Shell-Shocked

"Shell-Shocked is funny, lacerating, and extremely thoughtful about feminism's power and utility during and emerging from the Donald Trump administration. Deftly weaving together political, literary and pop cultural analysis, Honig's vivid account will prove crucial as we work to resensitize ourselves. It is a reminder that feminism is a critical tool in beginning to unravel, respond to, and ideally build something better out of, the shock politics of the past four years"-Rebecca Traister, author of Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's AngerStormy Daniels offered a #metoo moment, and Anderson Cooper missed it. Conservatives don't believe that gender is fluid, except when they're feminizing James Comey. "Gaslighting" is our word for male domination but a gaslight also lights the way for a woman's survival.Across two dozen trenchant, witty reflections, Bonnie Honig offers a biting feminist account of politics since Trump. In today's shock politics, Honig traces the continuing work of patriarchy, as powerful, mediocre men gaslight their way across the landscape of democratic institutions.Feminist criticism demands justice. Shell-Shocked shows how women have talked back, acted out, and built anew. In seeking out the details that can break the spell of shock, Honig summons alternative ways of living and writing in a time of public violence, plunder, and-hopefully-democratic renewal.Bonnie Honig is Nancy Duke Lewis Professor of Modern Culture and Media (MCM) and Political Science at Brown University. Her most recent book is Public Things: Democracy in Disrepair.