The first blurb for Red Valkyries is in! →
I am so grateful to Jodi Dean for her kind and wonderful words!
My visit to the Belgrade book museum →
Yesterday, on my hunt for information about Yugoslav typewriters, I found myself at ADLIGAT, the Society for Culture, Art and International Cooperation in Belgrade. This place is a bibliophile’s dreamland; they have over one million books and various exhibits and displays about book cultures from around the globe. They also have an impressive number of typewriters on display, many which belonged to famous writers, including the wonderful UNIS tbm de Luxe, which was manufactured in Bugojno from 1971 to 1991 under a German license and was exported with 92 different keyboards to nations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. I’m told they have more than 100 machines in storage, and I am lobbying for a special typewriter room! Below are some photos from my visit, but they simply cannot do justice to the magical nature of the place. Visit if you can!
New subtitle for Red Valkyries
The Verso marketing folks have weighed in and changed my subtitle. One thing about trade publishing (or crossover publishing) is how much less control the author has on things like titles and subtitles. But this was a good compromise and I think it still captures the spirit of the book. Here’s also the new descriptive copy:
The overlooked revolutionary women of Eastern Europe and their contribution to socialist feminist history, from the author of Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism.
Through a series of lively and accessible biographical essays, Red Valkyries explores the history of socialist feminism by examining the revolutionary careers of five prominent socialist women active in the 19th and 20th centuries.
• Alexandra Kollontai, the aristocratic Bolshevik
• Nadezhda Krupskaya, the radical pedagogue
• Inessa Armand, the polyamorous firebrand
• Lyudmila Pavlichenko, the deadly sniper
• Elena Lagadinova, the partisan turned scientist turned global women's rights activist
None of these women were “perfect” leftists. Their lives were filled with inner conflicts, contradictions, and sometimes outrageous privilege, but they still managed to move forward their own political projects through perseverance and dedication to their cause.
Always walking a fine line between the need for class solidarity and the desire to force their sometimes callous male colleagues to take women’s issues seriously, these five women fought for social change with important lessons for feminist activists today.
In brief conversational chapters Ghodsee tells the story of the personal challenges faced by earlier generations of socialist and communist women and renders the big ideas of socialist feminism accessible to those newly inspired by the emancipatory politics of left feminist movements around the globe.
An amazing venue in Second Life
I am so pleased with the avatar and the venue built for me by Ruby (Ana Victoria Valladares Rubi) who did most of the creative work on this amazing virtual space. We have not one, but two, of Talin’s Towers to welcome you into the venue. It’s at noon (New York Time) at the Second Life Book Club. Also thanks to Draxtor (Bernhard Drax) for organizing it all.
Cover mock ups for the next book
I love them all. Can my book have all three covers?
A nice review in the weirdest of places... →
I honestly have to admit that I never in my life thought anything I wrote (or even co-wrote) would receive a positive review in The American Conservative : Helen Andrews, “Making Sense Of Red Nostalgia” July 13, 2021
Andrews clearly understood the message the of the book and appreciated our critique of the Clinton policies of the 1990s. About the only point where I disagree with is her is her characterization that this is somehow my book. It was fully co-authored with my wonderful colleague at Penn, Mitchell A. Orenstein, with the invaluable help of our research assistant, Nicholas Emery, who is now a Ph.D. student in Political Science at UCLA.
The physical copies have arrived!
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.
The final book cover for Taking Stock of Shock
This is the final proof of the front and back of the book!
The blurbs for Taking Stock of Shock
So pleased to have these great blurbs for my forthcoming co-authored book with Oxford University Press
The E-book is $2.99 in April
Another sale on the e-book for Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism! $2.99 for the month of April wherever you get your e-books.
Spring reading: Gender, Generations, and Communism
I am so happy I get to write “Spring Reading” since we are officially in the spring of 2021. This was an interesting edited collection with a wide variety of perspectives on the historical memory of communism in Eastern Europe.
Goodreads giveaway!
Win a paperback copy of Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism for International Women’s Day!
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I guess the book buyers on Amazon have put me in pretty good company…
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.
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
The Bulgarian translation of Second World, Second Sex arrived in the post today
It looks so nice! I am so grateful to the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, ROI Books, and Iztok-Zapad books for publishing this translation.
New Review about Second World, Second Sex in Bulgaria's Kapital Weekly →
50 нюанса феминизъм
"Вторият свят, вторият пол" на Кристен Годси излезе на български
A new article about the French translation of Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism →
Thanks to Pablo Maillé for writing up this nice overview of my book for the French launch.
My new review in Jewish Currents →
“Blueprint for Feminism,” Jewish Currents, October 14, 2020