124 Lauren Coodley: Feminist Historian, Teacher and Writer

Lauren Coodley’s 35-year career involved fighting the educational establishment to legitimize Women’s Studies and to teach using feminist pedagogy. She was profoundly successful with female and male students alike. Yet, Lauren was forced to retire from her tenured position at age 60 due to misogyny and ageism, as well as her activist career. Lauren’s work as an historian includes a textbook on California history and a trilogy on the history of Napa Valley. She has spent decades striving to promote Upton Sinclair as a male feminist and strong ally of women’s rights--most recently in her 2013 biography. Lauren’s published poems, The Same River Twice, came out in 2018. Recently, she has written poems about her treatment for ovarian cancer, currently in remission. Lauren reads for us On Losing My Female Organs. “I am outraged about the epidemic of cancer in women,” Lauren says; “and grateful to be alive.”

The world is a dangerous place for women and girls.- Lauren Coodley

Contact Information

Email: lcoodley@hotmail.com

Website: laurencoodley.com [see publications: non-fiction history, biography, and poetry] including:

Upton Sinclair: California Socialist, Celebrity Intellectual (2013). University of Nebraska Press.

 

Lost Napa Valley (2021). Arcadia Publishing.