Real Feminist Utopias [Radical Book Fair]

In the spirit of this year’s ‘Building a Better Now’ theme, we’re exploring the alternative worlds offered by feminist spaces, existing and resisting underneath dominating stories.

Here to guide us are Juliana Gleeson, historian, comedian and author of, alongside journalist Tahmina Begum, whose book is a love-letter to South Asian Muslim women as well as feminist academic Hemangini Gupta. They’re here to explore what makes feminist spaces utopian, what qualities and challenges run through their blood streams, and the work needed to make them grow and prosper.

Our speakers:

Juliana Gleeson is a writer and salonnière born in west London, living in east Berlin. She is known for adoring the em dash—and one censored newspaper interview. She is the author of Hermaphrodite Logic and the co-editor of Transgender Marxism. Listening Like A Girl is Juliana’s second release with Pluto Press.

Tahmina Begum has worked as a journalist for nearly a decade. Her previous roles include lifestyle writer at HuffPostUK and she has written for British Vogue, The Guardian, I-D, Dazed, Refinery29, Riposte, Glamour, The Independent, Metro, I Paper and gal-dem, covering a wide scope of topics that centre around the lives of Muslim women and women of colour. Between the years of 2012-2020, she ran the independent print and digital publication XXY Magazine, as recommended by Editor-in-Chief of British Vogue, Edward Enninful. Begum has contributed to three books, is the producer of the newsletter The Aram and is a podcaster, chair and public speaker.

Dr Hemangini Gupta is a writer and academic whose first book traced how employees in India’s startup sector build feminist futures amidst technological precarity. She’s a co-editor of the reader Feminist Studies and of Feminists Resisting Gendered Violence, an anthology of over 50 feminists challenging violence through art, activism, scholarship and reimagining justice. The book is just out with Leuven University Press.

Our chair:

Anahit Behrooz is a writer, editor and critic based in Edinburgh. She is the author of BFFs: The Radical Potential of Female Friendship and works as Books Editor and Events Editor at The Skinny. Her writing has appeared in i-D, AnOther Magazine, Little White Lies, and gal-dem among others.

*Events are £5 or free -we completely understand paying for one or two events and then getting free spots for others. The Radical Book Fair is entirely bookshop run and ticket sales are vital to keeping the fair sustainable and paying all our speakers so all support is heartily welcome!

*If you'd like to help make the book fair accessible to more folks, please consider adding to our pay-it-forward fund .

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Assembly Roxy, 2 Roxburgh Place, Edinburgh, United Kingdom

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