Elevate Difference

Reviews tagged social change

Access to Knowledge in the Age of Intellectual Property

A2K. Robot or revolution? A2K is a movement dedicated to dissemination of information to increase access to knowledge; hence, the acronym. Encompassing HIV/AIDS activists working for access to antiretroviral therapy in developing countries to college students downloading music for free, A2K is, at its heart, challenging intellectual property rights to enhance to fit our changing world.

Signs of Change: Social Movement Cultures, 1960s to Now

Signs of Change is both a coffee table book and a full-color history lesson. For those who prefer an alternative to a boring textbook, this book is the ticket. In September of 2008, Exit Art began a traveling art exhibit to showcase the works of artists whose materials reflect cultural and social uprisings around the world, including posters, photographs, and graffiti. The pages are full-color and let the art take center stage, but historical context is provided in a way that is educational without being stifling.

Rebel Girls: Youth Activism and Social Change Across the Americas

Of the many things I accomplished in high school, “leading a political uprising” was suspiciously absent. Yet around the world, teenage girls are organizing their own social revolutions, a trend largely undocumented and unanalyzed before Jessica Taft’s Rebel Girls: Youth Activism and Social Change Across the Americas.

Change of Heart: What Psychology Can Teach Us About Spreading Social Change

At times, the mind can be one's own worst enemy. When our ego feels threatened, it is wired to convince us of almost anything. And when certain unpleasant emotions arise at passing a homeless man on the way to work or seeing African children on TV with flies on their faces, we are accustomed to look away. How do certain people and organizations persuade us and our ego to donate time and money to their cause, while others don't seem to reach us enough?

Do It Anyway: The New Generation of Activists

Though editor Courtney E. Martin’s new book means to school baby boomer types who mock the millennial generation for their perceived apathy, Do it Anyway: The New Generation of Activists is a balm for burned out justice advocates of any age.

Forget Sorrow: An Ancestral Tale

I jumped at the chance to review Forget Sorrow: An Ancestral Tale, an unconventional graphic memoir from writer/artist Belle Yang. While I am no expert on graphic literature, I did devour Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis series.

Reforming the World: Social Activism and the Problem of Fiction in Nineteenth Century America

Reforming the World: Social Activism and the Problem of Fiction in Nineteenth-Century America explores the complex relationship between American social activism and literature in the nineteenth century. At times symbiotic, at times turbulent, this relationship was formed both by the power of literature and by the hopes and dreams of American social reformers for their country.

Dreams from the Monster Factory: A Tale of Prison, Redemption, and One Woman’s Fight to Restore Justice to All

I have been in a fairly low-key battle with my landlord over him not fixing the gutter that fell of the house in a windstorm a month ago. Before that, I was engaged in a fight against the post office for delivering our mail to the apartment below us. I’ve realized that I have a hair trigger for injustice; though, up until now, my causes have been a bit, shall we say, unimportant.

How the Religious Right Shaped Lesbian and Gay Activism

While leftists and gay rights activists occasionally discuss the notion that left wing battles, and particularly GLBTQ struggles, are too influenced by the religious right, the complaint is always frustrated and dismissive, never a serious consideration. Tina Fetner approaches the notion differently, addressing how the influence of religious right was, in fact, invaluable in shaping, and in rendering more powerful, the lesbian and gay movement.

The Collected Poems of Muriel Rukeyser

Before there was Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath, there was Muriel Rukeyser. Before there were the Beats, there was Muriel Rukeyser. As Anne Sexton once pointed out, Rukeyser was the “mother of us all.” This is why a collection of her work is so important. Despite Rukeyser’s stature, and her prodigious output, she is not as often read or taught as her better known literary progeny. Furthermore, some of Rukeyser’s prime writing years were during the era of New Criticism, when politically charged poetry was not in vogue.

Remembering Tomorrow: From SDS to Life After Capitalism

The past is not dead. In fact, it’s not even past. –William Faulkner Michael Albert writes an in-depth political memoir, offering a formidable defense of the project to change global inequality. Albert is a veteran anti-capitalist and visionary leftist thinker. In his memoir, he retells his past of devotion, commitment and the struggle to bring forth social change, however difficult the journey, a small step at a time. Albert separates his memoir into five intriguing parts. He begins with his college years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
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