About

The Feminist Duration Reading Group (FDRG) focuses on under-represented feminist texts, movements and struggles from outside the Anglo-American canon. The group has developed a practice of reading out loud, together, one paragraph at a time, with the aim of creating a sense of connection and intimacy during meetings.

The group was established in March 2015 by Helena Reckitt, at Goldsmiths, University of London, to explore texts from the Italian feminist movement of the 1970s and 1980s. Later in 2015 it relocated to SPACE in Hackney, East London where it was hosted by Persilia Caton until April 2019. From June 2019 to February 2020 the group was in residence at the South London Gallery, where it focused on intersectional feminisms in the UK context (a planned year-long programme that was moved online due to COVID-19).

In 2023 we were one of several groups selected for the eighteen month Residents programme at Goldsmiths CCA, London.

From 2023-2024 FDRG partnered with Cell Project Space developing CEED (Central East European and Diaspora) Feminisms, funded by the British Art Network, with Cell Project Space.

FDRG sessions have been organised with Emilia-Amalia at Art Metropole in Toronto; Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof and HFBK Hamburg, Germany; in London with the Advocacy Academy, Artangel, Barbican Art Gallery, Cell Project Space, Chelsea Space, Chisenhale Gallery, the Drawing Room, Flat Time House, Goldsmiths CCA, Mimosa House, Mosaic Rooms, The Showroom, South Kiosk, Studio Voltaire, Tate Modern, in collaboration with AntiUniversity and the Department of Feminist Conversations, and as part of The Table at the Swiss Church. Elsewhere in the UK we have been hosted by Grand Union and Eastside Projects, Birmingham, esea, Manchester, De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea, and Hypatia Trust, Penzance.  A sister group, NW FDRG, was set up in Liverpool by Kezia Davies in 2019.        

Six members of the FDRG - Giulia Casalini, Diana Georgiou, Laura Guy, Helena Reckitt, Irene Revell, and Amy Tobin - organised the two-week long events programme, ‘Now Can Go,’ focused on legacies of Italian feminism, across the ICA, The Showroom, SPACE, and Raven Row, in December 2015.  

The group usually meets once a month, in art spaces and community venues as well as non-institutional venues such as private homes or gardens.

The FDRG aims to create an inclusive trans-positive space. We welcome feminists of all genders and generations to explore the legacy and resonance of art, thinking and collective practice from earlier periods of feminism, in dialogue with contemporary practices and movements.

Working Group

FDRG sessions are initiated by a Working Group. Current members are Beth Bramich, Sabrina Fuller, Taey Iohe, Helena Reckitt, and Dot Zhihan.

Support Group

FDRG activities are supported by a Support Group comprising former Working Group members Lina Džuverović, Mariana Lemos, Katrin Lock, and Ehryn Torrell.

Other former Working Group members are Giulia Antonioli, Angelica Bollettinari, Lily Evans-Hill, Félicie Kertudo, Ceren Özpinar, Sara Paiola, Justin Seng, and Fiona Townend.

Working with the FDRG: A Note for Institutions

The FDRG is run by members of the voluntary Working and Support Groups. We regularly partner with community and arts organizations to offer free events to the public.

The reading group is our collective practice that we enjoy and like sharing with others. Facilitating sessions does of course involve considerable time and effort. We also have running costs for web hosting and communication, invited speaker fees etc.

We understand financial constraints within the cultural sector, but appreciate any contributions that support our efforts.

The FDRG operates an ‘Honesty Box,’ and asks funded organisations to pay what they can.

For organisations who can access funding, we suggest a fee of £300 - £600 per session, depending on the scope of work entailed.  This roughly follows the a-n artist payment guidelines for 1-1.5 days for an artist with seven years professional experience (the FDRG was set up in 2015).

Collaborators and Partners

FDRG sessions have been led by Adomas Narkevicius, Ximena Alarcón-Díaz, Giulia Antonioli, Diana Baker Smith, Fari Bradley, Beth Bramich, Giulia Casalini, Laura Castagnini, Catherine Cho, Leah Clements, Morgane Conti, Lauren Craig, Cinzia Cremona, Galit Criden, Giulia Damiani, Oana Damir, Kezia Davies, Department of Feminist Conversations, Flora Dunster, Lina Džuverović, Lily Evans-Hall, Lucia Farinati, Lynne Friedli, Sabrina Fuller, Diana Georgiou, Rose Gibbs, Valeria Graziano, Laura Guy, Haley Ha, Nora Heidorn, Minna Henriksson, Jacqueline Hoàng Nguyễn, Yurika Imaseki, Taey Iohe, Félicie Kertudo, Alexandra Kokoli, Jessie Krish, Mariana Lemos, Mai Ling, Jet Moon, Gabby Moser, Roisin O’Sullivan, Ceren Özpinar, Frances Painter Fleming, Grace Eunhye Park, Sara Paiola, Raju Rage, Helena Reckitt, Irene Revell, Lidia Salvatori, Elif Sarican, Justin Seng, Something Other, Cecilia Sosa, Amy Tobin, Ehryn Torrell, and Dot Zhihan.

Artists, Writers & Collectives

Sessions have been dedicated to texts and artworks including those by Naadje Al-Aali, Joan Anim-Addo, Floya Anthias and Nira Yuval-Davis, Gloria Anzaldua, Jenn Ashworth, Margot Badran, Khairani Barokka, Chiai Bonfiglioli, Anne Boyer, Brixton Black Women’s Group, adrienne maree brown, Wilmette Brown, Octavia Butler, Sakine Cansiz, Hazel V Carby, Adriana Cavarero, Teresa Hak Kyung Cha, Anne Anlin Cheng, Catherine Cho, Barbara Christian, Lia Cigarini, Eli Clare, Leah Clements, Lauren Craig, Galit Criden, Mariarosa Dalla Costa and Selma James, Maria Puig De La Bellacasa, Leah Clements, Silvia Federici, Leta Hong Fincher, Shulamith Firestone, Lauren Fournier, Ruth Frankenberg, Olivia Guaraldo, Johanna Hedva, bell hooks, Sanja Iveković, Juliet Jacques, Marie Elizabeth Johnson, Jane Jin Kaisen, Jasleen Kaur, AE Kings, Larissa Lai, Teresa de Lauretis, Clarice Lispector, Carla Lonzi, Fereil Ben Mahoud, Alex Martinis Roe, Lea Melandri, Fatema Mernissi, Milan Women’s Bookshop Collective, Trinh T Minh-ha, Adriana Monti, Jet Moon, Antonella Nappi, Astrida Neimanis, Jacqueline Hoàng Nguyen, Abdullah Ocalan, Lola Olufemi, Sue O’Sullivan, Tanja Ostojić, Cecilia Palmeiro, Queer Beograd, Darija Radaković, Raju Rage, Claudia Rankine, Tabita Rezaire, Rivolta Femminile, Lucia Egana Rojas, Sasha Roseneil, Gail Rubin, Suzanne Santoro, Selma Selman, Christina Sharpe, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Rhea Storr, Latif Tas, Miriam Ticktin, Tiqqun, Iris Uurto, Nafu Wang, Kyla Wazana Tompkins, Katri Vala, Vron Ware, Wages Due Lesbians, Wages for Housework, Linda Zerilli.

Contact us

If you would like to join the reading group mailing list or propose a focus for a session, or invite us to lead a meeting, please contact: feministduration@gmail.com 

Website Design by Angelica Bollettinari

CEED Feminims 2: Transnational Feminist Solidarity in War

CEED Feminims 2: Transnational Feminist Solidarity in War

Feminist Duration
2023

Online

6-8pm UK Time

Ukrainian scholars and activists Irina Zherebkina, Sergey Zherebkin and Victoria Larchenko, members of the editorial team of the 2022 journal Gender Studies No. 26 (Kharkiv Center for Gender Studies), lead the second reading group in the CEED Feminisms series. This online meeting explores the dynamics and possibilities of transnational feminist solidarity in the face of Russia's war in Ukraine. 

Bringing together contributions from feminists based internationally, Gender Studies No. 26 was published in dialogue with the conference ‘Transnational Feminist Solidarity with Ukrainian Feminists,’ co-organised on 9 May 2022 by Irina Zherebkina with philosopher and gender studies writer Judith Butler and sociologist Sabine Hark. The issue called for 'transnational feminist analysis of unequal and unjust power relations, neocolonial and neoliberal extraction, militarization, senseless destruction, and displacement.'

Including introductions to texts by Victoria Larchenko and Sergey Zherebkin, the first half of this session will focus on three short texts from Gender Studies No. 26, including Agnieszka Graff's account of fleeting solidarity between Polish and Ukrainian mothers in the first weeks of the war, and Anna Hájková's short essay on new engagement from Western feminists with CEE feminist perspectives with the outbreak of war, which, as the author writes, caused CEE Feminists to start 'trending'. In the second half of the session we will turn to Zherebkina's recent e-flux Notes article ‘Can the Oppressors Speak?’, considering Zherebkina's nuanced perspective on the potential of feminist speech acts – writing, publishing or reading – made in solidarity, during war.

In small online groups, together we will read:

 - Irina Zherebkina, ‘Editorial: Feminism, War, Solidarity’, Gender Studies No. 26, pp. 1-3

- Agnieszka Graff, ‘Solidarity with Ukraine, or: why East-West still Matters to Feminism’, Gender Studies No. 26, pp.1-5

- Anna Hájková, ‘The Crumbs from your table’, Gender Studies No. 26, pp. 1-3

- Irina Zherebkina, ‘Can the Oppressors Speak?’, e-flux notes, 26 May 2023

There is no expectation to read the texts in advance as we will read out loud, one person and one paragraph at a time, together.

Access to digital copies of texts and the Zoom link will be granted upon RSVP. Please contact Jessie Krish for any access needs: jessie [at] cellprojects [dot] org. 

Register Here

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/ceed-feminisms-2-transnational-feminist-solidarity-in-war-tickets-725631121217?aff=oddtdtcreator

Bios

Victoria Larchenko [bio to come]

Irina Zherebkina is Professor of the Philosophy Centre of Humanitarian Education, Branch in Kharkiv, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (Ukraine) and Director of the Kharkiv Centre for Gender Studies (since 1994); Editor-in-Chief of the Gender Studies Journal (since 1998), and, a Visiting Senior Fellow at the Department of Gender Studies, London School of Economics. Zherebkina's many books include Passion. Women’s Sexuality in Russia in the Era of Modernism (St. Petersburg: Alethea, 2001, 2018);  Judith Butler’s War and Peace (with Sergei Zherebkin) (St. Petersburg: Alethea, 2019), and Stalinist Antigone and Feminist Intervention in Stalinism (St. Petersburg: Alethea, 2019). Since the beginning of Russian aggression in Ukraine, Zherebkina has positioned herself as a strong critic of Putin's militaristic politics in her numerous journalist publications and interviews including: 'Can the Oppressors Speak?,' e-flux Notes, 2023; 'A Ukrainian Philosopher’s Reluctant Departure from Kharkiv by Masha Gessen,' The New Yorker (2023), and 'Dispatch from Kharkiv National University,' Boston Review, 2022. Together with Judith Butler and Sabine Hark she was the organiser of the international conference 'Transnational Feminist Solidarity with Ukrainian Feminists,' on 9th May 2022. 

Sergey Zherebkin is Professor of Philosophy at the Center for Humanities Education, Kharkiv Branch, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. His books include Unstable Ontologies in Contemporary Philosophy (St. Petersburg: Aletheia, 2014); World and Peace by Judith Butler (with Irina Zherebkina) (St. Petersburg: Aletheia, 2018); Cyborg-Nationalism, or Ukrainian Nationalism in the Era of Post-Nationalism (with Irina Zherebkina) (St. Petersburg: Aletheia, 2019); Contemporary Western Philosophy Introduction (with Irina Zherebkina) (St.Petersburg: Aletheia, 2022). Zherebkin is currently affiliated at the London School of Economics and Political Science as a Visiting Senior Fellow in the Department of Sociology. 

CEED (Central Eastern European and Diaspora ) Feminisms, founded in May 2023 through an Open Call, has engages a network of practitioners based in the UK, Central Eastern Europe and beyond. Five reading group sessions, from September 2023 – February 2024, explore the role of current and historical feminist thinking in constructing cultural narratives about Central Eastern Europe and British Central Eastern European diaspora. The first three reading groups address decolonial Central 'Eastern' European feminisms; transnational feminist solidarity in war, and labour and 'East' to 'West' migration, as focus areas selected by an initial group of respondents to our Info Meeting in Spring 2023.

CEED is facilitated by curators Jessie Krish and Adomas Narkevičius. 

 CEED Feminisms is a Research Group of the British Art Network (BAN). BAN is a Subject Specialist Network supported by Tate and the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, with additional public funding provided by the National Lottery through Arts Council England and additionally supported by Cockayne Foundation.

 Image: Feminist Attack on the Kremlin, 2023, Courtesy Irina Zherebkina

Adania Shibli: Minor Detail, Reading 1

Adania Shibli: Minor Detail, Reading 1
CEED Feminisms 1: Decentering Western Feminisms

CEED Feminisms 1: Decentering Western Feminisms