Autobiography as Activism

Autobiography as Activism PDF Author: Margo V. Perkins
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 1628467428
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description
Angela Davis, Assata Shakur (a.k.a. JoAnne Chesimard), and Elaine Brown are the only women activists of the Black Power movement who have published book-length autobiographies. In bearing witness to that era, these militant newsmakers wrote in part to educate and to mobilize their anticipated readers. In this way, Davis's Angela Davis: An Autobiography (1974), Shakur's Assata (1987), and Brown's A Taste of Power: A Black Woman's Story (1992) can all be read as extensions of the writers' political activism during the 1960s. Margo V. Perkins's critical analysis of their books is less a history of the movement (or of women's involvement in it) than an exploration of the politics of storytelling for activists who choose to write their lives. Perkins examines how activists use autobiography to connect their lives to those of other activists across historical periods, to emphasize the link between the personal and the political, and to construct an alternative history that challenges dominant or conventional ways of knowing. The histories constructed by these three women call attention to the experiences of women in revolutionary struggle, particularly to the ways their experiences have differed from men's. The women's stories are told from different perspectives and provide different insights into a movement that has been much studied from the masculine perspective. At times they fill in, complement, challenge, or converse with the stories told by their male counterparts, and in doing so, hint at how the present and future can be made less catastrophic because of women's involvement. The multiple complexities of the Black Power movement become evident in reading these women's narratives against each other as well as against the sometimes strikingly different accounts of their male counterparts. As Davis, Shakur, and Brown recount events in their lives, they dispute mainstream assumptions about race, class, and gender and reveal how the Black Power struggle profoundly shaped their respective identities.

Autobiography as Activism

Autobiography as Activism PDF Author: Margo V. Perkins
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 1628467428
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 188

Get Book Here

Book Description
Angela Davis, Assata Shakur (a.k.a. JoAnne Chesimard), and Elaine Brown are the only women activists of the Black Power movement who have published book-length autobiographies. In bearing witness to that era, these militant newsmakers wrote in part to educate and to mobilize their anticipated readers. In this way, Davis's Angela Davis: An Autobiography (1974), Shakur's Assata (1987), and Brown's A Taste of Power: A Black Woman's Story (1992) can all be read as extensions of the writers' political activism during the 1960s. Margo V. Perkins's critical analysis of their books is less a history of the movement (or of women's involvement in it) than an exploration of the politics of storytelling for activists who choose to write their lives. Perkins examines how activists use autobiography to connect their lives to those of other activists across historical periods, to emphasize the link between the personal and the political, and to construct an alternative history that challenges dominant or conventional ways of knowing. The histories constructed by these three women call attention to the experiences of women in revolutionary struggle, particularly to the ways their experiences have differed from men's. The women's stories are told from different perspectives and provide different insights into a movement that has been much studied from the masculine perspective. At times they fill in, complement, challenge, or converse with the stories told by their male counterparts, and in doing so, hint at how the present and future can be made less catastrophic because of women's involvement. The multiple complexities of the Black Power movement become evident in reading these women's narratives against each other as well as against the sometimes strikingly different accounts of their male counterparts. As Davis, Shakur, and Brown recount events in their lives, they dispute mainstream assumptions about race, class, and gender and reveal how the Black Power struggle profoundly shaped their respective identities.

Autobiography of Protest in Hawaii

Autobiography of Protest in Hawaii PDF Author: Robert H. Mast
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 9780824817848
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 460

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Book Description
Autobiography of Protest in Hawai‘i explores the state's social and economic fabric through the comments of 35 progressive activists. The activists, ranging in age from the mid-30s to the late 70s, comment on their involvement on issues such as housing, labor, land use, poverty, environment, sexual harassment, seniors, and sovereignty. Almost one-half are women and there is an even split between those born in Hawai‘i and those born elsewhere. The book begins with an overview of political activism in Hawai‘i, and then records the oral history of the individual activists. Each was asked to respond to factors that shaped their moral and political lives. They were invited to explore the forces and events in their past that led them to take on an activist role. The activists were also asked to provide personal assessments of insights gained from their experiences and how they can be applied today, their analysis of Hawai‘i at that time, and some speculation on Hawai‘i's future. The result is a book that produces some very interesting and controversial viewpoints on Hawai‘i's political socialization and history.

Performing Autobiography

Performing Autobiography PDF Author: Katrina M. Powell
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030645983
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
Performing Auto/biography: Narrating a Life as Activism analyzes the rhetorical strategies employed in five authors’ auto/biographical texts, examining their representations of identities and the public implications of writing individual identity. Exploring the ways race, class, culture, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality might affect the form(s) in which writers choose to write (e.g., memoir, fictional autobiography, poetry), questions how autobiographers challenge notions of genre, truth, and representation. This builds on the argument that constructing identity is a Performing Autobiography performance, one that can simultaneously use and subvert traditional notions of rhetoric and genre. By examining the auto/biographical texts of Zora Neale Hurston, Audre Lorde, Dorothy Allison, Joyce Johnson, and Shirley Geok-lin Lim together, the book theorizes self-representation and genres as rhetorical performances, and therefore their texts can be seen as “performative auto/biography”—transgressive archives where readers are asked to consider their own identities and act accordingly. In doing so, this book contributes to growing theories in feminist rhetorics and auto/biography studies, arguing that these performative genres advocate for life narratives as political and social activism.

Life in Trans Activism, A

Life in Trans Activism, A PDF Author: A. Revathi. As told to Nandini Murali
Publisher: Zubaan
ISBN: 9385932136
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
When Revathi's powerful memoir, The Truth About Me, first appeared in 2011, it caused a sensation. Readers learned of Revathi's childhood unease with her male body, her escape from her birth family to a house of hijras (the South Asian generic term for transgender people), and her eventual transition to being the woman she always knew she was. This new book charts her remarkable journey from relative obscurity to becoming India's leading spokesperson for transgender rights and an inspiration to thousands. Revathi describes her life, her work in the NGO Sangama, which works with people across a spectrum of gender identities and sexual orientations, and how she rose from office assistant to director in the organization. Today she is an independent activist, theatre person, actor and writer, and works for the rights of transgender persons. In the second part of the book, Revathi offers the reader an insight into one of the least talked about experiences on the gender trajectory: that of being trans men. Calling several female-to-male trans persons her 'sons', Revathi puts before us their moving, passionate and sometimes tragic stories of marginalization, courage, resistance and triumph. An unforgettable book, A Life in Trans Activism will leave the reader questioning the 'safe' and 'comfortable' binaries of male/female that so many of us take for granted.

Angela Davis

Angela Davis PDF Author: Angela Y. Davis
Publisher: Haymarket Books
ISBN: 1642596655
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 481

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Book Description
“An activist. An author. A scholar. An abolitionist. A legend.” —Ibram X. Kendi This beautiful new edition of Angela Davis’s classic Autobiography features an expansive new introduction by the author. “I am excited to be publishing this new edition of my autobiography with Haymarket Books at a time when so many are making collective demands for radical change and are seeking a deeper understanding of the social movements of the past.” —Angela Y. Davis Angela Davis has been a political activist at the cutting edge of the Black Liberation, feminist, queer, and prison abolitionist movements for more than 50 years. First published and edited by Toni Morrison in 1974, An Autobiography is a powerful and commanding account of her early years in struggle. Davis describes her journey from a childhood on Dynamite Hill in Birmingham, Alabama, to one of the most significant political trials of the century: from her political activity in a New York high school to her work with the U.S. Communist Party, the Black Panther Party, and the Soledad Brothers; and from the faculty of the Philosophy Department at UCLA to the FBI's list of the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives. Told with warmth, brilliance, humor and conviction, Angela Davis’s autobiography is a classic account of a life in struggle with echoes in our own time.

Assata

Assata PDF Author: Assata Shakur
Publisher: Zed Books Ltd.
ISBN: 1783606819
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description
'Deftly written...a spellbinding tale.' The New York Times In 2013 Assata Shakur, founding member of the Black Liberation Army, former Black Panther and godmother of Tupac Shakur, became the first ever woman to make the FBI's most wanted terrorist list. Assata Shakur's trial and conviction for the murder of a white state trooper in the spring of 1973 divided America. Her case quickly became emblematic of race relations and police brutality in the USA. While Assata's detractors continue to label her a ruthless killer, her defenders cite her as the victim of a systematic, racist campaign to criminalize and suppress black nationalist organizations. This intensely personal and political autobiography reveals a sensitive and gifted woman. With wit and candour Assata recounts the formative experiences that led her to embrace a life of activism. With pained awareness she portrays the strengths, weaknesses and eventual demise of black and white revolutionary groups at the hands of the state. A major contribution to the history of black liberation, destined to take its place alongside The Autobiography of Malcolm X and the works of Maya Angelou.

The Cambridge Companion to African American Women's Literature

The Cambridge Companion to African American Women's Literature PDF Author: Angelyn Mitchell
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139827774
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 307

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Book Description
The Cambridge Companion to African American Women's Literature covers a period dating back to the eighteenth century. These specially commissioned essays highlight the artistry, complexity and diversity of a literary tradition that ranges from Lucy Terry to Toni Morrison. A wide range of topics are addressed, from the Harlem Renaissance to the Black Arts Movement, and from the performing arts to popular fiction. Together, the essays provide an invaluable guide to a rich, complex tradition of women writers in conversation with each other as they critique American society and influence American letters. Accessible and vibrant, with the needs of undergraduate students in mind, this Companion will be of great interest to anybody who wishes to gain a deeper understanding of this important and vital area of American literature.

Generations of Social Movements

Generations of Social Movements PDF Author: Hélène Le Dantec Lowry
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317259319
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
French political culture has long been seen as a model of leftist militancy, while the left in the United States is often perceived in terms of organizational discontinuity. Yet, the crisis of social democracy today suggests that at a time when the archetypal European welfare state is in danger, critics and citizens interested in understanding or reviving progressive politics are invited to consider the United States, where modes of creative activism recurrently demonstrate potentialities for a renewed leftist culture. Using a transatlantic perspective, this volume identifies activist influence through the designation or rejection of specific intellectual and militant figures across generations, and it examines various narrative modes used by militants to write their own history.

Agony Of Transgender

Agony Of Transgender PDF Author: Asheesh Kumar Upadhyay
Publisher: Shashwat Publication
ISBN: 9360876801
Category : Comics & Graphic Novels
Languages : en
Pages : 103

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Book Description
Oh the world, Please, behold us, We are the females without Uterus. Tears blow my eyes, as you, Why you leave, knowing true. The book provides a true account of the agony faced by transgender individuals since their childhood. They endure discrimination, rejection, homelessness, sexual harassment, and numerous challenges related to employment and education. The struggles of transgender individuals are poignantly portrayed, with their conditions depicted period by period. The societal perspective is also described, emphasizing that, despite these challenges, they possess constitutional rights. The book addresses both the major and minor problems that transgender individuals face while living in patriarchal and matriarchal societies. It describes some transgender writers and highlights their writings.

A Seat at the Table

A Seat at the Table PDF Author: Hettie V. Williams
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 1496847539
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
Contributions by Omar H. Ali, Simone R. Barrett, Tejai Beulah, Sandra Bolzenius, Carol Fowler, Lacey P. Hunter, Tiera C. Moore, Tedi A. Pascarella, John Portlock, Lauren T. Rorie, Tanya L. Roth, Marissa Jackson Sow, Virginia L. Summey, Hettie V. Williams, and Melissa Ziobro While Black women’s intellectual history continues to grow as an important subfield in historical studies, there remains a gap in scholarship devoted to the topic. To date, major volumes on American intellectual history tend to exclude the words, ideas, and contributions of these influential individuals. A Seat at the Table: Black Women Public Intellectuals in US History and Culture seeks to fill this void, presenting essays on African American women within the larger context of American intellectual history. Divided into four parts, the volume considers women in politics, art, government, journalism, media, education, and the military. Essays feature prominent figures such as Shirley Chisholm, Oprah Winfrey, journalist Charlotta Bass, and anti-abortion activist Mildred Fay Jefferson, as well as lesser-known individuals. The anthology begins with a discussion of the founders in Black women’s public intellectualism, providing a framework for understanding the elements, structure, and concerns central to their lives and work in the nineteenth century. The second section focuses on leaders in the Black Christian intellectual tradition, the civil rights era, and modern politics. Part three examines Black women in society and culture in the twentieth century, with essays on such topics as artists in the New Negro era; Joycelyn Elders, a public servant and former surgeon general; and America’s foremost Black woman influencer, Oprah. Lastly, part four concerns Black women and their ideas about public service—particularly military service—with essays on service members during World War II and the post-WWII military. Taken as a whole, A Seat at the Table is an important anthology that helps to establish the validity and existence of heretofore neglected intellectual traditions in the public square.