“The New York Public Library is propelling classic literature to the forefront of technology with a series of Insta Novels — stories on Instagram intended to reach to a larger audience, especially young readers.”
Tag: Feminism
The Feminist Dystopia Rises
“A spate of women-authored speculative fiction imagines detailed worlds of widespread infertility, criminalized abortion, and flipped power dynamics”
Amy Taubin on The Silence of the Lambs and Twin Peaks
“[Jonathan] Demme’s dive into the deviant undercurrents of America at the end of the Reagan-Bush era gripped audiences who had been primed by another auteur’s breaking of the barriers between art and exploitation. Moody and visceral as no prime-time series had ever been before, David Lynch’s Twin Peaks (1990–91) was a twisted tale founded on the naked corpse of a teenage girl—Laura Palmer. A quarter of a century later, viewers who had been bingeing on the original Twin Peaks as it was released on various digital platforms along with its prequel, the theatrical feature Fire Walk with Me (1992), avidly consumed Twin Peaks: The Return during its eighteen-episode run on Showtime, finding themselves trapped in a wormhole, also known as the Lynchian unconscious, where the homicidal law of the father is forever unchecked and unchanged. The return of Twin Peaks roughly coincided with the appearance of a new restoration of The Silence of the Lambs in theaters, and now in this release. This dialectician of gender in popular culture relishes the timing. […] One major thing that distinguishes Demme’s film from Twin Peaks—and from the vast majority of serial-killer investigative dramas, including those of another contemporary auteur, David Fincher—is the fact that his hero is a woman. “
International Women’s Day 2018
Today marks International Women’s Day, which has commemorated the struggle for women’s civil rights throughout the twentieth century. The day was originally known as International Working Women’s Day, and for most of its history has been connected with socialist movements and communist states such as China and Soviet Russia. In the mid-1970s, during the height of Second Wave Feminism, the UN recognised International Women’s Day and invited its member states to do the same.
Reads for IWD 2018
- Object Women: A History of Women in Photography: A new digital project exploring the representation of women in photography launched on Instagram today
- The Influence of Taoism in the Writing of Ursula K. Le Guin: Tracing religious and philosophical influences in the work of the American SF/Fantasy author
- Margaret Atwood: “Science fiction is really about now”
- Kim Rae Taylor on the Women of Modernism
- Tove Jansson Retrospective at Dulwich Picture Gallery
- Celebrating the Life and Work of Photographer Robin Holland, 1957-2018
- Carson McCullers’s Last Visit to Ireland
- Zadie Smith Answers Questions from Fans: “Zadie Smith has been a vital literary voice since her first novel, White Teeth, became an instant bestseller. [In The Observer,] she answers questions from famous fans, including Teju Cole, Philip Pullman and Sharmaine Lovegrove, and a selection of our readers”
- Virginia Woolf’s Personal Photo Album: Now freely available to browse online
- Celebrating the Rise of Superwomen: Carolyn Cocca discusses how women superheroes are changing the we way think about contemporary femininity
- A Visit to Doll Hospital: Bethany Rose Lamont on a print journal that discusses mental health issues through art and literature
- Lauren Elkin on her book, Flâneuse: Lauren Elkin on the politics of women walking in the city, and the pioneering writers who influenced her
- Alice Munro: Master of the Contemporary Short Story: Robert Thacker discusses the life and work of the Canadian Nobel laureate
- Women Writers at the Movies: Lisa Stead discusses the influence of cinema on a generation of interwar women writers
- International Women’s Day 2017: Celebrate International Women’s Day with a host of interviews and articles across literature, film, and art
Margaret Atwood: “Science fiction is really about now”
“The TV adaptation of her dystopian classic The Handmaid’s Tale captured the political moment. Ahead of a new series, Atwood talks bestsellers, bonnets and the backlash against her views on #MeToo” — The Guardian
Artist and Feminist Kim Rae Taylor on the Women of Modernism

Jade French talks to artist, educator, and feminist Kim Rae Taylor about The Modernism Project, a series of painted portraits documenting some of the leading women of twentieth-century modernism. When asked what prompted the work, Taylor responded:
“My primary area of interest is the modernist period, and about three years ago I began to take notice of just how many women lived long lives, beyond the designated period of twentieth century Modernism. I wanted to learn more about the work from their later years and this became something of a visual quest because I was just so curious to see how they looked as elderly women. Once I had a running file of images, I started making these loose pencil sketches, but then a 1967 photo of Peggy Guggenheim, by photographer Ron Galella, really grabbed my attention. I was intrigued by the confrontational way she stared into the camera’s lens, without her usual oversized sunglasses, and I loved this idea that she was reversing the gaze. It felt powerful to me in an unexpected way.”
— Medium
Women in Trousers: A Visual Archive 1850-1960
“Women in Trousers: A Visual Archive, offers a gallery of images from 1850-1960 that together tells part of the story of women in trousers as a history of women’s social, political and cultural protest and change. From Joan of Arc to George Sand, Mary Edwards Walker to Marlene Dietrich and Colette to Coco Chanel, trouser-wearing women have been associated with transgressive acts of protest and play. Linked with periods of social and political upheaval, women’s liberation, radical thought, aesthetic innovation and erotic freedom, trouser-wearing women have historically represented an illegitimate assumption of male authority and power – of ‘wearing the trousers’ – that destabilises fixed notions of sexual difference and threatens the very fabric of the social order.”
Visit the Eventbrite page to book your free ticket.
Julianne Moore to Play Gloria Steinem in Upcoming Biopic
“Julie Taymor’s upcoming adaptation of Gloria Steinem’s memoir has found a leading lady. My Life on the Road — which already seemed too good to be true — just got even better. Julianne Moore has signed on to portray the iconic feminist in the June Pictures project. Deadline broke the news.
Described as a coming-of-age story chronicling Steinem’s ‘growth from a reluctant spokesperson of a movement, into a galvanizing symbol for equality, with a focus on the encounters along the road that helped shape her,’ the film is being penned by Tony-nominated playwright Sarah Ruhl.”
— Laura Berger, Women and Hollywood
Could “Slow Philosophy” Offer An Antidote to Modern Academia?

Could you tell me a little bit about yourself, and what inspired you to write Slow Philosophy?
I’m a philosopher who works in the European tradition. I have a background in political theory and an ongoing commitment to feminist politics. I’ve been teaching for some years now, and this has provided me with the opportunity to re-read key texts with my students.
For example, I’ve read Plato’s Symposium and Phaedrus countless times with both undergraduate and graduate students. The joy of re-reading is what first alerted me to the power of slow reading because for me slow philosophy is partly about the quality of attention that comes through repeated engagements with a work or text. Each time I’d return to Plato’s dialogues I’d uncover new possibilities – new meanings that were possible partly because of the new frames I was bringing to his work. (more…)
Woolf: A Guide for the Perplexed
A new title from Bloomsbury.