Becoming Imperial Citizens: Indians in the Late-Victorian Empire

It’s important to state here that Becoming Imperial Citizens is a work of research best suited for academic audiences. The upper-level vocabulary, combined with analysis, makes for quite a heavy reading. Sukanya Banerjee’s work looks at the British Empire and citizenship with reference to Indians during, as the title notes, the late Victorian period.

Transcendent in America: Hindu-Inspired Meditation Movements as New Religion

Although I don’t do it every day, yoga and meditation help me manage physical and mental injuries that I received from previous trauma. It certainly calms my chaotic mind and keeps pain at bay. I have bonded with other practitioners, but I’ve never gone on a retreat or invested time in training beyond basic poses or ten minute meditations. My expectations of what Lola Williamson’s book about meditation movements in the U.S.

Dr. Mary Walker: An American Radical, 1832-1919

Dr. Mary Walker: An American Radical, 1832-1919 is a plethora of facts, evidence, and tightly woven themes that are well-researched by Harris, yet the book isn’t boring or dry. I found it inspirational and enraging at the same time. Women of the past made it easier for women today by tirelessly battling for women’s rights (and for men who were not white property owners). Walker was a dutiful and energetic soldier.

Woman's Prison

Although Woman’s Prison is not a documentary, writer/director Katie Madonna Lee presents a realistic story of poverty and the struggles women, children, and to some degree, men face who experience it. From birth, Julie Ann Mabry is a quiet, shy person, who just wants to be safe with her mother (played by Lee). Sadly, her father takes away that option by murdering her mother, and she is left quietly battling predators, including her uncle. When Julie encounters heart-wrenching situations, she does not lose hope.

Year of the Elephant: A Moroccan Woman’s Journey Toward Independence

A collection of one novella and a handful of short stories, Year in the Elephant is a translation from Arabic that does a great job of painting life in Morocco prior to and after independence from the French colonial power.

The Madwoman of Bethlehem

Before I started to read The Madwoman of Bethlehem, a story about a woman’s struggle against her patriarchal culture, I wondered whether it would be depressing. It wasn’t.

The Real HipHop: Battling for Knowledge, Power, and Respect in the LA Underground

As a Euro-Native girl growing up neglected in a Canadian redneck home in the late '80s and early '90s, I copied my anti-establishment parents by hanging with drug dealers, thieves, and bikers. The only element of life I drew inspiration from was the arts: drawing, making and listening music, and martial arts.

Whatever It Takes

At first, Whatever It Takes looks like the opening of a murder-mystery TV show, as a man gets ready for work. But it isn’t—it’s really Edward Tom, a new principal getting ready for the first day of school at a school in the South Bronx, New York. Named for the Bronx Center for Science and Mathematics, the high school is part of the state’s new education reforms: smaller schools to assist high risk students. The principal and teachers alike pay attention to all 108 kids, hoping to encourage them to succeed. The film covers the 2005-2006 academic year.

Sita Sings the Blues

As an independent woman struggling to experience life for myself instead of through a man, I’m always looking for inspiration from other women who develop identities beyond being appendages or servants to men. As I was already familiar with the story of Sita, a Hindu goddess, I was curious to see how Nina Paley would present the story in her animated film. Simply going by the graphics, the movie is a fantastic exploration of the parallels between the ancient mythological world and modern day.

Forbidden Sun Dance

My body belongs to me. I make the choice of whether or not I use contraception, dance like a silly garden gnome, use drugs like booze, and paint my toenails green or pink or leave them natural.

Water Steps

Surprisingly, this story echoed my own fear of water, which I’ve harbored ever since I can remember. I have been plagued with nightmares about water in all forms. The main character, Kyna, has suffered from an almost-paralyzing dread of water since she was three. She was the sole survivor of a storm at sea that her family was involved in.  Adopted by the couple that rescued her, she slowly learns not only how to cope with water, but bits and pieces of her adopted family’s history.

Your Roots Are Showing

I really tried to like this book because it has many good points. The plot centers on a painfully honest email that Lizzie, the main character, sends by mistake to her husband revealing the drudgery that her life as a house-bound mother and wife has become. The couple separates and Lizzie is forced to face herself while taking care of the kids, of course. Since getting married, her weight, looks, and physical habits have gone down the drain.