Ellen Willis

Infobox Person
name = Ellen Jane Willis
birth_date = birth date|1941|12|14
birth_place = Manhattan, New York, New York
death_date = death date and age|2006|11|9|1941|12|14
death_place = Queens, New York, New York
occupation = Journalist
spouse = Stanley Aronowitz

Ellen Jane Willis (December 14, 1941 – November 9, 2006) was an American political essayist, journalist, and pop music critic.

Biography

Willis was born in Manhattan, and grew up in the boroughs of the Bronx and Queens in New York CityMargalit Fox, [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/10/arts/10willis.html?ex=1320814800&en=7df5ac657f731a9e&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss Ellen Willis, 64, Journalist and Feminist, Dies] , "New York Times", November 10, 2006.] . Her father was a police lieutenant in the New York City Police Department. Willis attended Barnard College as an undergraduate and did graduate study at University of California, Berkeley, where she studied comparative literature for a semester but left graduate school shortly afterwards Fact|date=February 2007. In the late 1960s and 1970s, she was the first pop music critic for "The New Yorker", and later wrote for, among others, the "Village Voice", "The Nation", "Rolling Stone", "Slate", and "Salon", as well as "Dissent", where she was also on the editorial board. She was the author of several books of collected essays. At the time of her death, she was a professor in the journalism department of New York University and the head of its Center for Cultural Reporting and Criticism. [http://journalism.nyu.edu/faculty/willis.html Official page] on the site of the Department of Journalism, New York University, accessed 7 July 2007] She lived in Queens with her husband Stanley Aronowitz and her daughter, Nona Willis-Aronowitz. On November 9, 2006, she died of lung cancer.

Writing and activism

She is also known for her feminist politics and was a member of New York Radical Women and subsequently co-founder in early 1969 with Shulamith Firestone of the radical feminist group Redstockings. [Ellen Willis, "Radical Feminism and Feminist Radicalism", 1984, collected in "No More Nice Girls: Countercultural Essays", Wesleyan University Press, 1992, ISBN 0-8195-5250-X, p. 117–150, especially p. 119, 124.] She was one of the few women working in music criticism during its inaugural years, when it was by and large a male-dominated field. Starting in 1979, Willis wrote a number of essays that were highly critical of anti-pornography feminism, criticizing it for what she saw as its sexual puritanism and moral authoritarianism, as well as its threat to free speech. These essays were among the earliest expressions of feminist opposition to the anti-pornography movement. Her 1981 essay, "Lust Horizons: Is the Women's Movement Pro-Sex?" is the origin of the term, "pro-sex feminism". [Ellen Willis, [http://villagevoice.com/specials/0543,50thewill,69320,31.html Lust Horizons: The 'Voice' and the women's movement] , "Village Voice" 50th Anniversary Issue, 2007. This is not the original "Lust Horizons" essay, but a retrospective essay mentioning that essay as the origin of the term. Accessed online 7 July 2007. A lightly revised version of the original "Lust Horizons" essay can be found in "No More Nice Girls", p. 3–14.] She was also a strong supporter of women's abortion rights, and in the early 1980s was a founding member of the pro-choice street theater and protest group No More Nice Girls.

A self-described anti-authoritarian democratic socialist, she was very critical of what she viewed as social conservatism and authoritarianism on both the political right and left. In cultural politics, she was equally opposed to the idea that cultural issues are politically unimportant, as well as to strong forms of identity politics and their manifestation as political correctness. In several essays and interviews written since the September 11 attacks, she was cautiously supportive of the idea of humanitarian intervention and, while opposed to the US invasion of Iraq, [Ellen Willis, [http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=529 Ellen Willis Responds] , "Dissent", Winter 2003. Accessed online 7 July 2007.] she was critical of certain aspects of the anti-war movement. [ [http://web.archive.org/web/20051223222129/http://journalism.nyu.edu/faculty/files/willis01.pdf why i'm not for PEACE] , "Radical Society", April 2002, p. 13–19; copy formerly posted on Willis's NYU faculty site was archived on the Internet Archive 23 December 2005. Accessed online 7 July 2007.] [ [http://leftbusinessobserver.com/Radio_1.html#030327 March 27, 2003 broadcast] , Doug Henwood's radio archives, "Left Business Observer".]

Coming from a Jewish background, Willis also wrote a number of essays on anti-Semitism, and was particularly critical of left anti-Semitism. Occasionally she wrote about Judaism itself, penning a particularly notable essay about her brother's spiritual journey as a Baal Teshuva for "Rolling Stone" in 1977. [Ellen Willis, [http://www.aish.com/spirituality/odysseys/Next_Year_In_Jerusalem3_Part_1.asp Next Year in Jerusalem] , originally published in "Rolling Stone", April 1977.]

Willis saw political authoritarianism and sexual repression as closely linked, an idea first advanced by psychologist Wilhelm Reich; much of Willis' writing advances a Reichian or radical Freudian analysis of such phenomena. In 2006 she was working on a book on the importance of radical psychoanalytic thought to current social and political issues.

Notes

Bibliography

Books

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*Willis, Ellen & Echols, Alice. "Daring to Be Bad: Radical Feminism in America 1967-1975" co-authored with Alice Echols

External links

* [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/10/arts/10willis.html?ex=1320814800&en=7df5ac657f731a9e&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss "Ellen Willis, 64, Journalist and Feminist, Dies"] by Margalit Fox, "New York Times", November 10, 2006.
* [http://www.nyunews.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2006/11/10/45541b82efbdb "Journalism professor, activist dies at 64"] by Josh Burd and Nick Brennan, "Washington Square News", November 10, 2006.
* [http://dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=756 "A Remembrance of Ellen Willis"] by Susie Linfield, "Dissent (magazine)", Winter 2007.
* [http://www.thenation.com/doc/20061127/ellen_willis "Ellen Willis, 1941-2006"] , "The Nation", November 10, 2006.
* [http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-willis15nov15,1,5931964.story?ctrack=1&cset=true "Ellen Willis, 64; radical critic targeted foibles wherever she saw them, on the left or right"] by Jocelyn Y. Stewart, "Los Angeles Times", November 15, 2006.
* [http://nyobserver.com/20061120/20061120_Suzy_Hansen_media_newsstory1.asp "Remembering Ellen Willis, Rock �n� Roll Feminist Superhero"] by Suzy Hansen, "New York Observer", November 20, 2006.
* [http://www.sevendaysvt.com/nc/columns/poli-psy-psyche/2006/ellen-willis-1942-2006.html "Ellen Willis, 1942-2006"] by Judith Levine, "Seven Days", Novemer 22, 2006.
* [http://thephoenix.com/article_ektid28507.aspx "My Ellen Willis"] by Michael Bronski, "The Boston Phoenix", November 30, 2006.
* [http://www.popmatters.com/pm/features/article/9305/sex-hope-and-rock-and-roll-a-conversation-with-ellen-willis/ "Sex, Hope and Rock and Roll: A Conversation with Ellen Willis"] by Chris O'Connell, "Pop Matters", January 8, 2007.
* [http://thecommonills.blogspot.com/2006/11/ellen-willis.html "Ellen Willis Remembered"] "The Common Ills", November 11, 2006.

Essays by Ellen Willis

* [http://journalism.nyu.edu/faculty/willis.html Ellen Willis NYU homepage] – includes links to numerous essays.
* [http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=716 "We Remember Ellen Willis"] , "Dissent", Fall 2006. – links to her essays for "Dissent".
* [http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/willisletter.html "Ellen Willis's Reply"] , 1968.
* [http://fair-use.org/ellen-willis/women-and-the-myth-of-consumerism "Women and the Myth of Consumerism"] , "Ramparts", 1969.
* [http://www.villagevoice.com/specials/0543,50thwillis,69282,31.html "Hell No, I Won't Go: End the War on Drugs"] , "Village Voice", September 19, 1989.
* [http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Political/Radical_Left.html "We Need a Radical Left"] , "The Nation", June 29, 1998.
* [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4196/is_19990321/ai_n10501975 "Monica and Barbara and Primal Concerns"] , "New York Times", March 14, 1999.
* [http://archive.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/11/06/willis/index.html "Vote for Ralph Nader!"] , "Salon", November 6, 2000.
* [http://www.wpunj.edu/newpol/issue31/willis31.htm "The Democrats and Left Masochism"] , "New Politics" #31 (new series), Summer, 2001.
* [http://www.bostonreview.net/BR27.5/willis.html "The Realities of War"] (A response to Elaine Scarry's “Citizenship in Emergency”), "Boston Review", October/November 2002.
* [http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:Py_JpVbNdLoJ:www.thenation.com/doc/20040705/forum2 "Can Marriage Be Saved?: A Forum" (II)] , "The Nation", June 17, 2004.
* [http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/1124.html "The Pernicious Concept of 'Balance'"] , "The Chronicle of Higher Education", September 9, 2005. "Note: scroll down page."
* [http://www.maxinegreene.org/pdfs/WillisPaper.pdf "Commentary on Maxine Greene's "The Dialectic of Freedom"]

Reviews and critiques of Ellen Willis

* [http://www.thenation.com/doc/20020819/reading20020808 Review of "Beginning to See the Light"] by Liza Featherstone, "The Nation", August 8, 2002.
* [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1252/is_18_126/ai_56918041 Review of "Don't Think, Smile!"] by Eugene McCarraher, "Commonweal", October 22, 1999.
* [http://weeklywire.com/ww/11-29-99/boston_books_1.html Review of "Don't Think, Smile!" and interview with Ellen Willis] by Michael Bronski, "Weekly Wire", November 29, 1999.
* [http://web.archive.org/web/20041016004838/http://www.sfbg.com/lit/march00/smile.html Review of "Don't Think, Smile!"] by Marcy Sheiner, "San Francisco Bay Guardian", March 29, 2000.
* [http://www.thenation.com/doc/20010312/letter Bully in the Pulpit?] (Discussion of Ellen Willis " [http://www.thenation.com/doc/20010219/willis Freedom From Religion] "), "The Nation", February 22, 2001.
* [http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/pen-l/2003w12/msg00083.htm "Open Letter to Ellen Willis"] by Louis Proyect, "PEN-L" (internet mailing list), March 25, 2003.

Interviews

* [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6467648 "Ellen Willis, Feminist and Writer"] , "Fresh Air", November 10, 2006 (originally broadcast February 14, 1989). (page links to RealAudio audio file)
* [http://leftbusinessobserver.com/Radio_1.html#030327 Interview with Ellen Willis and others on "Implicating Empire"] by Doug Henwood, "Left Business Observer" (radio), March 27, 2003. (page links to MP3 audio)