Best of
Activism

1998

Medicine Stories: History, Culture and the Politics of Integrity


Aurora Levins Morales - 1998
    Drawing vibrant connections between the colonization of whole nations, the health of the mountainsides and the abuse of individual women, children and men, Medicine Stories offers the paradigm of integrity as a political model to people who hunger for a world of justice, health and love.

The Seventh Octave: The Early Writings of Saul Williams


Saul Williams - 1998
    The Seventh Octave features some of this great young poets most revered poems. From "OHM," to "Sha Clack Clack," Saul's words are breathtaking and powerful with every read. The Seventh Octave is a must-have collection for any aspiring poet or seasoned writer. Lyrical and electric, full of brilliant imagery and truth. The Seventh Octave is for lovers of language and the magic poets can create.

Fever Art of David Wojnarowicz (New Museum Books, 2)


David Wojnarowicz - 1998
    After he was diagnosed with AIDS in the late 1980's, Wojnarowicz's art took on a sharply political edge, and from then until his death in 1992, he became entangled in highly public debates about medical research and funding, censorship in the arts, and politically sanctioned homophobia. Fever: The Art of David Wojnarowicz is the first book to explore the extraordinary breadth of his work in film, installation, sculpture, photography, performance, and writing, as well as his considerable influence on artists and writers working today. It features essays by leading art scholars, including New Museum senior curator Dan Cameron, along with excerpts from Wojnarowicz's own writings and previously unpublished material from the archives of the Wojnarowicz estate-works that cross literary lines, from memoir and fiction to political commentary and cultural critique.Dan Cameron, John Carlin, C. Carr, and Mysoon Rizk

Remedios: Stories of Earth and Iron from the History of Puertorriquenas


Aurora Levins Morales - 1998
    Beginning with the First Mother in sub-Saharan Africa more than 200,000 years ago, Aurora Levins Morales takes readers on a journey through time and around the globe.We learn of Juana de Asbaje, author of the "Reply to Sor Filotea" in 1693, the first feminist essay written in the New World; Gracia Nasi, Constantinople's "Queen of the Jews"; the African-American activist and warrior of words Ida B. Wells; and the unlikely martyr and symbol, Ethel Rosenberg.Levins Morales weaves in her own story of pain and healing, ameliorated by the restorative power of memory, and bears witness to a larger history of resistance and abuse by women and men.This historical memoir revives our connection to the forgotten lore of our grandmothers, featuring explanations of the medicinal properties of herbs and and foods such as rosemary, ginkgo, and banana. With love, joy, and defiance, Levins Morales offers Remedios as testimony to those barely recorded or known to history, the women who shaped our world.Aurora Levins Morales is author of Medicine Stories: History, Culture, and the Politics of Integrity (South End Press, 1998) and Getting Home Alive (Firebrand, 1986). A Jewish "red diaper baby" from the mountains of Puerto Rico, Morales writes lucidly about the complexities of social identity. She teaches at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.[box]Also available from South End PressMedicine Stories: History, Culture, and the Politics of IntegrityTC $14.00, 0-89608-581-3 o CUSADeColores Means All of UsTP $18.00, 0-89608-583-X o CUSALoving in the War YearsTP $17.00, 0-89608-626-7 o CUSA

Foucault, Femininity, and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power


Sandra Lee Bartky - 1998
    

The Truth That Never Hurts: Writings on Race, Gender, and Freedom


Barbara Smith - 1998
    As one of the first writers in the United States to claim black feminism for black women, Barbara Smith has done groundbreaking work in defining black women’s literary traditions and in making connections between race, class, sexuality, and gender.Smith’s essay “Toward a Black Feminist Criticism,” is often cited as a major catalyst in opening the field of black women’s literature. Pieces about racism in the women’s movement, black and Jewish relations, and homophobia in the Black community have ignited dialogue about topics that few other writers address. The collection also brings together topical political commentaries on the 1968 Chicago convention demonstrations; attacks on the NEA; the Anita Hill–Clarence Thomas Senate hearings; and police brutality against Rodney King and Abner Louima. It also includes a never-before-published personal essay on racial violence and the bonds between black women that make it possible to survive.

Living For Change: An Autobiography


Grace Lee Boggs - 1998
    Grace Lee Boggs, Chinese American, middle class, highly educated, discovers through her encounters with remarkable rebels, blue collars as well as philosophers, where the body is buried: who is doing what to whom in our society. It is an adventure that is truly liberating". Studs Terkel"Grace Lee Boggs has made a fundamental difference in keeping alive the traditions of the struggles for freedom and democracy". Cornel WestLiving for Change is a sweeping account of the life of an untraditional radical from the end of the thirties, through the cold war, the civil rights era, and the rise of Black Power, the Nation of Islam, and the Black Panthers to the present efforts to rebuild our crumbling urban communities. This fascinating autobiography traces the story of a woman who transcended class and racial boundaries to pursue her passionate belief in a better society.Grace Lee Boggs was raised in New York City during a time when her father was not allowed to buy land for their home because he was Chinese. Educated at Barnard and Bryn Mawr, Boggs was in her twenties when radical politics beckoned, and she was inspired to become a revolutionary focusing on the black community.During her early years as an activist in New York, Boggs began a twenty-year friendship and collaboration with C. L. R. James, the brilliant and influential West Indian Marxist to whom she devotes a revelatory chapter of this book. In 1953, she moved to Detroit where, she writes, "radical history had been made and could be made again". It was also the home of James Boggs, an African American auto worker (and later author and revolutionarytheoretician) who would become one of the movement's freshest and most persuasive voices, as well as Grace's husband. Beginning with their work together on the newsletter Correspondence, Grace and James formed the core of a network that over the years would include Malcolm X, Lyman Paine, Ping Ferry, Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, Kwame Nkrumah, Stokely Carmichael, and inner-city youth.Rich in the personalities and anecdotes of twentieth-century progressive activism, Living for Change is an involving and inspiring look at a remarkable woman who continues to dedicate her life to social justice.

Animal Gospel


Andrew Linzey - 1998
    He offers an inspiring personal account of the gospel truths that have sustained his commitment to the cause of animals for more than twenty-five years.

Coming Back to Life: Practices to Reconnect Our Lives, Our World


Joanna Macy - 1998
    Noted spiritual and environmental thinkers Joanna Macy and Molly Young Brown contend that this crippling response to world crisis is a psychological defense mechanism that has been endemic since the years of the Cold War arms race, when we had to adapt within a single generation to the horrific possibility of nuclear holocaust.Since its publication in 1983, Joanna Macy's book, Despair and Personal Power in the Nuclear Age has sold nearly 30,000 copies and has been the primary resource for groups of men and women confronting the challenging realities of our time without succumbing to paralysis or panic. Coming Back to Life provides a much needed update and expansion of this pioneering work. At the interface between spiritual breakthrough and social action, Coming Back to Life is eloquent and compelling as well as being an inspiring and practical guide. The first third of the book discusses with extraordinary insight the angst of our era, and the pain, fear, guilt and inaction it has engendered; it then points forward to the way out of apathy, tio "the work that reconnects". The rest of the book offers both personal counsel and easy-to-use methods for working with groups in a number of ways to profoundly affect peoples' outlook and ability to act in the world.Table of ContentsForeword by Mathew Fox1. To Choose Life2. The Greatest Danger: Apatheia, The Deadening of Mind & Heart3. The Basic Miracle: Our True Nature & Power4. The Work that Reconnects5. Guiding Group Work6. Affirmation: Coming from Gratitude7. Despair Work: Owning & Honoring Our Pain for the World8. The Shift: Seeing with New Eyes9. Deep Time: Drawing on Past & Future Generations10. The Council of All Beings: Rejoining the Natural World11. Going Forth12. Meditations for Coming Back to LifeJoanna Macy has developed an international following over the course of 40 years as a speaker and workshop leader on Buddhist philosophy and the deep ecology movement

The Tainted Desert: Environmental and Social Ruin in the American West


Valerie Kuletz - 1998
    Now, another nuclear crisis looms over this region: the storage of tens of thousands of tons of nuclear waste. Tainted Desert maps the nuclear landscapes of the US inter-desert southwest, a land sacrificed to the Cold-War arms race and nuclear energy policy.

Bearing Witness: A Zen Master's Lessons in Making Peace


Bernie Glassman - 1998
    Each chapter focuses on an event or person and demonstrates how a particular peacemaker vow is put into practice. Through these stories and Glassman's personal testimony we come to understand the essence of peacemaking.

Under the Gaze: Learning to Be Black in White Society


Jennifer Kelly - 1998
    Using the context of historical racialization in conjunction with student narratives, this book gives insight into the process of racialization as it relates to popular culture, gender, and relationships with peers.

Acts of Intervention: Performance, Gay Culture, and AIDS


David Roman - 1998
    Author David Roman examines the ways that gay men have used alternative, activist, and mainstream theatre and performance to intervene in the AIDS crisis. He considers solo performance, community-based projects, mixed-media events, activist demonstrations, and AIDS education theatre initiatives.

Street Posters and Ballads


Eric Drooker - 1998
    Drooker traces the neighborhood's radical history back two centuries in his written introduction and follows with dozens of arresting images, depicting the resistance of the beaten-down, the trod-upon and the forgotten in our brave new economic order. These visual protests debuted on lampposts and walls, but they have long since become part of the ongoing visual and psychic landscape of the Lower East Side.