Jessa Crispin has made her name as a contrarian.
Founder of the uncompromising review blog Bookslut and editor of literary magazine Spoila, she’s railed against comfortable consensus in American publishing, burning bridges and throwing grenades at holy grails. Crispin fights on the side of literary ambition, experimentation, rigour and intellectual independence.
Her new book, by its very name, is a provocation. It’s called Why I Am Not a Feminist and it’s a spiky, scholarly critique of the compromises inherent in American feminism today. Crispin reveres unfashionable, radical Second Wave feminist writers and believes contemporary mainstream feminism has sold women out for something banal, corporate, unimaginative and exclusive. Why I Am Not a Feminist imagines a new kind of feminism and calls for upheaval.
Join this razor-sharp polemicist, in conversation with Celeste Liddle, for a fresh, ferocious take on contemporary feminism and cultural criticism.
Featuring
Jessa Crispin
Jessa Crispin is a non-fiction writer and editor with a strong interest in history, art, women's issues and psychogeography. She is the founder and editor of literary review publication Bookslut and, since 2013, its sister publication Spolia.
Her books include The Dead Ladies Project, The Creative Tarot and Why I Am Not a Feminist: A Feminist Manifesto. Her essays have been published in titles such as Boston Review, New York Times, B&N Review and Smart Set.
In her roles as editor, she promotes the work of women writers and provides a forum for international writers in America. In her own writing, she blends together the personal and the societal, the contemporary and the historical, to explore complicated issues in an inviting way.
Celeste Liddle
Celeste Liddle is an Arrernte woman (traditional owner in Central Australia) who was born in Canberra and has been living in Melbourne since she was a teenager. She is a trade unionist, an activist, a feminist, a social commentator and an opinion writer. In May 2021, she was announced as the preselected Greens candidate for the seat of Cooper in the upcoming Federal Election.
Celeste currently has a column with Eureka Street but has additionally been published by Fairfax, Newscorp, ABC, SBS, and many independent publications. In addition to this, Celeste has contributed to a number of anthologies of note including Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia and Mothers and Others.
She completed a Bachelor of Arts with Honours in Theatre and Drama at La Trobe University in 2002, a Graduate Diploma in Arts (primarily Political Sciences) at the University of Melbourne in 2012 and a Masters of Communications and Media Studies at Monash in 2020.