Book Launch & Conversation: New Woman’s Survival Catalog

Saturday, November 2, 2019
8:00-9:30pm

JOAN is pleased to host Primary Information for an event celebrating the publication of The New Woman’s Survival Catalog. The book’s editors Kirsten Grimstad and Susan Rennie will be in conversation with Beth Pickens, author of Your Art Will Save Your Life (Feminist Press, 2018). The event is free and open to the public.

Originally published in 1973, The New Woman’s Survival Catalog is a seminal survey of Second Wave feminist efforts, which, as the editors noted in their introduction, represented an “active attempt to reshape culture through changing values and consciousness.” The book nods to Stewart Brand’s influential Whole Earth Catalog to map a vast network of feminist alternative cultural activity in the 1970s. From arts organizations to bookstores and independent presses, health, parenting, and rape crisis centers, and educational, legal and financial resources, The New Woman’s Survival Catalog provides crucial insight into feminist initiatives and activism nationwide during the Women’s Movement.

To purchase a copy of The New Woman’s Survival Catalog ahead of the event, please visit Primary Information’s website here. 

Kirsten Grimstad and Susan Rennie are the co-editors of The New Woman’s Survival Catalog (Berkeley Publishing Company, 1973) and The New Woman’s Survival Sourcebook (Knopf, 1975). They went on to co-found Chrysalis: A Magazine of Women’s Culture, published out of the Woman’s Building in downtown Los Angeles from 1977-1981.

Kirsten Grimstad earned a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the Union Institute & University (Cincinnati) after receiving a BA at Barnard College and an MA at Columbia University. She is currently Co-Chair of Undergraduate Studies at Antioch University, Los Angeles, and past Chair of the Getty Villa Council. She is the author of The Modern Revival of Gnosticism and Thomas Mann’s Doktor Faustus (Camden House, 2002).

Susan Rennie earned a BA from Barnard College and received a Ph.D. in Political Philosophy from Columbia University. She taught Social Sciences at Union Institute & University, worked as a women’s health activist, and lives in Venice, California.

Beth Pickens is the author of Your Art Will Save Your Life (Feminist Press, 2018). Her pamphlets—Making Art During Fascism and On Artists and Hopelessness—were designed and distributed by the Women’s Center for Creative Work in Los Angeles. Chronicle Books will publish her forthcoming survival book for artists in spring 2021. Since 2010, she’s provided grant writing, fundraising, and strategic planning services for artists and arts organizations throughout the U.S. She teaches workshops at universities, companies, and art spaces throughout the U.S.

Primary Information is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that receives generous support through grants from the Michael Asher Foundation, the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, the Greenwich Collection Ltd, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, the Orbit Fund, the Stichting Egress Foundation, VIA Art Fund, The Jacques Louis Vidal Charitable Fund, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Wilhelm Family Foundation, and individuals worldwide. Primary Information is a W.A.G.E. certified organization.