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A review by hopebrasfield
Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto by Legacy Russell
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
TLDR:
I LOVE BOOKS ABOUT THE INTERNET.
General thoughts:
I'm not usually a fan of academic-speak. If you've familiarized yourself with that sort of language and figured out how it works (as a reader, writer, or both), I'm sure you've noticed just how irritating it can be when done poorly. I sure have, to the point of bringing a sort of pre-irritated, prove-me-wrong type attitude toward that sort of writing altogether. This is important for me to share in the context of a review of this book in particular because I want you to know I went into Glitch Feminism assuming it would irritate me in some way. Happily, it did not!
I'd recommend this to anybody who interacts with other humans on the internet and/or has a body and/or has ever created or consumed any sort of art. I suppose that means I'd recommend it to everybody!
If you're not used to reading academic-speak, this would be a great place to start. Russell's writing is so beautifully done you'd think they were born typing. At times, I felt like I was having something like Earthseed explained to me by Lauren Olamina herself, a manifesto or guide that feels just over your head while remaining within reach.
Memorable quotes:
"Glitch feminism urges us to consider the in-between as a core component of survival—neither masculine nor feminine, neither male nor female, but a spectrum across which we may be empowered to choose and define ourselves for ourselves. Thus, the glitch creates a fissure within which new possibilities of being and becoming manifest. This failure to function within the confines of a society that fails us is a pointed and necessary refusal. Glitch feminism dissents, pushes back against capitalism."
“As we engage with the digital, it encourages us to challenge the world around us, and, through this constant redressing and challenging, change the world as we know it, prompting the creation of entirely new worlds altogether.”
^ This is actually so super close to a quote from a Butler book, Parable of the Talents: "Our new worlds will remake us as we remake them. And some of the new people who emerge from all this will develop new ways to cope. They'll have to. That will break the old cycle, even if it's only to begin a new one, a different one."
“When we reject the binary, we reject the economy that goes along with it. When we reject the binary, we challenge how we are valued in a capitalist society that yokes our gender to the labor we enact. When we reject the binary, we claim uselessness as a strategic tool. Useless, we disappear, ghosting on the binary body.”
“To become an error is to surrender to becoming unknown, unrecognizable, unnamed. New names are created to describe errors, capturing them and pinning down their edges for examination. All this is done in an attempt to keep things up and running; this is the conceit of language, where people assume if they can find a word to describe something, that this is the beginning of controlling it.”
“As we fail, we morph. As we morph, we transcend captivity, slippery to those forces that try to restrict, restrain, and censor us.”
“The Internet continues to be a place of immense intimacy, where an “opening up” of being can occur, and where one can dare to be vulnerable. The Internet’s virtual channels provide protection from physical injury, make room for an expression of ideas and politics in a fantastic forum, thus amplifying collectivity, coalition building, and one’s courage to individuate.”
Topics or concepts I found to be super intriguing or thought provoking:
* the idea of internet spaces as utopian (would love to talk about what the creation and management of internet spaces that "work" tells us about the work needed in creating and managing other types of utopian spaces; i.e., that utopia will require all sorts of ongoing conceptual, emotional, and physical work!)
* the interaction between hypervisibility and invisibility (felt this one in my guts)
* the use of art both creatively and politically (e.g., "Through her self expression, [the artist] cracks open the possibility of containing multitudes, not only as a creative action, but as a political one.")
* the internet is real (in chapter 10, Russell takes on reductionist views re: the internet not being a "real" place, which they correctly point out to be rooted in things like racism, ableism, classism, etc.)
Books I'd recommend as companions:
Work Without the Worker: Labour in the Age of Platform Capitalism by Philip Jones https://www.versobooks.com/products/2518-work-without-the-worker
^ Russell asks if we can figure out a way to "occupy" certain online spaces, such as those owned by actual fascists. Reading Work Without the Worker is why I'm able to fairly confidently imagine that yes, this is possible!
Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness by Da'Shaun L. Harrison
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/670607/belly-of-the-beast-by-dashaun-harrison/
^ Bodies are sort of central to Glitch, and Harrison's book provides a similarly in-depth analysis of the concept.
Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler
https://www.octaviabutler.com/parableseries
^ Classics of course, and a great fictional fit with Glitch Feminism.
Documentaries I'd recommend as companions:
TikTok, Boom from director Shalini Kantayya
https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/documentaries/tiktok-boom/
^ This is the only documentary about how the internet works that I would feel comfortable recommending to somebody who isn't already super online.
The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz from director Brian Knappenberger
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M85UvH0TRPc
^ One of my very favorite documentaries. Aaron Swartz's story is essential in understanding how the internet as we know it was built, how it works, and what we're up against when we attempt to make any sort of statement or cause any sort of change. I think the hope he had about what the internet could be helps us to be more hopeful and imaginative ourselves, so please watch this and learn more about Aaron if you can!
Bonus companion recommendations:
Hackers from director Iain Softley
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackers_(film)
The Net from director Irwin Winkler
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Net_(1995_film)
^ These are "funny" recommendations, sure, but I think they could also be incredible companion pieces! Watching these could help us to reimagine how we experience the internet today by looking at the popular imagination surrounding it at its start. These also both deal with the very real connections between our internet lives and our "AFK" lives (as described by Russell), even if they do so in fairly silly ways!
---
P.S.
I picked this up after watching a review and recommendation from @neuroabolition on Instagram (available here: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C1nS_WGuaHH/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==). It looks like they'll be making other book recommendations, too!
I LOVE BOOKS ABOUT THE INTERNET.
General thoughts:
I'm not usually a fan of academic-speak. If you've familiarized yourself with that sort of language and figured out how it works (as a reader, writer, or both), I'm sure you've noticed just how irritating it can be when done poorly. I sure have, to the point of bringing a sort of pre-irritated, prove-me-wrong type attitude toward that sort of writing altogether. This is important for me to share in the context of a review of this book in particular because I want you to know I went into Glitch Feminism assuming it would irritate me in some way. Happily, it did not!
I'd recommend this to anybody who interacts with other humans on the internet and/or has a body and/or has ever created or consumed any sort of art. I suppose that means I'd recommend it to everybody!
If you're not used to reading academic-speak, this would be a great place to start. Russell's writing is so beautifully done you'd think they were born typing. At times, I felt like I was having something like Earthseed explained to me by Lauren Olamina herself, a manifesto or guide that feels just over your head while remaining within reach.
Memorable quotes:
"Glitch feminism urges us to consider the in-between as a core component of survival—neither masculine nor feminine, neither male nor female, but a spectrum across which we may be empowered to choose and define ourselves for ourselves. Thus, the glitch creates a fissure within which new possibilities of being and becoming manifest. This failure to function within the confines of a society that fails us is a pointed and necessary refusal. Glitch feminism dissents, pushes back against capitalism."
“As we engage with the digital, it encourages us to challenge the world around us, and, through this constant redressing and challenging, change the world as we know it, prompting the creation of entirely new worlds altogether.”
^ This is actually so super close to a quote from a Butler book, Parable of the Talents: "Our new worlds will remake us as we remake them. And some of the new people who emerge from all this will develop new ways to cope. They'll have to. That will break the old cycle, even if it's only to begin a new one, a different one."
“When we reject the binary, we reject the economy that goes along with it. When we reject the binary, we challenge how we are valued in a capitalist society that yokes our gender to the labor we enact. When we reject the binary, we claim uselessness as a strategic tool. Useless, we disappear, ghosting on the binary body.”
“To become an error is to surrender to becoming unknown, unrecognizable, unnamed. New names are created to describe errors, capturing them and pinning down their edges for examination. All this is done in an attempt to keep things up and running; this is the conceit of language, where people assume if they can find a word to describe something, that this is the beginning of controlling it.”
“As we fail, we morph. As we morph, we transcend captivity, slippery to those forces that try to restrict, restrain, and censor us.”
“The Internet continues to be a place of immense intimacy, where an “opening up” of being can occur, and where one can dare to be vulnerable. The Internet’s virtual channels provide protection from physical injury, make room for an expression of ideas and politics in a fantastic forum, thus amplifying collectivity, coalition building, and one’s courage to individuate.”
Topics or concepts I found to be super intriguing or thought provoking:
* the idea of internet spaces as utopian (would love to talk about what the creation and management of internet spaces that "work" tells us about the work needed in creating and managing other types of utopian spaces; i.e., that utopia will require all sorts of ongoing conceptual, emotional, and physical work!)
* the interaction between hypervisibility and invisibility (felt this one in my guts)
* the use of art both creatively and politically (e.g., "Through her self expression, [the artist] cracks open the possibility of containing multitudes, not only as a creative action, but as a political one.")
* the internet is real (in chapter 10, Russell takes on reductionist views re: the internet not being a "real" place, which they correctly point out to be rooted in things like racism, ableism, classism, etc.)
Books I'd recommend as companions:
Work Without the Worker: Labour in the Age of Platform Capitalism by Philip Jones https://www.versobooks.com/products/2518-work-without-the-worker
^ Russell asks if we can figure out a way to "occupy" certain online spaces, such as those owned by actual fascists. Reading Work Without the Worker is why I'm able to fairly confidently imagine that yes, this is possible!
Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness by Da'Shaun L. Harrison
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/670607/belly-of-the-beast-by-dashaun-harrison/
^ Bodies are sort of central to Glitch, and Harrison's book provides a similarly in-depth analysis of the concept.
Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler
https://www.octaviabutler.com/parableseries
^ Classics of course, and a great fictional fit with Glitch Feminism.
Documentaries I'd recommend as companions:
TikTok, Boom from director Shalini Kantayya
https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/documentaries/tiktok-boom/
^ This is the only documentary about how the internet works that I would feel comfortable recommending to somebody who isn't already super online.
The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz from director Brian Knappenberger
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M85UvH0TRPc
^ One of my very favorite documentaries. Aaron Swartz's story is essential in understanding how the internet as we know it was built, how it works, and what we're up against when we attempt to make any sort of statement or cause any sort of change. I think the hope he had about what the internet could be helps us to be more hopeful and imaginative ourselves, so please watch this and learn more about Aaron if you can!
Bonus companion recommendations:
Hackers from director Iain Softley
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackers_(film)
The Net from director Irwin Winkler
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Net_(1995_film)
^ These are "funny" recommendations, sure, but I think they could also be incredible companion pieces! Watching these could help us to reimagine how we experience the internet today by looking at the popular imagination surrounding it at its start. These also both deal with the very real connections between our internet lives and our "AFK" lives (as described by Russell), even if they do so in fairly silly ways!
---
P.S.
I picked this up after watching a review and recommendation from @neuroabolition on Instagram (available here: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C1nS_WGuaHH/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==). It looks like they'll be making other book recommendations, too!