A Sentimental Education

By: Hannah McGregor

Narrated by: Hannah McGregor

Length: 4 hrs and 35 mins

Publisher's summary

How do you tell the story of a feminist education, when the work of feminism can never be perfected or completed? In A Sentimental Education, Hannah McGregor, the podcaster behind Witch, Please and Secret Feminist Agenda, explores what podcasting has taught her about doing feminist scholarship not as a methodology but as a way of life.

Moving between memoir and theory, these essays consider the collective practices of feminist meaning-making in activities as varied as reading, critique, podcasting, and even mourning. In part this book is a memoir of one person’s education as a reader and a thinker, and in part it is an analysis of some of the genres and aesthetic modes that have been sites of feminist meaning-making: the sentimental, the personal, the banal, and the relatable. Above all, it is a meditation on what it means to care deeply and to know that caring is both necessary and utterly insufficient.

In the tradition of feminist autotheory, this collection works outward from the specificity of McGregor’s embodied experience–as a white settler, a fat femme, and a motherless daughter. In so doing, it invites listeners to reconsider the culture, media, political structures, and lived experiences that inform how we move through the world separately and together.

©2022 Wilfrid Laurier University Press (P)2022 Wilfrid Laurier University Press

Critic reviews

"A Sentimental Education is a generous work of unfolding. From Pamela to podcasts, scholar Hannah McGregor troubles the white woman sentimentalism that informed her childhood and later transformed her approach to scholarship. A queer, shapeshifting bunny emerges from a well-loved bedtime book. A fat girl podcast episode you loved once, doesn’t really see you after all. Intimate, vulnerable, pointy and kind, this is where personal memories and embodied experiences exist in relation with the ideas and arguments of queer, BIPOC, and feminist theory. This book is a journey, a reminder that “stories don’t interpret themselves, they unfold in relation to the reader”."—Chantal Gibson, author of with/holding

"In a pointedly powerful yet lyrical voice, McGregor offers us a timely and valuable series of insights that will resonate for many. McGregor demonstrates an acute ability to evaluate and comment on her own reflexivity as a white feminist scholar. A Sentimental Education is a love letter for those who have long awaited a discussion on the complex relationship between care, theory, love, and loss."—Minelle Mahtani, author of Mixed Race Amnesia

"In A Sentimental Education Hannah McGregor extends generosity on each page. The essays in this collection are deeply insightful, citational, and conversational. They are unwavering in their critique of the myriad boundaries that oppress us, and they offer ideas for collective resistance. A Sentimental Education made me laugh, cry, and reach for my pen to write everything down. This book is necessary, luminous, and crackling with joy and kindness. What is the collective noun for a group of essays that teaches, gives care, critiques repressive systems, and offers both humor and friendship? A companionship of essays? A feminist provocation of essays? An education of essays."–Erin Wunker, author of Notes from a Feminist Killjoy

A beautiful continuation of her podcasts

McGregor weaves a fascinating tapestry of her sentimental education through personal and political influences. A great read for both fans of her podcast and newcomers.

Phenomenal!

Thoughtful and incisive, must read for followers of Hannah's podcasts. I really resonated with her exploration of theory through a personal lense.