Sarah Schulman + Shiv Kotecha: The Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity

Join us for a launch event with renowned writer Sarah Schulman, discussing her new book The Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity. Joining Sarah in conversation is Writing Co-Chair for Bard MFA program, Shiv Kotecha. This event will be hosted in the Strand Book Store's 3rd floor Rare Book Room at 828 Broadway on 12th Street.

Can’t make the event?

ACCESSIBILITY:

Strand Book Store is an ADA compliant venue. The event space is accessible via elevator.

ASL interpretation is available for this event by request only. Please reach out to our events team at [email protected] by April 8 to request.

Please ask a Strand employee upon arrival for directions to accessible seating if preferred.

For further information on accessibility in this space, or to make a request, please contact [email protected]

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Her new book, The Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity, brings hard-won experience, maturity, and pragmatism to the conversation about how best to engage in effective solidarity work, particularly in relation to Gaza. It's a brilliant examination of the inherent psychological and social challenges to solidarity movements, and what that means for the future.

For those who seek to combat injustice, solidarity with the oppressed is one of the highest ideals, yet it does not come without complication. In this searing yet uplifting book, Schulman delves into the intricate and often misunderstood concept of solidarity to provide a new vision for what it means to engage in this work-and why it matters.

Challenging, inspiring, pragmatic, and poetic, The Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity provides a much-needed path for how we can work together to create a more just, more equitable present and future.

“This book will save lives. How many is up to us. How, amid so much institutional collapse, can people who will most certainly not be on the same footing find each other and join forces, and what are the stakes? Schulman will not protect your ego here, but she is no mere provocateur. A visionary, and of the most pragmatic kind, she has written a deeply necessary guide to the arguments of the next century, if we are all still alive to argue then.” —ALEXANDER CHEE

“Sarah Schulman, already a great novelist and playwright, is lately a crucial historian of legacies and principles of solidarity. This is an essential book of its moment, and one you must read. It serves as a thrilling call both to reflection and action.” —JONATHAN LETHEM

“There are many lessons here for our murderous present on how to act and act again (and again) in the face of fascism.”—CHRISTINA SHARPE

“This book implores us to take solidarity seriously as a defining feature of the human condition. Schulman bravely traces the past, present, and future of empathy and action. She models vulnerability, ethical principles, and the call for dignity for LGBTQ folks, Palestinians, and other marginalized communities, both locally and globally. This is a must read for every activist and humanist. But be prepared to be challenged with the nuance and depth of Schulman's bold insights.” —SA’ED ATSHAN

“Sarah Schulman's genius is that of a true humanist—a writer who doesn’t back down from dissent. She is wise and witty and her writing is a gift to us all.” —HILTON ALS

“We are fortunate to have a mind like Schulman’s to help us wrestle with the many difficult dimensions of real-world solidarity. This text is challenging and invites challenges in return; I suspect few of us will emerge unchanged.” —NAOMI KLEIN, author of Doppelganger

“Sarah Schulman is one of the most astute and insightful social and political critics of this or any era. She thoroughly unpacks the vital concept of solidarity in the face of inequality—unequal relations, resources, access, knowledge, and power. A brilliant new book by a brilliant novelist, playwright, critic, and activist, ultimately transforming our understanding of solidarity as idea and practice.” —JOHN KEENE

“One of the great rebel thinkers of our time.” —MOLLY CRABAPPLE, author of Drawing Blood and Brothers of the Gun

“The iconoclastic Schulman returns with a call to better understand collective action and solidarity—not as perfect ideals we will ever achieve, but rather as messy impossibilities we must nevertheless strive for. Using case studies of movements across the last near-century of political action, Schulman offers hope (and not a small dose of caution) for how we might, together, truly move the world forward.” —LITHUB, “Most Anticipated Books of 2025”

Sarah Schulman is a novelist, playwright, screenwriter, nonfiction writer, and AIDS historian. Her books include Gentrification of the Mind, Conflict Is Not Abuse, and Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP, New York 1987–1993 and the novels The Cosmopolitans and Maggie Terry. Schulman’s honors include a Fulbright in Judaic Studies, a Guggenheim in Playwriting, and honors from Lambda Literary, the Publishing Triangle, NLGJA, the American Library Association, and others. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, New York, Harper’s Magazine, The Atlantic, The Nation, The New Republic, The New York Times, and The Guardian. Schulman holds an endowed chair in creative writing at Northwestern University and is on the advisory board of Jewish Voice for Peace.

Shiv Kotecha is the author of The Switch (Wonder, 2018), and EXTRIGUE (Make Now, 2015). His criticism appears in publications including 4Columns, Aperture, BOMB, Cultured, frieze, The Nation, MUBI’s Notebook, and The Poetry Project Newsletter. For the Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant, he edits Cookie Jar, a pamphlet series of experimental arts writing. He is Co-Chair of the Writing Discipline for Bard MFA—Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts.

Host or Publisher The Strand Book Store