Sarah Schulman is a celebrated author and professor whose work critically examines queer history, activism, and social justice. Her writing is marked by incisive social analysis and a powerful voice shaped by her extensive experience as an activist. Schulman delves into how political and societal forces mold individual identities and collective experiences, particularly within the queer community. Her style is direct and provocative, urging readers to confront marginalized narratives and the ongoing struggle for equality.
This insightful exploration delves into the harsh realities of gentrification and its dehumanizing effects on communities. Through a critical lens, the author examines the social and economic implications of urban transformation, making a compelling case for the urgent need to address these issues. The narrative is both thought-provoking and essential, shedding light on the often-overlooked consequences of gentrification that impact lives and neighborhoods.
Set in contemporary New York City, Rat Bohemia is the story of Rita Mae Weems, a woman from Queens who works as a rat exterminator for the Department of Health's Pest Control Division. As she battles the budget cuts for extermination and streetlights, her best friend, Killer, a career plant-waterer, is busy falling in love with the rakish and enigmatic Troy Ruby. And David, a writer who is HIV-positive, struggles to be truthful about the AIDS experience even as his family averts their eyes from his day-to-day efforts to stay alive. Through Rita, David, and Killer, Schulman traces the very particular and very devastating ways that gay people are abandoned by their families - a subject that has not yet found its way into the public discussion about AIDS - and the enormously creative and courageous ways in which gay men and lesbians lead their lives despite this loss.
At once a memoir, a call to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, and an argument for queer solidarity across borders, this book tells the story of how novelist and activist Sarah Schulman's became aware of how issues of the Israeli occupation of Palestine were tied to her own gay and lesbian politics.
In this groundbreaking book, playwright and social critic Sarah Schulman explores the family, the first place where all people: straight, gay, and bisexual, learn homophobia. It is within the family that homophobia begins to control the lives of perpetrators and recipients. Written in the tradition of Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape (Ballantine Books, 2000), which transformed rape from a private problem into an internationally recognised cultural crisis. Ties That Bind uncovers the hidden crime of `familial homophobia' and moves it into the open.
In this new edition of Sarah Schulman's groundbreaking 1988 novel, the unnamed narrator is an abandoned coffee-shop waitress in New York's under-the-radar Lower East Side. No one cares about her and no one will stand up for her; she lives in the emotional anarchy that engulfs a lot of gay girls who have no place, no home. Her ex-girlfriend Delores knew all that, and exploited it, because she didn't want to be bothered, which is unbearable information to our waitress. Over the course of a few days, she goes on the prowl looking for someone to talk to, anyone really; but she doesn't expect to get immersed in a tangled web of seduction, poverty, and finally murder
Sarah Schulman illuminates the differences between Conflict and Abuse in this revelatory book that addresses the contemporary culture of scapegoating.
New York, late 80s. The AIDS crisis has taken hold and the world is on the brink of imploding. Ronald Horne, an entitled property tycoon, lords over the city. Kate, a successful artist, lives in Manhattan with Peter, her husband and fellow creative. She's having an affair with Molly, a younger gay woman who, when she's not working a dead-end job, is caring for sick friends. At one of many funerals during an unbearably hot summer, Molly learns about Justice, the guerrilla activist group fighting for people with AIDS. She immediately signs up. Kate isn't so sure. And Peter is bewildered: by the changes he's seeing in his city, its inhabitants, and most crucially, his wife. Soon the trio learn that a tragedy of this kind not only warps our closest relationships but how anger -- and its absence -- can make the difference between life and death.
PAPERBACK EDITION Sarah Schulman's acclaimed dystopian satire about urban mores is set in New York sometime in the future, when the city has morphed into an idealized version of itself: rent is cheap, homelessness is nonexistent, and the only job left is in marketing. But all is not as it seems, when a murder is committed by a prominent New Yorker and the resulting trial transfixes the city. Sparkling with witty and provocative social commentary, The Mere Future is a startingly sharp-eyed prophecy of the world to come. Kessler Award winner Schulman's other books include Rat Bohemia, The Child, Empathy, and Ties that Bind (The New Press).
The Lesbian Avenger Handbook contains everything a budding troublemaker needs to know. From how to hold a meeting to a step-by-step guide to mind-blowing actions. With new content essential for activists and historians alike.
"In just six years, ACT UP, New York, a broad and unlikely coalition of activists from all races, genders, sexualities, and backgrounds, changed the world. Armed with rancor, desperation, intelligence, and creativity, it took on the AIDS crisis with an indefatigable, ingenious, and multifaceted attack on the corporations, institutions, governments, and individuals who stood in the way of AIDS treatment for all. They stormed the FDA and NIH in Washington, DC, and started needle exchange programs in New York; they took over Grand Central Terminal and fought to change the legal definition of AIDS to include women; they transformed the American insurance industry, weaponized art and advertising to push their agenda, and battled--and beat--The New York Times, the Catholic Church, and the pharmaceutical industry. Their activism, in its complex and intersectional power, transformed the lives of people with AIDS and the bigoted society that had abandoned them." --