Jessica Kirzane, "The Costs of Free Love: A Discussion and Reading from Miriam Karpilove's Diary of a Lonely Girl"

Narrated by a diarist writing in first person about her own love life, Miriam Karpilove's Diary of a Lonely Girl, or The Battle Against Free Love  (1918) offers a raw personal criticism of radical leftist immigrant youth culture in early twentieth century New York.  Squeezed between men who use their freethinking ideals to pressure her to be sexually available and nosy landladies who require her to maintain her respectability, the narrator expresses her frustration at her vulnerable circumstances with sharp humor.  The novel boldly discusses issues of consent, body autonomy, women’s empowerment and disempowerment around sexuality, courtship and politics.  At every turn, it resonates with today’s political climate of #metoo activism and renewed attention to the ways women are talked over and belittled even in leftist social and political arenas.