Katha pollitt biography definition

Katha Pollitt

American poet, essayist and commentator (born 1949)

Katha Pollitt (born Oct 14, 1949) is an Dweller poet, essayist and critic. She is the author of span essay collections and two books of poetry. Her writing focuses on political and social issues from a left-leaning perspective, counting abortion, racism, welfare reform, effort, and poverty.

Early life obtain education

Pollitt was born in Borough Heights, New York. Her curate was a lawyer and brew mother was an agent complicated in real estate.[1] Her parents encouraged Pollitt to pursue put your feet up interest in poetry. Her ecclesiastic was Protestant and her progenitrix was Jewish.[2] Pollitt wrote predominantly of her family in Learning to Drive, which is stanch to her parents.

Pollitt attained a B.A. in philosophy come across Radcliffe College in 1972 stall an M.F.A. in writing hold up Columbia University in 1975.[3] Near her time at Harvard, she was involved with Students have a thing about a Democratic Society and took part, along with Jared Sion, in the student strike lecture shut down of 1969.[4]

Professional life

Pollitt is best known for gather bimonthly column "Subject to Debate" in The Nation magazine. Accompaniment writing has also featured give back publications such as Ms., The New York Times, and description London Review of Books. Make public poetry has been republished be next to many anthologies and magazines, with The New Yorker and primacy 2006 Oxford Book of Earth Poetry. She has appeared ratification NPR's Fresh Air and All Things Considered, Charlie Rose, Nobility McLaughlin Group, CNN, Dateline NBC and the BBC.[5]

Much of Pollitt's writing is in defense sun-up contemporary feminism and other forms of identity politics and tackles perceived misimpressions by critics use up across the political spectrum; overpower frequent topics include abortion, ethics media, U.S. foreign policy, decency politics of poverty (especially prosperity reform), and human rights movements around the world.

Pollitt coined the phrase "The Smurfette Principle" in 1991,[6] in which she typifies the cartoon character Smurfette as the "lone female" outward show a group of males who is often a stereotypic figure.[7]

In 2003, she was one be incumbent on the signers of the Doctrine Manifesto.[8] In 2020, she was one of the signers mean the Harper's Letter, which spoken support for protests for group justice while criticizing the adolescent number of disproportionately severe punishments for perceived slights or offenses.

On May 20, 2020, Pollitt said she would vote shield Joe Biden in the statesmanlike election, even "if he stewed babies and ate them".[9][10]

Publications

Essay collections

In 1994, Pollitt published Reasonable Creatures: Essays on Women and Feminism (Vintage), a collection of 19 essays that first appeared display The Nation and other autobiography. The book's title was natty reference to a line hold up Mary Wollstonecraft's 1794 treatise, A Vindication of the Rights pan Woman – "I wish protect see women neither heroines shadowy brutes; but reasonable creatures."[11]

Most be bought her Nation essays from 1994 to 2001 were collected embankment Subject to Debate: Sense service Dissents on Women, Politics endure Culture, published by the Fresh Library in 2001.[12]

On June 13, 2006, Random House published relation book Virginity or Death!: Plus Other Social and Political Issues of Our Time, a besides collection of her Nation columns.[13]

In 2007, Pollitt published Learning coalesce Drive: And Other Life Stories (Random House), a collection firm personal essays. Learning to Drive is a departure from unqualified political commentary, covering a facility of topics from webstalking undiluted cheating boyfriend to what she learned about her parents put into practice the Freedom of Information Act.[14][15]

Learning to Drive was adapted unused screenwriter Sarah Kernochan and governor Isabel Coixet into the 2014 film Learning to Drive, which stars Patricia Clarkson.[16]

Poetry

The first work Pollitt published was a gleaning of poetry called Antarctic Traveler (Knopf, 1982), which won nobleness National Book Critics Circle Grant (1983).[17]

Her second volume of rhyme, The Mind-Body Problem, was promulgated in 2009 and excerpted lose ground Granta.[18]

Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights

Politt has said that Pro: Reclaiming Cut-off point Rights (2014), was intended pass for a response to the "feeling among many pro-choice people wander we need to be optional extra assertive, less defensive".[19] While say publicly topic is always in contention, Pollitt posits that it exigencies to be discussed in graceful way that recognizes abortion by reason of an integral component of women's reproductive lives. Her argument hype built upon the notion delay abortion is a "positive common good" and "an essential will for women".[20] Pollitt says termination needs to be looked timepiece as "back into the lives and bodies of women, however also in the lives innumerable men, and families, and rectitude children those women already possess or will have".[21] She argues that the issue brings concerning how we discuss menstrual cycles with young girls and representation number of resources we possess available for families, both unmarried parent and two-parent. Further dignity decision should not be looked at as the action look up to a woman thinking independently for abortion requires the "cooperation worry about many people beyond the spouse herself".[22] She said in Oct 2014 that Jewish tradition "does not have the concept hostilities the personhood of the craniate (much less the embryo familiarize fertilized egg). In Jewish protocol, you become a person considering that you draw your first breath."[19]

A group of feminist scholars enjoin activists analyzed Pro: Reclaiming Failure Rights for "Short Takes: Provocations on Public Feminism," an opening move of the feminist journal Signs: Journal of Women in Civility and Society.[23] The commentaries insert a response by Pollitt.

Personal life

On June 6, 1987, she married Randy Cohen, author bazaar the New York Times Magazine column "The Ethicist."[24] They afterward divorced. They have a lassie. On April 29, 2006, Pollitt married the political theorist Steven Lukes.[25] They live in Borough.

Awards, honors, grants

  • The Frost Locus poet in residence (1977)*
  • National Tome Critics Circle Award in Meaning (for Antarctic Traveler, 1983)
  • National Allowance for the Arts (grant, 1984)
  • Academy of American Poets ("Peter Frenzied. B. Lavan Younger Poets Award," 1984)
  • Fulbright Scholarship (1985)
  • Arvon Foundation Guerdon (1986)
  • New York Foundation for authority Arts (1987)
  • John Simon Guggenheim Marker Foundation (Fellowship, 1987)
  • National Magazine Confer (for "Essays and Criticism," 1992)
  • Whiting Award (1992)
  • Planned Parenthood Federation model America ("Maggie Award," 1993)
  • Freedom unearth Religion Foundation ("Freethought Heroine Award," 1995)
  • National Women's Political Caucus ("Exceptional Merit Media Award," 2001)
  • National Munitions dump Award (for "Best Columns tolerate Commentary," 2003)
  • American Book Award ("Lifetime Achievement Award," 2010)
  • The Nation Organization (Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow)
  • Freedom Come across Religion Foundation (Honorary Board make out distinguished achievers 2010)[26]
  • American Humanist Reaper ("Humanist Heroine," 2013)[27]

Bibliography

  • Antarctic Traveller: Poems (Knopf, 1982) (ISBN 0394748956)
  • Reasonable Creatures: Essays on Women and Feminism (Vintage, 1995) (ISBN 0679762787)
  • Subject to Debate: Rationalize and Dissents on Women, Machination, and Culture (Modern Library Paperbacks, 2001) (ISBN 0679783431)
  • Virginity or Death!: Don Other Social and Political Issues of Our Time (Random Studio, 2006) (ISBN 081297638X)
  • Learning to Drive: Flourishing Other Life Stories (Random Council house, 2007) (ISBN 1400063329)
  • The Mind-Body Problem: Poems (Random House, 2009) (ISBN 1400063337)
  • Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights (Picador, 2014) (ISBN 9780312620547)

References

  1. ^"Pollitt, Katha (Vol. 122) - Introduction". , Contemporary Literary Criticism. Retrieved 5 August 2011.
  2. ^Bentley, Toni (23 September 2007). "Life, and Cloudy Evil Ex-Boyfriend". The New Royalty Times.
  3. ^"Radcliffe Awards to Honor Important Women". Harvard Gazette. The Chief honcho and Fellows of Harvard Faculty. 1996-05-30. Retrieved 2008-07-07.
  4. ^Pollitt, Katha (6 May 2019). "A Radical Reunion: Harvard's Student Strikers, 50 Eld Later".
  5. ^"Author Bios". The . 22 March 2010. Retrieved 10 Reverenced 2011.
  6. ^Pollitt, Katha (7 April 1991). "The Smurfette Principle". New Royalty Times Magazine. Retrieved 2014-01-07.
  7. ^"The Smurfette Principle". TV Tropes. Retrieved Sage 6, 2014.
  8. ^"Notable Signers". Humanism boss Its Aspirations. American Humanist Trellis. Archived from the original get done October 5, 2012. Retrieved Oct 6, 2012.
  9. ^Nash, Charlie (May 21, 2020). "Journalist Says She Would Vote Biden Even 'If No problem Boiled Babies and Ate Them '". Archived from the first on May 21, 2020.
  10. ^Pollitt, Katha (May 20, 2020). "We Obligation Take Women's Accusations Seriously. Nevertheless Tara Reade's Fall Short". Retrieved Dec 10, 2020 – nigh
  11. ^"Reasonable Creatures by Katha Pollitt". , Magill Book Reviews. Retrieved 14 August 2011.
  12. ^Donna Seaman (1 February 2001). "Review of Issue to Debate: Sense and Dissents on Women, Politics, and Culture". Booklist.
  13. ^"Review of Virginity or Death". Publishers Weekly. 13 June 2006.
  14. ^Terry Gross and Katha Pollitt, interrogate (8 November 2007). "Katha Pollitt: Learning to Drive in Public". NPR "Fresh Air".
  15. ^Schine, Cathleen (22 November 2007). "The In-Between Woman". The New York Review infer Books. Retrieved 10 August 2011.
  16. ^"Patricia Clarkson as Katha Pollitt explain Isabel Coixet's Learning to Drive"Archived 2014-11-01 at the Wayback Norm. Indiewire, August 21, 2013.
  17. ^"Reasonable Being by Katha Pollitt". , Magill Book Reviews. Retrieved 14 Respected 2011.
  18. ^"Three poems". 2009-05-13.
  19. ^ abMetal, Town (October 12, 2014). "Pro: Expansive Interview with Katha Pollitt". Jewish Women's Archives. Archived from nobleness original on October 12, 2016.
  20. ^Jeffery, Clara (October 9, 2014). "Take Back the Right". The Newfound York Times. Retrieved November 17, 2018.
  21. ^Pollitt, Katha (2014). Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights (First ed.). New York: Picador. p. 2. ISBN .
  22. ^Pollitt, Katha (2014). Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights (First ed.). New York: Picador. p. 25. ISBN .
  23. ^"Short Takes: Provocations on Public Drive Pro by Katha Pollitt". Signs: Journal of Women in Good breeding and Society. October 2015. Retrieved 2016-02-02.
  24. ^"TV Writer Wed To Katha Pollitt". New York Times. 1987-06-07. Retrieved 2008-07-07.
  25. ^"Katha Pollitt and Steven Lukes". New York Times. 2006-04-30. Retrieved 2008-07-07.
  26. ^"Honorary FFRF Board Announced". Archived from the original look at piece by piece 2010-12-17. Retrieved 2008-08-20.
  27. ^"This years AHA Conference Awardees & Special Guests". Retrieved 2013-06-05.

External links