activism

The Complicated and Contradictory Mosaic of Cure: An Interview with Eli Clare

The Complicated and Contradictory Mosaic of Cure: An Interview with Eli Clare

Clare’s writing is radical in its refusal to condense to a prescriptive right or wrong without ever sliding into passivity. His book, The Marrow’s Telling: Words in Motion, was a 2008 Lambda Literary Award finalist. His 1999 essay collection, Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness, and Liberation, was reissued by Duke University Press in 2015.

Grace Paley’s “Wants”: Activism and Civic Involvement for Writers

Grace Paley’s “Wants”: Activism and Civic Involvement for Writers

  After years of dodging PTO meetings and volunteer opportunities, I became involved in a school overcrowding issue in my town because I didn’t want my children’s class sizes to become enormous. The problem seemed simple at first, but soon enough I was attending school committee meetings, spending hours writing emails, and holding forth at…

Words Chosen For Ourselves: A Review of THE OXFORD INDIA ANTHOLOGY OF TAMIL DALIT WRITING
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Words Chosen For Ourselves: A Review of THE OXFORD INDIA ANTHOLOGY OF TAMIL DALIT WRITING

The Oxford India Anthology of Tamil Dalit Writing Ravikumar and R. Azhagarasan Oxford University Press, 2012 480 pp, $39.95 Buy hardcover Of the social, political, and economic issues facing India since independence in 1947, the situation of Dalits has been one of the most pressing. Dalits face discrimination and oppression in nearly every part of…

Round-Down: The Black and White Business of Confronting Racism in Literature

Round-Down: The Black and White Business of Confronting Racism in Literature

Like most Americans, I’ve been stunned the last few months by the verdicts in Ferguson and New York. Tens of thousands of protestors, black, white and brown, have taken to the streets and to social media to voice their protest and outrage at the implicit message received from these verdicts that black lives don’t matter—but…