Clara Zetkin with Kristin Gjesdal

In this episode, Juliette Marchant is joined by Kristin Gjesdal, Professor of Philosophy at Temple University, to discuss the life and thought of Clara Zetkin - Marxist theorist, communist activist, and one of the founders of the Social Democratic Women’s Movement in Germany.Together, Gjesdal and Marchant examine what makes Zetkin’s work so distinctive and urgent: her commitment to women’s liberation as inseparable from class struggle, her attention to the lived realities of women workers, and her powerful analysis of fascism as a mass political movement. From socialist feminism and International Women’s Day to anti-fascism, racism, and political steadfastness in dark times, the episode highlights Zetkin as an unruly thinker whose ideas continue to challenge and illuminate contemporary political life.Texts Referenced in the Episode:Opprørerne: Kvinner som endret filosofien - Kristin GjesdalRebellinnen der Philosophie - Kristin GjesdalThe Oxford Handbook of Nineteenth-Century Women Philosophers in the German Tradition - Dalia Nassar and Kristin GjesdalWomen Philosophers in the Long Nineteenth Century: The German Tradition - Dalia Nassar and Kristin Gjesdal