A little over a month ago Oxford held an “Andrea Dworkin Commemorative Conference.” The program included:
Prof. Sheila Jeffreys, University of Melbourne:
“Not just about pornography: the radical politics of Andrea Dworkin”Prof. Alison Assiter, University of the West of England and author, Enlightened Women: “Pornography: its significance for feminism”
Finn Mackay, Chair of London Feminist Network: “Prostitution and Andrea Dworkin’s relevance to young feminists”
Professor Valerie Bryson, University of Huddersfield: “Andrea Dworkin, feminist political thought and the role of men”
Michael Moorcock, author Between the Wars: “Andrea: A Tribute” (read by Dr Ben Jackson)
Julie Bindel, journalist, founder of Justice for Women and co-editor, The Map of my Life: the story of Emma Humphreys: “Myths about Andrea Dworkin”
John Stoltenberg, author, The End of Manhood: “What Andrea knew about her work”
Professor Catharine MacKinnon, University of Michigan (Plenary Address)
The talks that were given at the Conference (plus the Q&A that followed) can be listed to here.
In addition, a number of feminist bloggers have posted transcripts of the talks, which they transcribed themselves. I don’t know enough about the domestic copyright laws of the U.K. to weigh in about the legality of this, but by gosh the morality seems evident enough. Here are the transcripts available so far:
Finn Mackay’s talk at Laurelin in the Rain.
Alison Assiter’s talk at Witchy-woo.
Sheila Jeffreys’ talk at Another Radical Feminist.
John Stoltenberg’s talk at Another Radical Feminist.
Catharine MacKinnon’s talk at Another Radical Feminist. A transcript of the Q&A that followed is available here.
–Ann Bartow
[...] This is also a good place to direct interested readers to this post, which provides links to recordings and transcripts from the recent Andrea Dworkin Commemorative Conference. [...]
[...] If you want to read another defense of Caitlin Flanagan and her dumbass book, at a website Peggy Noonan apparenly calls “the best magazine in America,” no less, click here. The essay is called “The Mommy-Wars Insurgency” and in it author Kay S. Hymowitz uses language like “insurgency” and “quagmire” and “feminist warrriors” to make it sound like Flangan’s writings are some kind of important battleground in the purported “mommy wars.” Hymowitz says feminists are too humorless to understand that the mean parts of the book are actually comedy, and Flangan is only joking! Oh and also the book’s true subject is love! Unlike feminists, Flanagan loves her spouse and children! Oh lighten up, she’s just kidding. Or something. The essay is ramblingly inconsistent and makes a lot of unsupported generalizations about how “women are” just as Flanagan does. It ends with these sentences: What this talented writer reminds us of are two simple truths that are apostasy to the fundamentalists and, sadly, lost to many young women who never saw them in action: that when working properly, satisfying domestic life can embody a mother’s love for her children, the most powerful love there is; and that no matter how women choose to live, this love will forever be entangled with self-sacrifice. [...]