Josephine Houman, Author at Public Seminar

Body & Mind

Dead Weight by Emmeline Clein conveys the simple terror and intoxicating asceticism of anorexia

March 4, 2024 • by Josephine Houman

“I watched my body shrink in the mirror,” Clein writes, “proud to discover how powerful my mind was.” I know the feeling....

Feminism

Four years since we learned the word, what does heteropessimism look like today?

April 19, 2023 • by Josephine Houman

Evidently, I am far from alone in the befuddlement I feel about my heterosexual relationship, nor am I the only one noticing the fact that, even though so many of us feel similarly, heteropessimism (and its attendant inaction) persists. ...

Sex & Gender

Blurring the Line between Sex and Art

A conversation with Sophia Giovannitti about misled feminism, desiring objectification, and what is sacred under capitalism

March 29, 2023 • by Sophia Giovannitti and Josephine Houman

I think that outlawing sex work is a form of social control, and then the way that it becomes entrenched or ratified is by stoking fear in people about what sex work means and what it indicates. ...

Psyche

Understanding Myself Wasn’t All It Was Cracked Up to Be

A psychiatric diagnosis can be a relief—until it gives you other problems to solve

February 7, 2023 • by Josephine Houman

If my ADHD had been diagnosed earlier, my psychiatrist explained, the medication would have worked....

Josephine Houman

The Hunger Artist

Dead Weight by Emmeline Clein conveys the simple terror and intoxicating asceticism of anorexia

Am I a Heteropessimist?

Four years since we learned the word, what does heteropessimism look like today?

Blurring the Line between Sex and Art

A conversation with Sophia Giovannitti about misled feminism, desiring objectification, and what is sacred under capitalism

Understanding Myself Wasn’t All It Was Cracked Up to Be

A psychiatric diagnosis can be a relief—until it gives you other problems to solve

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