About this item
From intimate relationships to global politics, Sarah Schulman observes a continuum: that inflated accusations of harm are used to avoid accountability. Illuminating the difference between Conflict and Abuse, Schulman directly addresses our contemporary culture of scapegoating. This deep, brave, and bold work reveals how punishment replaces personal and collective self-criticism, and shows why difference is so often used to justify cruelty and shunning. Rooting the problem of escalation in negative group relationships, Schulman illuminates the ways cliques, communities, families, and religious, racial, and national groups bond through the refusal to change their self-concept. She illustrates how Supremacy behavior and Traumatized behavior resemble each other, through a shared inability to tolerate difference.
About the Author
Sarah Schulman is the author of novels, nonfiction books, plays and movies. Forthcoming in May 2021, LET THE RECORD SHOW: A Political History of ACT UP, NY 1987-1993 (FSG) . Her most recent novels are MAGGIE TERRY and THE COSMOPOLITANS,(The Feminist Press) which was picked as one of the "Best Books of 2016" by Publishers' Weekly, and a nonfiction book CONFLICT IS NOT ABUSE: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility and the Duty of Repair (Arsenal) . She recently published ISRAEL/PALESTINE AND THE QUEER INTERNATIONAL from Duke University Press, THE GENTRIFICATION OF THE MIND: WItness to a Lost Imagination by University of California Press, the paperback of TIES THAT BIND: Familial Homophobia and Its Consequences and the paperback edition of her novel THE MERE FUTURE from Arsenal Pulp.Previous novels are THE CHILD, SHIMMER, EMPATHY, RAT BOHEMIA, PEOPLE IN TROUBLE, AFTER DELORES, GIRLS VISIONS AND EVERYTHING and THE SOPHIE HOROWITZ STORY. Her nonfiction titles are TIES THAT BIND: Familial Homophobia and Its Consequences, STAGESTRUCK:Theater, AIDS and the Marketing of Gay America, and MY AMERICAN HISTORY: Lesbian and Gay Life During the Reagan/Bush Years. A working playwright, her productions include: CARSON McCULLERS (published by Playscripts Ink) , MANIC FLIGHT REACTION and the theatrical adaptation of Isaac Singer's ENEMIES, A LOVE STORY. As a screenwriter, her films include THE OWLS (co-written with director Cheryl Dunye) - Berlin Film Festival 2010, MOMMY IS COMING (co-written with director Cheryl Dunye) - Berlin Film Festival selection 2011. and JASON AND SHIRLEY, directed by Stephen Winter (Museum of Modern Art) . She is co-producer with Jim Hubbard of his feature documentary UNITED IN ANGER: A History of ACT UP. As a journalist, her essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Nation, and Interview. She has won a Guggenheim Fellowship in Playwrighting, a Fullbright in Judaic Studies, two American Library Association Book Awards, and is the 2009 recipient of the Kessler Prize for sustained contribution to LGBT studies. Sarah is Distinguished Professor at the City University of New York, College of State Island, a Fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities at New York University. A member of the advisory board of Jewish Voice for Peace, Sarah is faculty advisor to Students for Justice in Palestine at The College of Staten Island. She lives in New York.
