“Feminists Reclaim Mentorship”: A Reading and Celebration

May 04, 2023 @ 6:00pm - 7:30pm

Mentorship continues to loom large in stories about women's work and personal lives— sometimes for the better, but often for the worse. If mentors can nurture and support, they can also bitterly disappoint, reproducing the hardships they once suffered and reinforcing the same old hierarchies and inequities. The stories gathered in Feminists Reclaim Mentorship: An Anthology challenge our fundamental assumptions about mentorship, illuminating the obstacles that make it difficult to connect meaningfully and ethically while reimagining the possibilities for reciprocity. Does mentorship require sameness? Might we find more inventive, collaborative ways to bond than the traditional top-down model of mentoring?

Drawing on their experiences in academia, creative writing, publishing, and journalism, the volume's editors, Nancy K. Miller and Tahneer Oksman, and their twenty-six contributors collectively strive for relationships that acknowledge differences alongside the importance of common bonds. The anthology includes contributions by Rachel Adams, Susan Gubar, Michele Faith Wallace, Hillary Chute, Sharifa Hampton, Jennifer Crewe, Kamy Wicoff, Sarah Glazer, Sarah Burnes, Mikhal Dekel, Michelle Yasmine Valladares, Elizabeth Wood, Aoibheann Sweeney, Joy Ladin, Siri Hustvedt, Ashna Ali, Dána-Ain Davis, Angela Francis, Elizabeth Alsop, Leigh Gilmore, Melissa Coss Aquino, Sarah Chihaya, Melissa Duclos, Sarah Blackwood, Laura Limonic, and Angela Veronica Wong.

This evening will include a reading from several of the anthology’s contributors followed by a conversation involving the audience. The speakers will talk about why, and how, mentorship matters, and with the audience, brainstorm inventive ways of rethinking mentorship structures and approaches, including collective ones.

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