Cirrus@Austlit

As Rebecca l. Bordt has argued, there have been almost no successful feminist movements that did not also begin, in some shape or form, as collectives.2 This special volume of Philament draws together selected papers from the University of Sydney Feminist Theory Reading Group (FTRG), one of the only postgraduate women’s collectives at the University. Founded in early 2016 by a small group of writers and postgraduate students, FTRG began with a two-pronged intention. Many of us were motivated not only to explore and promote the foundations of feminist theory but to meet other inspired and progressive thinkers. Though the academic environment encourages rigorous research, we felt that opportunities for peer-to-peer support were rare in the postgraduate setting, which limited the dissemination of ideas and opportunities. I myself also noticed how the competitive nature of academia seemed to divide us, promoting isolation and paranoia. I started to think about how demoralising the situation was for early-career researchers, especially as I met newer generations of feminist scholars who had experienced the same age-old frustrations inspired by isolating environments. Friends had stopped supporting and celebrating each other’s achievements and had instead adopted an attitude well expressed by Gore Vidal, who said “Every time a friend succeeds something inside me dies.”3 And once again, individualism seemed to reign over collectivism.' (Introduction)