On March 11th, History in the Margins published their podcast interview of Carla Kaplan, Northeastern professor of English, African-American and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and the Davis Distinguished Professor of American Literature. They discussed Kaplan’s most recent book, “Troublemaker: The Fierce, Unruly Life of Jessica Mitford.”
Jessica Mitford, a British aristocrat turned American communist in the mid 20th century, caught Kaplan’s eye not only due to her trail-blazing nature, but also her humor.
“I was looking for Jessica Mitford all my life, and looking for her without knowing that she was the one I was searching for.”
Kaplan has long detested the stereotypes that “women activists (or women professionals) are grim, grey, cheerless, and just no fun to be with,” as Kaplan puts it. While she knew that to be staunchly false, Mitford was “an ideal person to break that stereotype” nonetheless.
Kaplan has written about fierce, truly ground-breaking feminists throughout her career, including Zora Neale Hurston and Jospehine Cogdell Schuyler. Read the full transcript or listen to the podcast here to learn more about how Kaplan sees similarities in these women and how Mitford, in particular, inspires her on a daily basis in the ongoing fight against authoritarianism.
