03 May Some history toward a syllabus, Wombs; Femicide Defined
Posted at 17:06h
in Wombs; Femicide Defined
“‘Non piangere.’ Don’t cry. Who is talking to whom?
It is the stricken author talking to herself, telling herself to be brave.”
―Susan Sontag in “A Double Destiny: Artemisia Gentileschi and Anna Banti,” London Review of Books, September 2003
Deon Haywood and Women with A Vision
“Breast exam models were gathered, carefully stacked and set on fire, as were models of uteruses, ovaries and the female reproductive system. Reproductive health displays and informational posters about HIV in African-American communities were torched. Closets filled with community resources, from toiletries to clothes to pamphlets, were charred.” —Women with a Vision in The Born in Flames Living Archive, quoting Alex Woodward, “Women With a Vision Cope With Arson,” New Orleans Times Picayune, July 6, 2012
Elena Kostyuchenko and female Russian journalists
“On April 2, at a journalism conference, I was approached by Insider editor-in-chief Roman Dobrokhotov. He took me aside. ‘Lena, I have a personal question. But first I need to tell you something. Christo Grozev from Bellingcat and I have been investigating a series of poisonings in Europe. All the known targets are female Russian journalists. I want to ask you. You haven’t written anything for a long time—is it because you’ve been sick?’ And I told him what I am telling you now.” ―Elena Kostyuchenko in “How They Tried to Kill Me,” n+1, August 15, 2023
Masih Alinejad
“You have tried to kill me three times. I have seen my would be assassin with my own eyes in front of my garden in my home in Brooklyn. In United States of America, in the courthouse, I have seen my would be assassin confessing that they have been hired by the Revolutionary Guards to end my life. My crime? Simply echoing the voice of innocent people that you killed them.” ―Masih Alinejad in Associated Press recording of United Nations Security Council meeting, Jan 15, 2026
“It is true that storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it,
that it brings about consent and reconciliation with things as they really are,
and that we may even trust it to contain eventually by implication
that last word which we expect from the Day of Judgment.”
―Hannah Arendt in “Isak Dinesen: 1885–1963,” Men in Dark Times, 1968
“When the storyteller is loyal to the story, there, in the end, silence will speak.
Where the story has been betrayed, silence is but emptiness.”
Daguerreotypes and Other Essays, 1951
Yoko Ono, Excerpts from Cut Piece, 1964 (performed 1965, Carnegie Hall, New York and 2003, Theatre Le Ranelagh, Paris) in Stanford University recording of “Yoko Ono: The Stanford Lecture 2009 – Part 3/4: Five Films and Chair Piece,” January 14, 2009, 00:08:11 to 00:12:20
Poster for Yoko Ono’s Cut Piece, Sogetsu Kaikan Hall, Tokyo (1964)