Montreal

You Don't Play With Revolution: The Montreal Lectures of C.L.R. James

admin — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 08:00:00 +0000

This accessible and engaging collection presents eight never-before-published lectures by the celebrated Marxist cultural critic and anti-colonial scholar, C.L.R. James, who played an important part in the international socialist movement. James’ collection demonstrates his expertise in various fields, from Caribbean history and the Haitian Revolution, to Leninist political philosophy to Shakespeare. He has defined and popularized the autonomist Marxist tradition in the United States and Canada. You Don't Play With Revolution is a collection based on a series of lectures delivered by James during his stay in Montreal in 1967 and 1968 when he was invited to contribute to the practical work of people devoted to revolutionary change in Canada and the Caribbean. Thus, James’ work not only embodied his vision of the creative power of ordinary people who shape history, but the ways they do so and document their struggles. James strongly believed that without the involvement of the mass population politics is destined to fail.

This collection is significant because it provides essential, and previously lacking, information about James’ work with Canadian students and West Indian intellectuals in the late 1960s. It also includes a series of letters James exchanged with the West Indian university students who made these lectures possible, in addition to two seminal interviews with James during his stay in Canada. Those interested in social movements and, more specifically, James’ work, will find this collection to be a great contribution to existing scholarship.

James’ work is relevant to revolutionary politics today, while opening the window into the particular cultural moment in which James’ work took place. I recommend it to both the novice and the expert who wants to learn more about James and his stunning insights. As Austin summarily puts it, “James not only remind us that ‘another world is possible’ is real, but also help us to chart a course toward creating this new world in present.”

Written by: Olivera Simic, June 7th 2010

Fortune Cookie

admin — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:06:00 +0000

By Heather J. Wood

Tightrope Books

“The signs are mixed, the next twelve months could bring new challenges and unexpected changes. Moulds may be broken wild some patterns may reoccur. A shedding of skin could be on the horizon. Moments of adversity, calamity, triumph, disappointment, delight and tedium should also be expected.”

This astrological prose sums up the year of 1989 experienced by a twenty-four-year-old woman. Fortune Cookie is a diary-style novel, detailing the life of Robin, a marketing clerk for a publishing company, living in Montreal with her four friends in a two-story walk-up apartment. This book is a refreshing take on a young woman’s journey, one that encompasses the protests of the world to catalyze its heroine’s coming of age.

Robin is vicariously searching for something more in her life, and she knows that her marketing clerk job is not it. She sees standing by doing nothing as unfair justice. Her daily entries are at times interrupted with news headlines highlighting the political and social events of the year, including Tienanmen Square, the Chantal Abortion case, and the Montreal Massacre. Also mixed in are astrological musings loosely based on the Chinese calendar.

This book reminded me of the feeling I got when I decided to take action and become involved in my community around the issues that mattered to me. Robin experienced this same feeling while watching the Tienanmen Square protest and the abuse taken by police on television. Fortune Cookie is a novel that brought back memories of the No. 1 song of the week, like Milli Vanilli’s “Blame it on the Rain” and the Berlin Wall coming down. Towards the end of the year you get to find out what Robin decides to do at the start of the twentieth century, which is an amazing journey of self-discovery.

Written by: LaToya Rogers, November 12th 2009

The Hanging of Angelique

admin — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 11:54:00 +0000

By Afua Cooper

University of Georgia Press

The history of Canadian black slavery is a story quite often untold. The Hanging of Angelique opens the doors to the unknown. After fifteen years of research, Afua Cooper brings to light the “untold story of Canadian slavery and the burning of Old Montreal”.

Cooper weaves together crucial historical facts that are often unspoken, and similar to the many stories that Americans have heard over time. The sad and intricate life of a black woman who, at only 29 years young, was full of despair and discovered a longing within herself to be set free. But at what cost? After a catastrophic fire was set to old Montreal, Marie Joseph Angelique, a Portuguese black slave, was accused of setting the fire.

Cooper leaves the ending unspoken: “Did Angelique set the fire? Your guess is as good as mine.” But her intricately detailed research tells the story for her. It’s the writing of Cooper that is pleasantly appeasing as you dive deep into a historical conundrum of right versus wrong.

The detailed filled story offers a new look into the life of Angelique and gives readers a well defined idea of exactly what slavery was like in Canada in 1734. It allows the reader to see a glimpse of the life that Angelique struggled with on daily basis and leaves the unspoken whisper in the back of your mind: Did she do it? What would I do?

Cooper tells the story of a woman who refused to fit into the role that has been chiseled for her and her sad demise while creating the big picture that shows what exactly it meant to be a black slave woman in Canada.

Considered to be the “oldest slave narrative in the New World,” The Hanging of Angelique will leave you with a saddened and somber idea of what a black Canadian woman’s place was at that time, and the lack of identity that you were free to call your own. Cooper gently nudges the readers through the novel and as you turn the final page, you’ll feel the oppressive hands of slavery around your ankles, slowly pulling you underwater until the light has completely dimmed.

Written by: Megan Blair, April 30th 2007