Free Stickers! Celebrating the Two Year Anniversary of the Alexandra Kollontai Podcast

January 2021 will be the two year anniversary of the A.K. 47 podcast. To honor this anniversary, my daughter designed the nice three-inch matte stickers seen below.

She explained to me that podcasts are recommended by the algorithms based on the number of reviews they have. She thought it would be a good idea to encourage listeners to review the podcast in places like Apple Podcasts and Podcast Addict in order to increase its future visibility.

So if you leave a review, you can send a screenshot of that review and your mailing address to this email address: Alexandra.Kollontai.Podcast@gmail.com.

We will send one of each of the four stickers below to the first 200 listeners who send in their reviews. International listeners are also welcome to submit reviews, and will we do our best to get the stickers out to you in a timely fashion (considering the inevitable postal delays).

Let’s Celebrate Alexandra Kollontai and Keep up the good fight!

Dyson Obituary reprinted in India's The Wire →

Nice to see that this one is making its way around the world

Cheerful holiday reading

Nothing like a little Fourier and Kropotkin to get the holiday season off to the right start.

My obituary for Freeman Dyson →

Today would have been Dyson’s birthday, and I miss him so much. My reflections are here.

New Book (sort of): On Listening as a Form of Care →

I did an event with the Princeton anthropologist João Biehl back in April 2018. We talked about ethics, empathy, and the ethnographic method. Our conversation has been transcribed and edited and released as a new e-book. It also includes a wonderful conversation with Lisa Stevenson.

It is available as a Kindle Book and as an Apple Book and as a Nook book. I hear that print copies can also be found on the Slought Foundation website, but I have not actually seen any of them yet.

New review of Second World, Second Sex →

Thanks to Renata Jambrešić Kirin for such a thorough engagement with the book!

Winter reading: Woman on the Edge of Time

So, I actually didn’t like this novel all that much, especially the ending, but I did enjoy the utopian world building.

New review in Hindu Business Line →

Politics and the sexual lives of women

Daisy's New Holiday Sweater

Cozy on a cold December day.

Daisy investigates a bottle of this year's Beaujolais Nouveau

We were a little late in venturing out to get it this year, but we finally donned our masks and braved the wilds of the Pennsylvania COVID-19 landscape to secure some of this yummy Gamay.

And the Indonesian translation has launched! →

Now available online here

The new Indonesian cover of Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism

I absolutely LOVE this cover! Mengapa Perempuan Bercinta Lebih Baik Di Bawah Sosialisme

Grammar humor

Okay. I am a dork. I find this very funny.

In my family, Thanksgiving isn't complete without the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

It was sad to see the bare streets of New York City this year, but I’m happy that I got my dose of shameless commercialism anyway. One of the first clear memories in my life was being 3 or 4 years-old and my mother taking me to the parade in person. Looking up at those giant balloons and seeing Santa Claus “for real” was absolutely magical. It’s a goofy thing, but I’m glad they did it this year even if it wasn’t really much of a parade. And I adored the dancing Pikachus.

Part III: Arc of a Scythe Trilogy - The Toll by Neal Shusterman

Okay, no more YA fiction for me. I stayed up until 2:00am finishing this book last night and now I am utterly exhausted! But what a fun ride.

Part II of the Arc of a Scythe Trilogy: Thunderhead

So fun to read a book with a plot!

New Interview in Belgium's Le Soir →

Fun to have this interview in the weekend magazine of Le Soir, one of the most popular Francophone newspapers in Belgium.

Loving Scythe by Neal Shusterman

So I don’t read novels all that often, and I almost never read YA, but my daughter has been on me for years to read this book and I loved it. The AI in this world is benevolent and it is such a nice change from all of the YA dystopias out there. I am really pleased that she kept pestering me about this.

New Podcast with the Amazing Anthropologist Katherine Verdery →

I really enjoyed this conversation with one of my academic heroes.

And the Thai translation is out! →

Thanks to Sam Yan Press for this Thai translation of Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism: And Other Arguments for Economic Independence.