Author: Richard F. Thomas File Type: epub The coolest class on campus The New York TimesWhen the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to Bob Dylan in 2016, a debate raged. Some celebrated, while many others questioned the choice. How could the worlds most prestigious book prize be awarded to a famously cantankerous singer-songwriter who wouldnt even deign to attend the medal ceremony?In Why Bob Dylan Matters, Harvard Professor Richard F. Thomas answers this question with magisterial erudition. A world expert on Classical poetry, Thomas was initially ridiculed by his colleagues for teaching a course on Bob Dylan alongside his traditional seminars on Homer, Virgil, and Ovid. Dylans Nobel Prize brought him vindication, and he immediately found himself thrust into the spotlight as a leading academic voice in all matters Dylanological. Today, through his wildly popular Dylan seminaraffectionately dubbed Dylan 101Thomas is introducing a new generation of fans and scholars to the revered bards work. This witty, personal volume is a distillation of Thomass famous course, and makes a compelling case for moving Dylan out of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and into the pantheon of Classical poets. Asking us to reflect on the question, What makes a classic?, Thomas offers an eloquent argument for Dylans modern relevance, while interpreting and decoding Dylans lyrics for readers. The most original and compelling volume on Dylan in decades, Why Bob Dylan Matters will illuminate Dylans work for the Dylan neophyte and the seasoned fanatic alike. Youll never think about Bob Dylan in the same way again.**ReviewMasterful, fun, passionate, learned, profound, and theres nothing like it. Thomas shows why Dylan deserves his Nobeland how he hearkens back to, and enlists, the classics. Fantastic reading, full of gems. (Cass R. Sunstein, Robert Walmsley University Professor, Harvard University) In Why Bob Dylan Matters, Professor Thomas reveals how Dylans work transfigures Western literature and history into a magical world of song and performance that secures Dylans place in a pantheon of literary heroes from Virgil to Eliot. A critical breakthrough that makes a masterful case for why Dylan is the bard of our times. (Andrew McCarron, author of *Light Come Shining The Transformations of** Bob Dylan***) At last an expert classicist gets to grips with Bob Dylan. Richard Thomas takes us from Dylans high school Latin club to his haunting engagement with Ovid and Homer in recent albums. Thomas carefully argues that Dylans poetry deserve comparison with Virgilsand Thomas, senior professor of Latin at Harvard and author of some of the most influential modern studies of Virgil, should know! (Mary Beard) Richard Thomas has created a monument to Bob Dylanand, also, a Rosetta Stone. The erudite and politically engaged Thomas is the perfect guidethrough the wondrous mystery of Dylans genius. Thomas draws on a scholars insight, a fans delight, and a lifetime of, yes, love to bring the peoples laureate and his age passionately alive. (James Carroll, author of *Constantines Sword*) Why Bob Dylan Mattersis about the work of an astonishingly great artist and performer, and how that work echoes the great Greek and Roman poet-performersHomer, Virgil, Horace, Catullus and Ovidwhose five voices are heard in Dylans work. Richard Thomas teaches us, with loving and passionate authority, how he hears in these poems the voices and music of these great ancient poets he teaches us how poems listen and hear and speak to other poems through all time. (*David Ferry, author of Bewilderment New Poems and Translations *David Ferry, author of Bewilderment New Poems and Translations)

Author: Aut Col File Type: pdf Feminist Geneaologies, Colonial Legacies, Democratic Futures provides a feminist anaylsis of the questions of sexual and gender politics, economic and cultural marginality, and anti-racist and anti-colonial practices both in the West and in the Third World. This collection, edited by Jacqui Alexander and Chandra Talpade Mohanty, charts the underlying theoretical perspectives and organization practices of the different varieties of feminism that take on questions of colonialism, imperialism, and the repressive rule of colonial, post-colonial and advanced capitalist nation-states. It provides a comparative, relational, historically grounded conception of feminist praxis that differs markedly from the liberal pluralist, multicultural understanding that sheapes some of the dominant version of Euro-American feminism. As a whole, the collection poses a unique challenge to the naturalization of gender based in the experiences, histories and practices of Euro-American women.

Author: Barbara Ransby File Type: epub A powerful and personal account of the movement and its players.The*Washington Post* This perceptive resource on radical black liberation movements in the 21st century can inform anyone wanting to better understand . . . how to make social change.*Publishers Weekly* The breadth and impact of Black Lives Matter in the United States has been extraordinary. Between 2012 and 2016, thousands of people marched, rallied, held vigils, and engaged in direct actions to protest and draw attention to state and vigilante violence against Black people. What began as outrage over the 2012 murder of Trayvon Martin and the exoneration of his killer, and accelerated during the Ferguson uprising of 2014, has evolved into a resurgent Black Freedom Movement, which includes a network of more than fifty organizations working together under the rubric of the Movement for Black Lives coalition. Employing a range of creative tactics and embracing group-centered leadership models, these visionary young organizers, many of them women, and many of them queer, are not only calling for an end to police violence, but demanding racial justice, gender justice, and systemic change. In Making All Black Lives Matter, award-winning historian and longtime activist Barbara Ransby outlines the scope and genealogy of this movement, documenting its roots in Black feminist politics and situating it squarely in a Black radical tradition, one that is anticapitalist, internationalist, and focused on some of the most marginalized members of the Black community. From the perspective of a participant-observer, Ransby maps the movement, profiles many of its lesser-known leaders, measures its impact, outlines its challenges, and looks toward its future.**ReviewThis perceptive resource on radical black liberation movements in the 21st century can inform anyone wanting to better understand . . . how to make social change.(Publishers Weekly) In a political moment where Black liberatory work rarely includes time for archiving, reflection, and record-keeping, Making All Black Lives Matter is a critical contribution. . . . Essentially, where mainstream narratives proclaim that movements and protests simply erupt erratically from anger, pure emotion, and vengeance, Ransby is a balm. She shows how every mass-led struggle sits atop the labor, sacrifices, and investments of many organizers who will never be seen, named, or rewarded for their contributions.(Black Perspectives) An accessible analysis of contemporary American racial-justice organizing...This perceptive resource on radical black liberation movements in the 21st century can inform anyone wanting to better understand why these movements sprang up or how to make social change.(Publishers Weekly) As accessible as it is urgent and necessary. Ransbys eyewitness account of the players and the events that built the Black Lives Matter movement spring to life with an immediacy and familiarity that provides rich color and feeling to what might have been, in other hands, a bloodless march through recent history.(The Washington Post 2018-10-04) From the Inside FlapI can imagine no more perfect example of the dedicated scholar-activist than Barbara Ransby. She now offers us an analysis of the Movement for Black Lives, and its historical continuities and ruptures, that reflects both her considerable skills as a historian and her rich experience as an activist. This book passionately urges us to adopt the radical and feminist versions of democracy that will move us forward.Angela Y. Davis,author ofFreedom Is a Constant Struggle Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement Its rare that we get to read the work of Black feminist historians who have the ability to shape present-day history through a leftist lens. Barbara Ransbys Making All Black Lives Matteris one of the most important texts for this generation and generations to cometruth telling so clarifying it begs us to be better and bolder. Everyone, read this book, then read it again.Patrisse Khan-Cullors, cofounder of Black Lives Matter Global Network and best-selling coauthor of When They Call You a Terrorist A Black Lives Matter Memoir Barbara Ransby is a national treasure. When it comes to understanding pathways to liberation that simultaneously account for the deep and nuanced history of our country as well as global struggle, a frontline perspective on organizing and social change, and an intersectional lens on black people and the many aspects of our fight for freedom, there are few voices I trust more. Ransby offers us the insights of the past, through an uncompromising critical lens, as a means of illuminating the future. Im so grateful that we get to live in her time.Eve L. Ewing, author ofElectric Arches Historian and activist Barbara Ransby locates the Black feminist roots of the Black Lives Matter movement, providing rich and necessary context to the critical role played by Black women in this struggle against police abuse and violence. Ransbys insistence on centering the experiences of Black women within the movement is not simply an exercise in demography, but it is fundamental to understanding the organizing principles, horizontal structure, and the leader-full strategy that defines the Movement for Black Lives. Ransby writes with urgency, passion, and a deep love for Black people. Get this book to understand where the movement is at and where it has the potential to take all of us.Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, author of From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation This is a call to arms thatpowerfully reveals theBlack Lives Matter movement for what it is anchored in black feminist and intersectional politics principled coalition-building revolutionary art and cultural transformation love and a shared commitment todefending all black life fromdegradation, dispossession, defamation, and prematuredeath. An urgent book on an urgent topic.Robin D. G. Kelley, author ofFreedom Dreams The Black Radical Imagination

Author: Mark Shiel File Type: pdf Coinciding with the fiftieth anniversary of the worldwide mass protest movements of 1968against war, imperialism, racism, poverty, misogyny, and homophobiathe exciting anthology Architectures of Revolt explores the degree to which the real events of political revolt in the urban landscape in 1968 drove change in the attitudes and practices of filmmakers and architects alike.In and around 1968, as activists and filmmakers took to the streets, commandeering public space, buildings, and media attention, they sought to re-make the urban landscape as an expression of utopian longing or as a dystopian critique of the established order. In Architectures of Revolt, the editor and contributors chronicle city-specific case studies from Paris, Berlin, Milan, and Chicago to New York, Los Angeles, Mexico City, and Tokyo. The films discussed range from avant-garde and agitprop shorts to mainstream narrative feature films. All of them share a focus on the city and, often, particular streets and buildings as places of political contestation and sometimes violence, which the medium of cinema was uniquely equipped to capture.Contributors include Stephen Barber, Stanley Corkin*, Jesse Lerner, Jon Lewis*, Gaetana Marrone, Jennifer Stob, Andrew Webber, and the editor. **