Creative Activism: Conversations on Music, Film, Literature, and Other Radical Arts

by Rachel Lee Rubin (Editor)

Overview

This collection brings together interviews with a compelling range of musicians, artists, and activists from around the globe. What does it mean for an artist to be “political”? Moving away from a narrow idea about politics that is organized around elections, advocacy groups, or concrete manifestos, the subjects of Creative Activism do their work through song, poetry, painting, and other arts. The interviews take us from Oakland to London to Johannesburg and from the Occupy movement to the coal mines of Appalachia to the fantasy worlds created by some of our most fascinating writers of spectacular fiction. Listening to the important “cultural workers” of our time challenges any idea that some other time was the golden age of political art: Creative Activism gives us a front-row seat to the thrilling artistic activism of our own moment.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501337215
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	05/17/2018
Pages:	360
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.81(d)

About the Author

Rachel Lee Rubin is Professor of American Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston, USA, where she directs the Center for the Study of Humanities, Culture, and Society. She has authored and edited numerous books on American popular culture including Well Met: Renaissance Faires and the American Counterculture, American Identities: An Introductory Textbook, American Popular Music: New Approaches to the Twentieth Century, and an upcoming title for Bloomsbury's 33 1/3 series, Okie from Muskogee. She is a regular commentator on public radio and frequently quoted as a popular culture expert in the mainstream media.

Table of Contents

Introduction
SECTION 1: Coal
1. “I'll Throw This Apple Atcha”: The Meaning of Mining According to Billy Edd Wheeler
2. “Visible, Horrible, Ugly”: Toxicity According to John Sabraw
3. “The Baby Needed Milk”: Collectivity According to Diane Gilliam Fisher
SECTION 2: War and Peace
4. “It's a Great American Tradition”: War and Industry According to John Sayles
5. “Revolution by Tricks and Clowning”: Trips According to Maxine Hong Kingston
6. “Part of My Being”: Politics and Poetics According to Keorapetse Kgositsile
SECTION 3: Borders
7. “I Sing about Cesar Chavez in Gold Lamé Hot Pants”: Revolution and Celebration According to El Vez
8. "I'm Not Some Fucking Gadjo!": Migration According to Eugene Hutz
9. “Gaps We Cross with Technology”: Solidarity and Surveillance According to Cory Doctorow
10. “What It's Like to Be Stuck”: Interruption According to Julio Salgado
SECTION 4: Sex, Gender, and Sexuality
11. “It's Like Walt Whitman Gave Me a Blow Job”: Action According to Abe Rybeck
12. “Simultaneity of Actions”: Liberation According to Sarah Schulman
13. “Wigs and Skin”: Colonialism According to Ama Ata Aidoo
SECTION 5: Economic Justice
14. “Hey, I See You”: Revolution According to Boots Riley
15. “Power and Powerlessness”: Detecting History According to Sara Paretsky
16. “Sometimes I Get Political, Sometimes I Get Offensive”: Pushing Back According to Dallas Wayne
SECTION 6: Prisons
17. “The Anti-Slavery Act of 2002”: Private Prisons and Social Justice According to Si Kahn
18. “Politics through Artistic Eyes, and Art through Political Eyes”: Prison Rebellion According to Raúl Salinas
19. “From My 6 x 9 Cell”: Prison and Painting According to Anthony Papa
SECTION 7: Transformations
20. “It's All Connected”: Service According to Betye Saar
21. “I'm a Bit of a Threat”: Immortality According to Roz Kaveney
22. “Folklore, Fakelore and Fucklore”: Metamorphosis According to Emma Bull and Will Shetterly
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

"There is a wonderfully useful group of contemporary thinkers assembled here. I am glad it exists." --Samuel R. Delany, author of Babel-17 (1966) and Dhalgren (1975)

"Featuring an extraordinary range of artists and voices, Creative Activism is an indispensable compilation of oral histories-and an often-exhilarating exchange of ideas on the roles of artists on the front lines of activism today. As an instructive and evocative guide, Rachel Lee Rubin allows us to re-envision how we view the world, redefine the limits of change, and reconsider the role of artists in shaping our lives. The great oral historian Studs Terkel often reminded us that reading a book should not be a passive exercise, but rather a raucous conversation. As an essential resource, Creative Activism offers one of the most important and raucous conversations of our times." --Jeff Biggers, author of Resistance: Reclaiming an American Tradition (forthcoming 2018)

From the Publisher