Afterword: Opening Space for Collective Grief

Abstract

In 2018, editor Patti Duncan invited former managing editor Rebecca Lambert, editorial assistant LK Mae, and me to write an afterword for the winter issue celebrating the thirty-year anniversary of Feminist Formations. In the introduction to our 2020 summer issue, Patti Duncan discussed collective grief, sharing the process of learning new things about grief, getting familiar with loss, and pausing to try to gather [her] stories and [her] loved ones close (2020, vii). In 1981, Lorde addressed an expectant audience at the National Women's Studies Association Conference Storrs Connecticut (2007, 124). Lorde spoke of anger as a catalyst for change, with limitations, that, when used in the service of our vision and our future is a liberating and strengthening act of clarification (2007, 127, 131).