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I made a quick train dash up to Manhattan for the 100th anniversary of the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, which threw a huge party in Astor Hall of the New York Public Library. I won my fellowship in 2012, which seems like a million years ago. It funded my trip to Zambia and the work that I did for the book Second World, Second Sex.
Courtesy of the Philomathean Society at the University of Pennsylvania
It was such a pleasure to have this conversation with Zachary Karabell and Emma Varvaloucas of The Progress Network. We discussed everything from the history of bipedalism to the differing strategies of individualist versus communal preppers.
I lived a dream yesterday and had a lovely hour speaking with one of my literary and feminist heroes.
Listen to my interview with Mina Kim and William Paris on KQED’s The Forum.
So, I have finally taken the plunge and joined Instagram. I resisted this decision for many years because I just feel like the whole enterprise is manipulative and dangerous and I hate being a product. I also despise Meta as a company. Many moons ago I once had a Tumblr account, but I completely deleted it at some point and lost all of my followers. I have a TikTok account started for me by a former student, but I have no idea how to use that platform.
An editor once said to me that if I wanted to reach young people with my writing, I had to meet them where they are, which is on social media. My daughter is on Instagram and so are many of my students, so I am trying to figure out how to use this whole platform. If you are so inclined, please follow me at @kristenghodsee. You can watch me flail.
“For Albania, Capitalism’s Promise of Freedom Soon Turned Sour,” Jacobin Magazine, November 11, 2021
Nov 8, 2021
KRISTEN GHODSEE, MITCHELL A. ORENSTEIN
The region’s high degree of vaccine skepticism and surging death rates do not reflect the lingering effects of decades of communist rule, but rather the decades-long social consequences of its collapse. Many countries in the region have not yet reversed the profound erosion of public trust that began after 1989.
A new interview about Taking Stock of Shock on the Reimagining Soviet Georgia podcast.
This conversation with Iman Ben Madkhour from September 11, 2021 was just uploaded to YouTube: Kristen Ghodsee at Manifiesta 2021
The actual copies of Taking Stock of Shock arrived in the mail yesterday. Writing is such a weird profession, because of all of the delayed gratification. You can go months or years without having a publication, and then they all start coming out at the same time.
These are the French proofs of my article forthcoming in the July edition of Le Monde Diplomatique in both French and English. I am so excited that it will be featured as the middle two-page spread in both editions.
I was a guest on #FemFriday with Nomiki Konst on her YouTube show. My interview starts at 30:15.
My interview starts at 30:15
I had blast with Jen Pan and Ariella Thornhill on the Jacobin Show last night. Lots of ground covered, but I felt like we could have spoken for five more hours.
Bhaskar Sunkara is the author of The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality (paperback 2020), a history of the economic idea and a realistic vision for its future. Naomi Klein said, “Accessible, irreverent and entertaining, Bhaskar Sunkara has delivered a razor-sharp guide to socialism's history, transformative promise, and path to power.” Sunkara is the founder and editor of Jacobin, a socialist quarterly for a new generation. Noam Chomsky called Jacobin, "a bright light in dark times."
Kristen Ghodsee is the author of Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism: And Other Arguments for Economic Independence (paperback, 2020), an irreverent primer on the benefits of socialism for women. The reviewer for Oprah’s O. Magazine said, “With acumen and wit, [Ghodsee] lays bare the inequities women face under capitalism and the desirability of decoupling ‘love and intimacy from economic considerations.’” An expert on the post-socialist upheavals of contemporary Eastern Europe, Ghodsee is a Professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
I guess the book buyers on Amazon have put me in pretty good company…
Heartfelt gratitude to Rebecca Mead! She really understood what I was trying to do with this book. I couldn’t be more thrilled with this engages and rigorous review.
“The virtue of Ghodsee’s smart, accessible book is that it illustrates how it might be possible for a woman — or, for that matter, a man — to have an entirely different structural relationship to something as fundamental as sex, or health.”
Read the full review here
