Sarah Schulman

Sarah Schulman is a distinguished novelist, nonfiction author, playwright, screenwriter, AIDS historian and social activist whose work spans five decades. Her most recent book, “The Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity,” published in April 2025, explores the psychological complexity of solidarity movements—asking what hinders and what sustains collective resistance in an unequal world. In this thought-provoking nonfiction work, Schulman offers both a critical diagnosis of the fantasies that often scaffold social justice efforts and a hopeful, pragmatic vision for how solidarity can remain meaningful and effective.

Sarah Schulman was a rank-and-file member of ACT UP and a co-founder of the Lesbian Avengers after leaving ACT UP in 1992; she also co-created the ACT UP Oral History Project and authored Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP New York, a comprehensive political history of the group based on hundreds of interviews with its members. Her work documented ACT UP's strategies and effectiveness in forcing changes in AIDS treatment and policy, placing it within the broader context of 20th-century social movements.

Earlier landmark texts include her oral-history masterpiece “Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP New York, 1987-1993” (2021), which chronicles AIDS activism through first-person narratives, and the companion volume “Conversations with Sarah Schulman,” edited by Will Brantley (2024). These build on a career of nonfiction that also includes “Conflict Is Not Abuse: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility and the Duty of Repair” (2016), “Israel/Palestine and the Queer International” (2012) and “The Gentrification of the Mind: Witness to a Lost Imagination” (2012), alongside a wide range of fiction such as “The Cosmopolitans” (2016) and “Maggie Terry” (2018).

As a playwright, Schulman’s creations—including “Carson McCullers,” “Manic Flight Reaction,” “Enemies, a Love Story” and “The Lady Hamlet”—have been produced in diverse venues from Playwrights Horizons to Provincetown Theater. On screen, she has co-written films such as “The Owls,” “Mommy Is Coming,” and “Jason and Shirley,” and co-produced the feature documentary “United in Anger: A History of ACT UP.”

A committed journalist, Schulman has contributed essays to The New York Times, The Nation, Harper’s, The Atlantic and other major outlets. Her activism is interwoven with her artistry: she co-founded the MIX Festival (Queer Experimental Film and Video Festival), co-leads the ACT UP Oral History Project, served in ACT UP New York, co-founded the Lesbian Avengers, and continues her advocacy as a member of the advisory board of Jewish Voice for Peace and faculty advisor to Students for Justice in Palestine at the College of Staten Island.

In academia, Sarah Schulman is a distinguished professor of the Humanities at the City University of New York’s College of Staten Island and holds the Ralla Klepak Professorship of English at Northwestern University. Her honors are many, including a Guggenheim Fellowship in playwriting, a Fulbright in Judaic studies, multiple American Library Association book awards and various recognitions from LGBTQ+ literary associations.