Joanna Russ (1937–2011)
Author of The Female Man
About the Author
Joanna Russ was born in New York City on February 22, 1937. She received a degree in English from Cornell University in 1957 and a MFA in playwriting from the Yale Drama School in 1960. She taught at various colleges and universities during her lifetime including a long stint at the University of show more Washington in Seattle. She was a critic and science fiction writer best known for books of criticism such as The Female Man (1975) and How to Suppress Women's Writing (1984) as well as the novel And Chaos Died (1970). She died on April 29, 2011 at the age of 74. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: Liz Henry
Series
Works by Joanna Russ
Magic Mommas, Trembling Sisters, Puritans and Perverts: Essays on Sex and Pornography (1985) 99 copies, 6 reviews
Novels & Stories: The Female Man / We Who Are About To ... / On Strike Against God / The Complete Alyx Stories / Other Stories (2023) 90 copies, 2 reviews
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction 67. Dinosaurier auf dem Broadway. (1983) — Contributor — 10 copies
Drie SF-romans — Contributor — 5 copies
The Man Who Could Not See Devils 4 copies
Useful Phrases For The Tourist 4 copies
Corruption {short story} 3 copies
Invasion {short story} 3 copies
A Few Things I Know About Whileaway 3 copies
My Boat 3 copies
Russalka, or The Seacoast of Bohemia 2 copies
Innocence [short story] 2 copies
I Had Vacantly Crumpled It into My Pocket . . . But By God, Eliot, It Was a Photograph from Life! (1964) 2 copies
Joanna Russ : The Female Man / We Who Are about to ... / on Strike Against God / the Complet e Alyx Stories / Other Stories (2023) 2 copies
Staken tegen God 1 copy
Russ, Joanna Archive 1 copy
The New Men [short story] 1 copy
And Choas Died 1 copy
Passages [short fiction] 1 copy
On Setting 1 copy
L'Humanité-Femme 1 copy
Associated Works
The Big Book of Science Fiction: The Ultimate Collection (2016) — Contributor — 522 copies, 8 reviews
Don't Bet on the Prince: Contemporary Feminist Fairy Tales in North America and England (1987) — Contributor — 513 copies, 4 reviews
Chloe Plus Olivia: An Anthology of Lesbian Literature from the 17th Century to the Present (1994) — Contributor — 482 copies, 1 review
Women of Wonder: Science Fiction Stories by Women about Women (1975) — Contributor — 369 copies, 5 reviews
The Norton Book of Science Fiction: North American Science Fiction, 1960-1990 (1993) — Contributor — 344 copies, 6 reviews
Sisters of the Revolution: A Feminist Speculative Fiction Anthology (2015) — Contributor — 343 copies, 8 reviews
The Locus Awards: Thirty Years of the Best in Science Fiction and Fantasy (2004) — Contributor — 290 copies, 11 reviews
The Future Is Female! 25 Classic Science Fiction Stories by Women, from Pulp Pioneers to Ursula K. Le Guin: A Library of America Special Publication (2018) — Contributor — 279 copies, 5 reviews
Women on Women: An Anthology of American Lesbian Short Fiction (1990) — Contributor — 261 copies, 1 review
The Armless Maiden and Other Tales for Childhood's Survivors (1995) — Contributor — 256 copies, 4 reviews
More Women of Wonder: Science Fiction Novelettes by Women about Women (1976) — Contributor — 254 copies, 7 reviews
Masterpieces of Terror and the Unknown: A Treasury of Bizarre Tales Old and New (1993) — Contributor — 213 copies, 2 reviews
The New Women of Wonder: Recent Science Fiction Stories by Women about Women (1977) — Contributor — 197 copies, 5 reviews
In Another Part of the Forest: An Anthology of Gay Short Fiction (1994) — Contributor — 192 copies, 2 reviews
Women of Wonder, the Classic Years: Science Fiction by Women from the 1940s to the 1970s (1995) — Contributor — 189 copies, 1 review
Worlds Apart: An Anthology of Lesbian and Gay Science Fiction and Fantasy (1986) — Contributor — 181 copies, 1 review
The James Tiptree Award Anthology 1: Sex, the Future, and Chocolate Chip Cookies (2005) — Contributor — 180 copies, 5 reviews
The Penguin Book of Modern Fantasy by Women (1995) — Introduction, Contributor — 173 copies, 3 reviews
The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Four: Nebula Winners 1970-1974 (1986) — Contributor — 132 copies, 1 review
Despatches from the Frontiers of the Female Mind: An Anthology of Original Stories (1985) — Contributor — 132 copies, 2 reviews
American Science Fiction: Four Classic Novels 1968-1969: Past Master / Picnic on Paradise / Nova / Emphyrio (2019) — Contributor — 129 copies, 1 review
What Did Miss Darrington See? An Anthology of Feminist Supernatural Fiction (1989) — Contributor — 126 copies
The Future Is Female! Volume Two, The 1970s: More Classic Science Fiction Storie s By Women: A Library of America Special Publication (2022) — Contributor — 108 copies, 3 reviews
The Prentice Hall Anthology of Science Fiction and Fantasy (2000) — Contributor — 100 copies, 2 reviews
The Best Fantasy Stories from the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (1985) — Contributor — 77 copies, 2 reviews
New Eves: Science Fiction About the Extraordinary Women of Today and Tomorrow (1994) — Contributor — 70 copies, 3 reviews
Uranian Worlds: A Guide to Alternative Sexuality in Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror (Science Fiction Series) (1983) — Introduction — 58 copies
Speculations : 17 Stories Written Especially for This Volume By Well-Known Science Fiction Authors, But Their Names are Concealed By a Code and It's Up to You to Figure Out Who… (1982) — Contributor — 53 copies, 1 review
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction October 1967, Vol. 33, No. 4 (1967) — Book reviewer — 14 copies
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction June 1979, Vol. 56, No. 6 (1979) — Book reviewer — 14 copies
Hive of Dreams: Contemporary Science Fiction from the Pacific Northwest (2003) — Contributor — 13 copies
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction November 1982, Vol. 63, No. 5 (1982) — Contributor — 13 copies
Womens Fantastic Adventures. Stories. ( Fremdsprachentexte). (Lernmaterialien) (1992) — Author — 11 copies
I Premi Hugo 1976-1983 — Contributor — 4 copies
Zärtlich war die Zukunft. (7445 415). Liebesgeschichten aus der Welt von morgen. (1989) — Contributor — 2 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Russ, Joanna
- Birthdate
- 1937-02-22
- Date of death
- 2011-04-29
- Gender
- female
- Education
- Cornell University (BA|English|1957)
Yale University (MFA|drama|1960) - Occupations
- academic
novelist
literary critic
science fiction writer
science fiction studies scholar
feminist literary critic (show all 9)
playwright
essayist
short story writer - Organizations
- University of Washington
University of Colorado
State University of New York, Binghamton
Cornell University
Queensborough Community College
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (show all 7)
Clarion Workshop - Awards and honors
- National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship (1974)
SFRA Pilgrim Award (1988)
SF Hall Of Fame (2013) - Agent
- Diana Finch Agency
- Cause of death
- stroke
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- The Bronx, New York, New York, USA
- Places of residence
- Seattle, Washington, USA
Ithaca, New York, USA
New Haven, Connecticut, USA
Binghamton, New York, USA
Boulder, Colorado, USA - Place of death
- Tucson, Arizona, USA
- Associated Place (for map)
- USA
Members
Discussions
Magically Delicious in Good Show Sir! — bad science fiction and fantasy covers (March 2025)
THE DEEP ONES: "My Dear Emily" by Joanna Russ in The Weird Tradition (February 2021)
***The Female Man group read--spoiler thread in 75 Books Challenge for 2011 (May 2011)
Joanna Russ, 1937 - 2011 in Science Fiction Fans (May 2011)
Joanna Russ - stroke in Feminist SF (April 2011)
Joanna Russ in Feminist SF (June 2008)
Reviews
After years of running across references to [b:How to Suppress Women's Writing|1047343|How to Suppress Women's Writing|Joanna Russ|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1180491625s/1047343.jpg|158173], I have finally read it. (The timing on my acquiring and reading the book and my involvement in certain online arguments that I've stumbled upon lately about how sexism really still exists, no, really is probably not coincidental.)
ANYWAY. About the book. First off, it's a lit crit book with show more everything that that implies. For those of us without the heavy-duty lit background, this means the reading will be slow. Interesting, yes. Easy, no. The references/allusions/name-checks come fast and furious, but if, like me, you've never read, say Margaret Cavendish? The frequent citations of her work that assume a certain level of familiarity will be frustrating.
Keep going. It's worth it.
It's worth figuring out what gets left out or deemed unworthy and how -- and asking why. Because
Each chapter picks apart a tool/belief that keeps women's writing invisible and excluded from the Canon. Misattribution. Impropriety of subject matter. Unimportance of subject matter. False categorization (or judging pieces against the standards of a genre they don't belong to). Exceptionalism. Isolation from (feminine) influences. Denial of agency. And while the title clearly sets these obstacles up as something deliberate... the text itself does a fantastic job of showing how these beliefs permeate culture, how the ideas embed themselves in the minds of essentially well-intentioned critics/authors/readers, men and women alike.
She periodically points out how these same tools of suppression are used to deny a literary history to other marginalized groups -- she may have set out to expose the tools of sexism, but they are also the tools of racism and colonialism and heterosexism and classism and...
In fact, in the afterward of my edition, Russ acknowledged that she'd fallen into the same traps set along racial lines and added an "idiosyncratic" collection of quotes from literary works by members of minority groups that had been similarly ignored and excluded by the gatekeepers of Literature, including herself-as-critic. show less
ANYWAY. About the book. First off, it's a lit crit book with show more everything that that implies. For those of us without the heavy-duty lit background, this means the reading will be slow. Interesting, yes. Easy, no. The references/allusions/name-checks come fast and furious, but if, like me, you've never read, say Margaret Cavendish? The frequent citations of her work that assume a certain level of familiarity will be frustrating.
Keep going. It's worth it.
It's worth figuring out what gets left out or deemed unworthy and how -- and asking why. Because
A mode of understanding life which willfully ignores so much can do so only at the peril of thoroughly distorting the rest. A mode of understanding literature which can ignore the private lives of half the human race is not "incomplete"; it is distorted through and through. Feminist criticism of the early 1970s began by pointing out the simplist of these distortions, that is, that the female characters of even our greatest realistic "classics" by male writers are often not individualized portraits of possible women, but creations of fear and desire.
Each chapter picks apart a tool/belief that keeps women's writing invisible and excluded from the Canon. Misattribution. Impropriety of subject matter. Unimportance of subject matter. False categorization (or judging pieces against the standards of a genre they don't belong to). Exceptionalism. Isolation from (feminine) influences. Denial of agency. And while the title clearly sets these obstacles up as something deliberate... the text itself does a fantastic job of showing how these beliefs permeate culture, how the ideas embed themselves in the minds of essentially well-intentioned critics/authors/readers, men and women alike.
She periodically points out how these same tools of suppression are used to deny a literary history to other marginalized groups -- she may have set out to expose the tools of sexism, but they are also the tools of racism and colonialism and heterosexism and classism and...
In fact, in the afterward of my edition, Russ acknowledged that she'd fallen into the same traps set along racial lines and added an "idiosyncratic" collection of quotes from literary works by members of minority groups that had been similarly ignored and excluded by the gatekeepers of Literature, including herself-as-critic. show less
This is one of those rare science fiction novels that really make you think about right and wrong, the world around you, and what it means to be human.
Russ gives us a story about a small group of space travelers stranded on an uninhabited planet, a story that initially feels like a familiar "Robinson Crusoe in Space" tale, but very quickly proceeds to crush irretrievably each and every trope we’ve come to expect from this subgenre.
This novel can certainly stand as feminist scifi, a show more rejection of the all too typical “when the going gets rough, the men should be men and the women should revert to their natural role” premise. But I think it has much more to say than that: an effective indictment of the tyranny of the majority, an argument against group think, a rejection of the swaggering leader who says to the entire world “either you agree with us, or you are against us.”
We Who Are About To... is a fairly quick read, but it is by no means an easy read. show less
Russ gives us a story about a small group of space travelers stranded on an uninhabited planet, a story that initially feels like a familiar "Robinson Crusoe in Space" tale, but very quickly proceeds to crush irretrievably each and every trope we’ve come to expect from this subgenre.
This novel can certainly stand as feminist scifi, a show more rejection of the all too typical “when the going gets rough, the men should be men and the women should revert to their natural role” premise. But I think it has much more to say than that: an effective indictment of the tyranny of the majority, an argument against group think, a rejection of the swaggering leader who says to the entire world “either you agree with us, or you are against us.”
We Who Are About To... is a fairly quick read, but it is by no means an easy read. show less
By examining the progression of bad faith arguments used to belittle writing done by women, each progressively more desperate/illogical, Russ shows how flawed and dangerous much critical analysis of women’s work can be. As someone who doesn’t do a lot of academic reading, this was a slough in parts. However, Russ makes excellent points regarding the literary canon, college syllabi, and cultural values- and this was written in ‘83! While much has changed in the publishing industry, show more there are still gaps in racial diversity and pay rates, as well as in syllabi around the world. Overall, this was an excellent read, if a little dense for me at times, and is, unfortunately, still very relevant. show less
My favorite story in this collection is "The Little Dirty Girl." The rest range from exciting ("The Experimenter") to chilling ("Nor Custom Stale," about discovering immortality, and "Come Closer") to cheering ("Mr. Wilde's Second Chance," about Oscar Wilde's time in the afterlife). All are very odd, not least "The Throaways," in which permanence is disgusting. Some are almost classic scifi--"Elf Hill" for instance, a domestic story about reality and overpopulation. Others take a scifi trope show more and run wild with it, such as time travel ("Old Thoughts, Old Presences"), but do not merely evade cliche--they confound it. OTOP, for instance, uses time travel as a means of exploring a mother/daughter relationship.
There were few stories in this collection that I actually felt I understood, but they were wonderful. Russ has always seemed like someone I'd be a little afraid but very glad to know--dry, sarcastic, and very very sharp. show less
There were few stories in this collection that I actually felt I understood, but they were wonderful. Russ has always seemed like someone I'd be a little afraid but very glad to know--dry, sarcastic, and very very sharp. show less
Lists
Nebula Award (1)
Female Author (1)
Science Fiction (1)
1970s (1)
Five star books (1)
Best Dystopias (1)
Short and Sweet (2)
Read These Too (1)
SF Masterworks (1)
Awards
You May Also Like
Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 94
- Also by
- 144
- Members
- 7,647
- Popularity
- #3,192
- Rating
- 3.8
- Reviews
- 175
- ISBNs
- 121
- Languages
- 10
- Favorited
- 31