In the Mood for Revolution: Emma Goldman’s Passion

This article has two aims: to theorize ways in which mood is gendered, and to explore the importance of gendered mood in the life and work of Emma Goldman (anarchist writer and activist, 1869-1940). In the first part I track ways in which accounting for gender and sexuality changes how we think about mood with respect to duration, and as mediating the intersection of the public and private. I then proceed to highlight how mood is significant for Emma Goldman in her quest for women’s emancipation being taken seriously as part of revolutionary process. For Goldman, women’s moods must be transformed so that they can become revolutionary subjects, and their current mood is part of how the relationship between public and private so essential to capitalism is maintained. Further Goldman’s own moods—by turns enthusiastic and vicious—are key both as part of her method of persuasion, and as what prevents her retaining the important distinction between women’s role and women’s character.