All She Wrote x Sarah Schulman: THE FANTASY AND NECESSITY OF SOLIDARITY
When:
Friday, Jun 20, 2025 7:30p -
9:00p
Friday, Jun 20, 2025 7:30p -
9:00p
Where:
Connexion
149 Broadway
Somerville, MA 02145
Admission:
$7
Hosted by:
Categories:
Good for Groups, LGBTQ+, Meetup, Rainy Day Ideas
Event website:
https://www.allshewrotebooks.com/events-1/all-she-wrote-x-sarah-schulman
Join All She Wrote Books at on Friday, June 20th at 7:30pm, as we host Sarah Schulman and Joan Ilacqua! They will discuss Schulman's new book, The Fantasy And Necessity Of Solidarity, a brilliant examination of the inherent psychological and social challenges to solidarity movements and what that means for the future.
"Inclusivity" isn't just a buzzword to us. We make every effort to ensure our space and events are accessible to and for everyone. If you or someone in your party needs accommodations, please email us at [email protected].
About The Fantasy And Necessity Of Solidarity
For those who seek to combat injustice, solidarity with the oppressed is one of the highest ideals, yet it does not come without complication. In this searing yet uplifting book, award-winning writer and cultural critic Sarah Schulman delves into the intricate and often misunderstood concept of solidarity to provide a new vision for what it means to engage in this work—and why it matters.
To grapple with solidarity, Schulman writes, we must recognize its inherent fantasies. Those being oppressed dream of relief, that a bystander will intervene though it may not seem to be in their immediate interest to do so, and that the oppressor will be called out and punished. Those standing in solidarity with the oppressed are occluded by a different fantasy: that their intervention is effective, that it will not cost them, and that they will be rewarded with friendship and thanks. Neither is always the case, and yet in order to realize our full potential as human beings in relation with others, we must continue to pursue action towards these shared goals.
Within this framework, Schulman examines a range of case studies, from the fight for abortion rights in post-Franco Spain, to NYC’s AIDS activism in the 1990s, to the current wave of campus protest movements against Israel’s war on Gaza, and her own experience growing up as a queer female artist in male dominated culture industries. Drawing parallels between queer, Palestinian, feminist, and artistic struggles for justice, Schulman challenges the traditional notion of solidarity as a simple union of equals, arguing that in today's world of globalized power structures, true solidarity requires the collaboration of bystanders and conflicted perpetrators with the excluded and oppressed. That action comes at a cost, and is not always effective. And yet without it we sentence ourselves to a world without progressive change towards visions of liberation.
By turns challenging, inspiring, pragmatic, and poetic, The Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity provides a much-needed path for how we can work together to create a more just, more equitable present and future.
About the Author
Sarah Schulman (she/her) is a novelist, playwright, screenwriter, nonfiction writer, and AIDS historian. Her books include Gentrification of the Mind, Conflict Is Not Abuse, and Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP, New York 1987–1993 and the novels The Cosmopolitans and Maggie Terry. Schulman’s honors include a Fulbright in Judaic Studies, a Guggenheim in Playwriting, and honors from Lambda Literary, the Publishing Triangle, NLGJA, the American Library Association, and others. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, New York, Harper’s Magazine, The Atlantic, The Nation, The New Republic, The New York Times, and The Guardian. Schulman holds an endowed chair in creative writing at Northwestern University and is on the advisory board of Jewish Voice for Peace.
About the Speaker
Joan Ilacqua (she/her) is the Executive Director of The History Project, Boston's queer community archives. She's dedicated her career to centering marginalized community histories through collecting oral history interviews, preserving archival records, and sharing queer stories. Joan serves on the Boston Commemoration Commission and the Community Archives Collaborative Steering Committee. She earned her master’s degree in Public History from UMass Boston and her BA in History and Sculpture from the University of Puget Sound. In her spare time, Joan loves crafting, reading queer romance novels, and spending time with her wife and their cats.
