Feministing Reads: What We’re Reading

Here’s what the Feministing crew is reading (and, I promise, I didn’t pay them to say they’re reading my book): 

Dana: I just finished Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time and Jennifer Doyle’s Campus Sex; Campus Security, the latter of which smartly connects campus rape and campus policing through a critique of the construction of the (corporatized) university as Safe Place, in which the rape victim becomes “the engine of administrative trouble[:] risk itself.” I’m in the middle of Eula Biss’s On Immunity: An Inoculation, and (duh) I’m (re)-reading Alexandra’s The Feminist Utopia Project. (Everyone, go buy it!)

Jos: Sarah Schulman’s Stagestruck begins with the strange experience of seeing a watered down version of her own work in Rent. Schulman uses this experience of having her own work taken and twisted to argue that a depoliticized, unthreatening version of homosexuality has been produced and sold back to us through works like Rent. I’ve found this argument invaluable when thinking about “the trans moment” and who gets to tell what stories about us. And a couple short stories: Morgan Page’s “At Land” is creepy and gross and sad and wonderful. You should read it. Isz Janeway’s “Coffee Date” is about going on an okcupid date when everyone has intensely negative preconceived notions about you because you‘re an 8-foot-tall tentacle monster. It’s hilarious and adorable and you should read it, too.

Katie B: Sounds Like Me by Sara Bareilles. Sara B tells stories about where she’s been and how she’s gotten to where she is now by exploring a handful of her songs. It’s like listening to my best friend tell me stories about their life I’d never heard before and I get warm fuzzies.

Suzanna: Thanks to Alexandra’s recommendation, I have been held up for weeks reading Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels. It’s made me think so much about love, family, and language (mostly that I wish I could cuss out people as well as Lila does). Also, the whole author-has-a-pen-name thing has really made me reflect how we think about identity, experience, and literature.

Lori: I’m of course also reading The Feminist Utopia Project and am absolutely loving reading everyone’s entries, including many from members of the Feministing family. I just finished Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh, which was very visceral and odd, and which I liked. Next up, I’m excited to dig into Mary Gaitskill’s new novel The Mare.

Alexandra: I’ve been trying to finish The Story of the Lost Daughter between the mounds of federal jurisdiction reading I need to do by the end of the semester. I have a good feeling about this weekend! After that, I’m going to turn to Jane: A Murder, Maggie Nelson’s book about her aunt’s murder.