedagogy and popular culture. Egan received the Louis and Frances Maslow Award at St. Lawrence in 2005; it annually goes to the faculty member who has shown "the most interest in and understanding of the education and welfare of the student body as a whole."

The Friends of Owen D. Young and Launders Libraries at St. Lawrence will host a reception celebrating the publication of Egan's books on Friday, March 3, at 4 p.m. in the Josephine Young Room of Owen D. Young Library on campus. It is open to the public; Egan will speak about the works at the event.

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