We are happy to announce that this December, we will be welcoming a very special guest: Kristen Ghodsee, an award-winning author and professor of Russian and East European studies at the University of Pennsylvania. In a talk hosted by the CRC "Affective Societies," she will present her latest book, Everyday Utopia, which highlights the emotional power of utopian thinking as a response to and solution for the vulnerabilities of human social life. By recalling Pythagoras’ commune and tracing experiments in shared living across time and place, the book shows that visions of alternative community are sustained less by their permanence than by the emotions they evoke, such as hope for equality, yearning for connection, and solace in collective care. Even when fleeting, such projects affirm that imagining "better worlds" has emotional weight, offering inspiration, comfort, and resilience. Thus, utopian dreaming emerges not only as a political practice, but also as an affective one, shaping how individuals and communities feel their way toward possibility.

Kristen R. Ghodsee is an award-winning author and professor of Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She also serves as a member on the graduate groups of Anthropology, History, and Comparative Literature. Ghodsee’s articles and essays have been translated into over twenty-five languages and have appeared in publications such as Dissent, Foreign Affairs, Jacobin, The Baffler, The New Republic, Quartz, NBC Think, The Lancet, Project Syndicate, Le Monde Diplomatique, Die Tageszeitung, The Washington Post, and the New York Times. She is the author of 12 books, including: Second World, Second Sex: Socialist Women's Activism and Global Solidarity during the Cold War (Duke University Press, 2019) and Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism: And Other Arguments for Economic Independence (Bold Type Books, 2018 and 2020), which has had fifteen translations.

Language: English