Left Cultures will delve deep into the left’s cultural past to discuss gems of storytelling within film, literature, music, art and poetry. Culture which has influenced and inspired an eclectic bunch of comrades to continue in this tradition by creating new cultural endeavours on the left today. Colliding together the past and present to celebrate the power and rich diversity of storytelling on the left with personal accounts, beautifully illustrated throughout.
120+ pages full of written and visual works by disabled creatives from around the world, from editorials to poems, interviews, articles and artwork.
Created by a bunch of cripples over the summer of 22 this zine is a reflection of our time, lives and place in the world. A documentation of crip culture and community.
In 1993 prisoners took control of the maximum-security prison in Lucasville, Ohio. Their 11-day ordeal started with a dispute between the warden and Muslim prisoners and ended with a negotiated settlement, but only after nine prisoners and one hostage had been killed. In the months that followed, leaders of the uprising were singled out by the state, tried, and sentenced to death despite compelling evidence of their innocence. Lucasville tells the inside story of the uprising, the subsequent trial and sentencing. Eminent historian and lawyer Staughton Lynd brings the full power of evidence to bear as he retells the Lucasville story. He argues compellingly that the five men sentenced to death have been unfairly convicted. In addition, he describes the uprising from the inside-how the prisoners worked together, black and white, even Muslims and members of the Aryan Brotherhood, for the improvement of conditions. The ease with which the state has been able to use its resources, and the court's, to bring the Lucasville 5 to the point of execution raises questions that will make readers want to rethink not only the justification for these convictions, but the legitimacy of the death penalty in any case.
Magma 87, Islands, edited by Niall Campbell, Fiona Moore, and Safiya Kamaria Kinshasa Each new Magma theme raises the question: how will people write it, how will they startle and delight us? This time we were set on capturing something of the variety and scope that the theme of Islands offered. We hoped to invert majority notions of centre and periphery. We wanted the wild and windswept. At the same time we looked for poems that subverted, ignored or went beyond island clichés, far from the island gift shop cards with yearningly beautiful images.
Corita Kent (1918–1986) lived a remarkable life as an artist, educator, nun, and activist. Unapologetically holding true to herself and her beliefs, Corita spread a powerful message of love, hope, and justice with her work, as it evolved from figurative and religious art, to serigraphs incorporating the sacred and the ordinary, to a sparser, more introspective style. This timely story will draw readers into the life of a singular woman whose work and commitment invite us all to seek joy in the everyday, to observe the world with open eyes, and to question and see beyond the existing frameworks of society. Thoughtfully written by Matthew Burgess and vibrantly illustrated by Kara Kramer, this beautiful biography, made in close collaboration with the Corita Art Center, includes reproductions of Corita’s works, a chronology, and author and illustrator notes.
Contains the speech of Malala Yousafzai, the youngest person to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, in which she tells her story of surviving an attack by the Taliban for defending girls’ rights to education and how she continues to fight for these rights today.
'A biography of the Black Muslim who became a leader of a movement to unite black people throughout the world.'
Something gleeful and malevolent is moving in Lia’s body, learning her life from the inside out. A shape-shifter. A disaster tourist. It’s travelling down the banks of her canals. It’s spreading. When a sudden diagnosis upends Lia’s world, the boundaries between her past and her present begin to collapse. Deeply buried secrets stir awake. As the voice prowling in Lia takes hold of her story, and the landscape around becomes indistinguishable from the one within, Lia and her family are faced with some of the hardest questions of all: how can we move on from the events that have shaped us, when our bodies harbour everything? And what does it mean to die with grace, when you’re simply not ready to let go? Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies is a story of coming-of-age at the end of a life. Utterly heart-breaking yet darkly funny, Maddie Mortimer’s astonishing debut is a symphonic journey through one woman’s body: a wild and lyrical celebration of desire, forgiveness, and the darkness within us all.
Marcus Garvey is one of the great figures of the 20th century. He proved by his life's work the potency of the racial factor in contemporary politics. With little aid from the geneticists, sociologists, anthropoligists or historians Garvey asserted the principle of racial equality, especially of Negro and African equality while claiming due respect for the African past.
What is masculinity? Dominating the world around us, from Trump's twitter outbursts to deadly gun violence, from male suicide rates to incels on Reddit and 4chan, masculinity is perceived to be 'toxic', 'fragile' and 'in crisis'. In Mask Off, JJ Bola exposes masculinity as a performance that men are socially conditioned into. Using examples of non-Western cultural traditions, music and sport, he shines light on historical narratives around manhood, debunking popular myths along the way. He explores how LGBTQ men, men of colour, and male refugees experience masculinity in diverse ways, revealing its fluidity, how it's strengthened and weakened by different political contexts, such as the patriarchy or the far-right, and perceived differently by those around them. At the heart of love and sex, the political stage, competitive sports, gang culture, and mental health issues, lies masculinity: Mask Off is an urgent call to unravel masculinity and redefine it.