Superfluous Women

Superfluous Women tells the unique story of a generation of artists, feminists, and queer activists who emerged in Ukraine after the collapse of the Soviet Union. With a focus on new media, Zychowicz demonstrates how contemporary artist collectives in Ukraine have contested Soviet and Western connotations of feminism to draw attention to a range of human rights issues with global impact.In the book, Zychowicz summarizes and engages with more recent critical scholarship on the role of digital media and virtual environments in concepts of the public sphere. Mapping out several key changes in newly independent Ukraine, she traces the discursive links between distinct eras, marked by mass gatherings on Kyiv’s main square, in order to investigate the deeper shifts driving feminist protest and politics today.

"Superfluous Women is clearly a labor of empathy and solidarity with Ukrainians, and the inter-revolutionary generation in particular. As a path-blazing study on the topic, it should be valued as the result of a decade’s worth of intellectual production, which included numerous research trips and prolonged periods of work in the region, amassing an archive, as well as the work of cultural diplomacy, translating and representing Ukrainian artists and activists in the West.", "[Zychowicz] introduces several important art projects and movements that are indicative of a unique time in Ukraine’s post-independence history. The author’s connection with the artists through interviews enhances the images and descriptions of works of art, manifestos, and political responses—including repressions of artists—that make up much of the book’s content.", "Jessica Zychowicz’s Superfluous Women: Art, Feminism, and Revolution in Twenty-First-Century Ukraine is a groundbreaking study of feminist protest and how it is mediated in contemporary Ukraine. Examining the decade between 2004’s Orange Revolution and the Revolution of Dignity (2013–14), Zychowicz traverses a dazzling array of media, objects, and methods to reveal the vibrant histories of feminist collectives in Ukraine—from the infamous Femen and its media strategies to Ofenzywa’s engagement with photography to the work of the curatorial collectives HudRada and REP. Zychowicz herself is present throughout, as an interlocutor, archivist, and guide whose bracing prose will make this study an invaluable resource for readers in Slavic studies, feminist studies, and visual and media studies alike.", "This book introduces many important urban struggles going on in Ukrainian art and activism to an anglophone audience."

Jessica Zychowicz is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Alberta in the Contemporary Ukraine Studies Program (CUSP) and was recently a U.S. Fulbright Scholar at Kyiv-Mohyla University. She earned her doctorate at the University of Michigan.