Quotes from Joan Wallach Scott

We've increasingly lost that sense of community, of the notion that there is something we contribute to and benefit from that is called the common good.

The common good is the notion of shared collective responsibility and reciprocity. It's that that we've lost.

Those who expect moments of change to be comfortable and free of conflict have not learned their history.

The point of new historical investigation is to disrupt the notion of fixity, to discover the nature of the debate or repression that leads to the appearance of timeless permanence

Subsequent history is written as if these normative positions were the product of social consensus rather than of conflict

All of my work in some way or another speaks to political issues according to the upbringing that I had, which was deeply rooted in principles.