Silvia Federici

Silvia Federici (1942, Parma, Italy) is a feminist writer, teacher, and militant.

In 1972, Federici was co-founder of the International Feminist Collective, which launched the Wages for Housework campaign internationally. With other members of Wages for Housework, like Mariarosa Dalla Costa and Selma James, and with feminist authors like Maria Mies and Vandana Shiva, Federici has been instrumental in developing the concept of "reproduction" as a key to class relations of exploitation and domination in local and global contexts, and as central to forms of autonomy and the commons.

In the 1990s, after a period of teaching and research in Nigeria, she was active in the anti-globalization movement and the U.S. anti-death penalty movement. She is one of the co-founders of the Committee for Academic Freedom in Africa, an organization dedicated to generating support for the struggles of students and teachers in Africa against the structural adjustment of African economies and education systems. From 1987 to 2005, she also taught international studies, women’s studies, and political philosophy courses at Hofstra University in Hempstead, NY.

All through these years she has written books and essays on philosophy and feminist theory, women’s history, education and culture, and more recently the worldwide struggle against capitalist globalization and for a feminist reconstruction of the commons.

Publications

Books

Wages Against Housework, 1975, PDF.

• Wages Against Housework, New York: Power of Women Collective, and Bristol: Falling Wall Press, Apr 1975, 8 pp.
  • Salario contro il lavoro domestico, Naples: Collettivo femminista napoletano per il salario al lavoro domestico, and Padova: Comitato per il salario al lavoro domestico, 1976, [13] pp. (Italian)
  • Lohn gegen Hausarbeit, Berlin: P. Biemann, 1977, 11 pp. (German)

Counter-Planning from the Kitchen, 1975, PDF.

• with Nicole Cox, Counter-Planning from the Kitchen: Wages for Housework: A Perspective on Capital and the Left, New York: New York Wages for Housework, and Bristol: Falling Wall Press, Nov 1975, 23 pp. (English)
  • Contropiano dalle cucine, Venice: Marsilio, 1978, 78 pp. [1] (Italian)
  • Ē politikē oikonomia tēs gynaikeias apeleutherōsēs, trans. Nikos V Alexiou, Athens: Eleutheros Typos, 123 pp. (Greek)

• with Leopoldina Fortunati, Il grande Calibano: storia del corpo sociale ribelle nella prima fase del capitale, Milan: Franco Angeli, 1984, 306 pp. (Italian)

• editor, Enduring Western Civilization: The Construction of the Concept of Western Civilization and Its "Others", Westport, CT: Praeger, 1995, xvi+210 pp.

• editor, with George Caffentzis and Ousseina Alidou, A Thousand Flowers: Social Struggles Against Structural Adjustment in African Universities, Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2000, 241 pp.

• editor, African Visions: Literary Images, Political Change, and Social Struggle in Contemporary Africa, Westport, CT, and London: Praeger, 2000.

• Reproduksi dan perjuangan feminis dalam pembagian kerja internasional baru, trans. Nug Katjasungkana, Jakarta: Kalyanamitra, 2000, ix+60 pp. [2] (Indonesian)

Caliban and the Witch, 2004, PDF.

• Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation, Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia, 2004, 288 pp.
  • Calibán y la bruja: mujeres, cuerpo y acumulación originaria, trans. Verónica Hendel and Leopoldo Sebastián Touza, Madrid: Traficantes de sueños, 2010, 368 pp. (Spanish)
  • Caliban und die Hexe. Frauen, der Körper und die ursprüngliche Akkumulation, trans. Max Henninger, Vienna: Mandelbaum, 2012. (German)
  • Caliban ve cadı: kadınlar, beden ve ilksel birikim, trans. Öznur Karakaş, Istanbul: Otonom Yayıncılık, 2012, 370 pp. (Turkish)
  • Kaliban i veštica. Žene, telo i prvobitna akumulacija, trans. Aleksa Golijanin, Zrenjanin: Burevesnik, 2013. (Serbian)
  • Caliban et la sorcière: femmes, corps et accumulation primitive, trans. Senonevero, Genève: Entremonde, and Marseille: Senonevero, 2014, 403 pp. (French)
  • Calibano e la strega: le donne, il corpo e l'accumulazione originaria, Milan: Mimesis, 2015, 343 pp. Preface. (Italian)
  • Kyariban to majo: Shihon shugi ni kosuru josei no shintai, trans. Rin Odawara, 2017, 517 pp. (Japanese)

Revolution at Point Zero, 2012, PDF, EPUB, MOBI.

• Revolution at Point Zero: Housework, Reproduction, and Feminist Struggle, Oakland, CA: PM Press, and Brooklyn, NY: Common Notions, 2012, 188 pp, PDF, EPUB, MOBI. Collection of essays from 1974-2012.
  • Aufstand aus der Küche. Reproduktionsarbeit im globalen Kapitalismus und die unvollendete feministische Revolution, trans. Max Henninger, Münster: Assamblage, 2012, 128 pp. [3] (German)
  • Revolución en punto cero: trabajo doméstico, reproducción y luchas feministas, trans. Scriptorium (Carlos Fernández Guervós and Paula Martín Ponz), Madrid: Traficantes de sueños, 2013, 285 pp. (Spanish)
  • Hyŏngmyŏng ŭi yŏngjŏm: kasa nodong, chaesaengsan, yŏsŏngjuŭi t'uchaeng, trans. Hwang Sŏng-wŏn, Seoul: Kalmuri, 2013, 336 pp. (Korean)
  • Il punto zero della rivoluzione: lavoro domestico, riproduzione e lotta femminista, trans. Anna Curcio, Verona: Ombre corte, 2014, 159 pp. [4] (Italian)
  • Point zéro: propagation de la révolution. Salaire ménager, reproduction sociale, combat féministe, trans. Damien Tissot, rev. & notes Oristelle Bonis, Donnemarie-Dontilly: iXe, 2016, 258 pp. [5] (French)

• Witch-Hunting, Past and Present, and the Fear of the Power of Women / Hexenjagd, Vergangenheit und Gegenwart und die Angst vor der Macht der Frauen, trans. Astrid Wege, Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2012, 30 pp. (English)/(German)

Journal issues

• editor, with Camille Barbagallo, The Commoner 15: "'Care Work' and the Commons", Winter 2012, ix+432 pp. (English)

Links

• Wikipedia