NationSwell and Marguerite Casey Foundation are proud to present Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World, an MCF Book Club event designed to make sense of the vertigo-inducing, post-pandemic shadow world that feels all too familiar. 

Under the pall of a global pandemic, climate disaster, and a rising tide of authoritarianism,  author Naomi Klein found her attention pulled improbably toward a more personal kind of crisis: the existence of a doppelganger who was, in many ways, her inverse. Harboring radically different politics, a comparable digital footprint, and a shared name, “Other Naomi’s” beliefs and values seemed to exist at the nexus of the most urgent crises we face. As professional pundits and ordinary people alike continued to confuse the two women, Klein found herself increasingly questioning her own identity, her shadow self, and the uncanny, post-pandemic reality we all inhabit.

As anti-democratic forces amass in plain sight, the appearance of doubles serves as a warning. In Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World, Klein discovers that the swirl of anti-vaccine ideology, climate denialism, and rising fascism has created a parallel social universe that feels at once familiar and foreign, and has created political binaries and bifurcations where nuance once lived.

Join us on Wednesday, April 24th, for a conversation with author Naomi Klein; scholar, author, activist, and 2020 MCF Freedom Scholar Dr. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor; filmmaker, writer, and activist Astra Taylor; and Dr. Carmen Rojas, President & CEO of Marguerite Casey Foundation, as we attempt to make sense of this parallel social universe and chart a path toward shared purpose and power.

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This event is part of the MCF Book Club: Reading for a Liberated Future series. The MCF Book Club shares the ideas of leaders who encourage us to imagine how we can radically transform our democracy, economy, and society.