From Freeman: On Optimism

  Dear Kristen,

         It is midnight, so this will be a brief answer.

          Frank and Elena and I have the advantage of having grown up in
the 1930s. If you grew up in the 1930s it is glaringly obvious that the world is
better now than it was then, and you cannot help being an optimist.   The
troubles of today are real, but nothing like as pervasive and threatening
as the troubles of the 1930s.   We should give humanity credit for some
amazing achievements in the last eighty years, conversion of Japan and
Germany from militaristic to pacifistic cultures, liberation of Africa and
Asia from colonial rule, drastic reduction of birthrates and improvement
of agriculture leading to better nutrition and public health for the
majority of people,  rise of India and China from abject poverty to wealth
and prosperity, increase of freedom and respect for law in much of the world.     The
disasters and failures that loom so large in your view of the world today
are quite small when you compare them with the injustices and miseries of
the past.

   Good night and happy dreams,  yours ever,  Freeman.

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New Review of Second World, Second Sex

“Drawing upon sources amassed on three continents, [Second World, Second Sex] also provides a template for navigating transnational history and studying women in marginalized parts of the world. Interrogating why the activities of women in countries with strong states promoting gender equality should be deemed inauthentic vis-à-vis those in democracies that perpetuate patriarchal norms, alongside rendering the Cold War as a battle between not just capitalism and communism but also competing visions of feminism, Second World, Second Sex is essential reading for anyone in any field interested in women’s activism in the twentieth century.”
— - Christine Varga-Harris in Slavic Review, Winter 2019

A lovely interview in German with Celia Parbey for Edition F (auf Deutsch) →

Die Professorin Kristen R. Ghodsee erregte im vergangenen Jahr Aufsehen mit einem neuen Buch. Es heißt „Warum Frauen im Sozialismus besseren Sex haben und andere Argumente für ökonomische Unabhängigkeit”, und darin schlüsselt sie auf, warum das Konzept des Kapitalismus dazu gemacht ist, Frauen zu unterdrücken. Wir haben uns mit ihr unterhalten.

A thoughtful quote from George Packer's acceptance speech

“[I]f writers are afraid of the sound of their own voice, then honest, clear, original work is not going to flourish, and without it, the politicians and tech moguls and TV demagogues have less to worry about. It doesn’t matter if you hold impeccable views, or which side of the political divide you’re on: Fear breeds self-censorship, and self-censorship is more insidious than the state-imposed kind, because it’s a surer way of killing the impulse to think, which requires an unfettered mind. A writer can still write while hiding from the thought police. But a writer who carries the thought police around in his head, who always feels compelled to ask: Can I say this? Do I have a right? Is my terminology correct? Will my allies get angry? Will it help my enemies? Could it get me ratioed on Twitter?—that writer’s words will soon become lifeless. A writer who’s afraid to tell people what they don’t want to hear has chosen the wrong trade.”
— George Packer