Book Selections

Flash mobs-whether as a fun and irreverent group activity or advertising/promotional pitch-present a need for organizers to be aware of the legal issues they may encounter. This, the first book of its kind to discuss the legal side of flash mobs, presents the reader with everything he or she needs to know about where the law stands on all issues related to the planning and execution of flash mobs, including: - Legal implications of planning flash mobs - Protecting participants and bystanders - Confrontations by authorities - Using flash mobs as an effective marketing tool, and numerous case studies Flash mobs are meant to be fun and solely for the entertainment of the participants and their unsuspecting audience, but the legal side of flash mobs must always be considered. This ground-breaking book is a must-read for anyone involved in the creation, promotion, and execution of flash mobs.

"The book provides robust historic, cultural, and social context for social justice work, assists readers in managing the discomfort that often accompanies raised consciousness, and offer step-by-step instructions for initiating social justice campaigns and projects. The text examines the history of liberal activism in the United States, various types of activism, significant social movements, the art of dialoguing through disagreement, the importance of leadership and the risks and rewards associated with activism. An extensive list of causes is provided, along with strategies for getting involved, empowering readers to identify causes that are important to them and to take action"--Back cover.

"A celebration of the revolutionary change Amy and David Goodman have witnessed during the two decades of their acclaimed television and radio news program Democracy Now! and how small individual acts from progressive heroes have produced lasting results. In 1996 Amy Goodman began hosting a show called Democracy Now! to focus on the issues and movements that are too often ignored by the corporate media. Today it is the largest public media collaboration in the US. This important book looks back over the past twenty years of Democracy Now! and the powerful movements and charismatic leaders who are re-shaping our world. Goodman takes us along as she goes to where the silence is, bringing out voices from the streets of Ferguson to Staten Island, Wall Street, and South Carolina to East Timorand other places where people are rising up to demand justice. Giving voice to those who have been forgotten, forsaken, and beaten down by the powerful, Democracy Now! pays tribute to those progressive heroes--the whistleblowers, the organizers, the protesters--who have brought about remarkable, often invisible change over the last couple of decades in seismic ways. This is 'an impassioned book aiming to fuel informed participation, outrage, and dissent' (Kirkus Reviews)."

"Critical Thinking presents, defines and explains the intellectual skills and habits of mind that comprise critical thinking and its relationship to social justice. Each of the sequential chapters includes detailed examples and learning exercises that guide the reader step by step from intellectual competency, to critical thinking, to cultural cognition, and to critical awareness necessary for social justice. The book documents and explains the scope of multiple crises facing society today, including environmental destruction, income and wealth inequality, large-scale human migration, and the rise of autocratic governments. It shows how critical thinking, cultural cognition, and critical awareness lead to the possibility of solutions grounded in social justice. All college students, especially those in the social sciences and humanities, will develop the intellectual skills necessary for critically engaging information in order to become active learners and effective agents in the world. This book complements information in introductory, interdisciplinary, or discipline-specific courses. Every chapter contains examples and exercises that can be assigned as homework, adopted as in-class activities, or both. The Conclusion also contains exercises for developing writing and basic mathematical competency skills"--

"This handbook shares perspectives of experts on what is needed to accelerate recovery of natural and man-made disaster"--

"In the late twentieth century United States, nothing united union members, Chicanos, gay men and lesbians, feminists, black activists, and progressive college students quite so well as Coors beer. Members of these communities came together not in praise of the ice cold beverage but, rather, to unite against a common enemy: the Colorado-based Coors Brewing Company. Wielding the consumer boycott as their weapon of choice, activists targeted Coors for allegations of antiunionism, discrimination, and ties to prominent political conservatives. Over multiple decades of organizing and coalition-building, anti-Coors activists molded the boycott tool into a means of political protest. In Brewing a Boycott, Allyson P. Brantley details the history of this boycott movement - one of the longest such campaigns in U.S. history - for the first time. Drawing from an array of archival collections, as well as oral history interviews with long-time boycotters, Brantley offers a compelling, grassroots view of boycotting, anti-corporate organizing, and the unlikely coalitions that formed in opposition to the iconic Rocky Mountain brew. The story of this boycott, as told here, highlights the vibrancy of activism in the final decades of the twentieth century and the enduring legacy of that organizing for communities, consumer activists, and corporations today"--

On Monday, May 4, 1970, members of the Ohio National Guard, called onto the Kent State University campus to quell antiwar demonstrations, fired 61 rounds into a group of students protesting the U.S. invasion of Cambodia and Guard presence on campus.  Thirteen seconds later, four students lay dead and nine were wounded. After decades of controversy surrounding the May 4 commemoration, the University moved in a new direction, choosing to use the 30th anniversary as an opportunity to recognize the past and embrace the future. A major component of this was the establishment of an annual scholarly symposium to focus on the great issues of American democracy. The Boundaries of Freedom of Expression and Order in American Democracy is the product of the first symposium, which explored the limits of freedom of expression in American society as they apply to business, education, media, law, politics, the Internet, and other venues. The contributions to this book represent an impressive range of incisive analyses and commentary by leading First Amendment scholars, including the symposium's keynote speakers: Kathleen Sullivan, Dean of Stanford Law School; Anthony Lewis, two-time Pulitzer Prizewinning columnist of the New York Times and the author of two major First Amendment books; and Cass Sunstein, Karl N. Llewellyn, Professor of Jurisprudence at the University of Chicago Law School.

"Beyond the Pink Tide considers a wave of artistic and curatorial efforts and social movements that refuse national borders in an effort to think hemispherically. In modeling a transnational American Studies, the book considers recent art and cultural production that engage politics in the Americas. In the late 1990s to the early 2000s, Latin America experienced a shift toward left-leaning and progressive politics that challenged US neoliberalism and hegemony. The media dubbed this turn the "pink tide," and by 2009, leftist governments were in power in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, and Venezuela. But by 2010, this tide began to turn as several governments failed to implement their progressive agendas, leaving the structures of capitalism intact. Beyond the Pink Tide explores new ways of understanding social and political transformation, particularly through the everyday practices of queer communities, anticapitalist movements, decolonization, feminisms, and the arts. Macarena Go��mez-Barris shows readers the possibilities beyond the limited frame of state-centered politics to achieve concrete social transformation beginning at the level of artistic and social imagination--in Latin America, the United States, and the world."--Provided by publisher.

"Industrial toxic emissions on the South Baltimore Peninsula are among the highest in the nation. Because of the concentration of factories and other chemical industries in their neighborhoods, residents face elevated rates of lung cancer and other respiratory illnesses in addition to heart attacks, strokes, and cardiovascular disease, all of which can lead to premature death. 'Fighting to Breathe' follows a dynamic and creative group of high school students who decided to fight back against the race- and class-based health disparities and inequality in their city. For more than a decade, student organizers stood up to the proposed construction of an incinerator and to unequal land use practices, and initiated new waste management strategies. As a Baltimore resident and activist-scholar, Nicole Fabricant documents how young organizers came to envision, design, and create a more just and sustainable Baltimore"--

"The beginning of the 21st century brought forth a number of social media platforms that have allowed activists to increase their audience exponentially and with relative ease. Under hashtags such as #BlackLivesMatter, #MeToo to the Arab Spring and the Occupy movements, digital social activision mobilized people and movements like almost never before. In #HashtagActivism: Networked Counterpublics in the Digital Age the authors examine how and why Twitter hashtags have become an important platform for historically disenfranchised populations to advance counter narratives and advocate for social change. We contend that members of these marginalized groups, in the tradition of counterpublics, are using Twitter hashtags to build diverse networks of dissent and shape the cultural and political knowledge fundamental to contemporary identity-based social movements. Given shifting understandings and ongoing conversations about the role of social media in 21st century democracy, and considering recent high-profile public debates about racial violence, feminist inclusivity, and sexual identity, #Hashtag Activism will provide readers with a model of how to study political identity and meaning-making processes within digital spaces while highlighting compelling cases of counterpublic activism and dissent"--

"The book focuses on a strategic choice by the North American wing of the global climate movement: to ally themselves with place-based interests, including Indigenous groups, to block new coal plants, coal port expansion, fracking, and more recently, oil sands pipelines. The strategy by climate activists to target fossil fuel infrastructure has been effective at movement building and driving policy forward, but it might also indirectly threaten the clean energy transformation needed to address the climate crisis"--

"In the midst of loss, death, and suffering, our charge is to figure out what freedom really means--and how we take steps to get there. The uprising of 2020 marks a new phase in the unfolding Movement for Black Lives. The brutal killings of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor, and countless other injustices large and small, lit the spark of the largest protest movement in US history against racism and the politics of disposability that the Covid-19 pandemic lays bare. In this urgent and incisive collection of new interviews bookended by two new essays, Marc Lamont Hill critically examines the "pre-existing conditions" that led us to this moment of upheaval, guiding us through both the perils and possibilities, and helping us imagine an abolitionist future."

If you have any additional resources that you would like to recommend, please send an email to aasp@cornell.edu.

October 4 -National Day of Action for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) by CalgaryLibrary_Indigenous - a staff-created list : In Canada, Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people are murdered, abused, or disappear at shockingly high rates. The National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls concluded that this violence is rooted in colonization. Whether you are personally affected by this crisis and are looking for stories of healing and empowerment, or you want to become an ally by learning more about the devastating epidemic of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls in Canada, these resources can be a source of information, reflection, action, resilience, and hope.

BostonPL_We Are Pride 2024: 75 Books for Children, Teens & Adults by BostonPL_WeArePrideBooklist - a staff-created list : We Are Pride is a list of books published in the previous year for all ages concerning the diverse experience of the LGBTQ+ community. This printing is part of the Boston Public Library's annual observance of LGBTQ+ Pride Month since 2017. These titles may be available in other formats or languages. Check the catalog for availability. 2024 We Are Pride Committee Members: Jordan D. (she/they), We Are Pride Chairperson, Reader Services Specialist Allison H. (she/her), Children's Librarian Amy L. (she/her), Generalist Librarian Ayelet R. (she/her), Generalist Librarian Casey A., Generalist Librarian Dani C. (they/them), Children's Librarian Elise C. (she/her), Generalist Librarian Laura B. (she/her), Collection Librarian Michael B. (he/they), Workforce Development Librarian Morgan H. (they/them), Youth Services Librarian Nikki K. (she/they), Floater Librarian #BPLWeArePride #BPLPride

Looking for something fun or interesting to read over winter break? Why not try a book recommendation from a fellow member of the Northwestern Law community, including several librarians at the PLR…

Not all libraries track checkouts, and there isn't one definitive national list. But this year lots of people checked out Lessons in Chemistry, Prince Harry's memoir Spare, and Colleen Hoover's books.

For the introvert, the law library part and journal part of law school may sound great, but the Socratic method part and the networking part might sound terrible. If you are the bold introvert that has decided to embark on the law school journey, here is a reading list to support you, motivate you, and give you hope.

Reading List Accardi, Maria T., Emily Drabinski, and Alana Kumbier. "Beginning and extending the conversation." Communications in Information Literacy 14, no. 1 (2020): 1. ———Critical Library Instruction : Theories and Methods / Edited by Maria T. Accardi, Emily Drabinski, and Alana Kumbier....

A list of reading about and for activism within academic institutions, from NYU Press.

Verso Books is the largest independent, radical publishing house in the English-speaking world, publishing one hundred books a year.

The Premier Online Bookstore for Bestselling and Classic African American Books.

“One either allows racial inequities to persevere, as a racist, or confronts racial inequities, as an anti-racist. There is no in-between safe space of 'not racist.'” ― Ibram X. Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist The following 11 titles, a mix of history, social science, and memoir, offer facts and reflections on systemic racial injustice as well as ways to channel feeling into action.

Three of the five finalists for fiction have been nominated for their debut novels, while all five finalists for young people's literature are being honored for the first time.

Welcome Back!  The law library is developing a collection of materials we are calling the Antiracist Collection. The items in this collection include cross-disciplinary resources in addition to boo…

Voice of Witness (VOW) is an oral history nonprofit that advances human rights by amplifying the voices of people impacted by—and fighting against—injustice. VOW’s work is driven by the transformative power of the story, and by a strong belief that social justice cannot be achieved without deep listening and learning from those marginalized by systems of oppression. Through our programming, we work with communities to ensure that: voices of marginalized and silenced communities are centered in narrative contexts (education, media, movements, and policymaking); students and communities have the tools and training to tell their own stories through oral history; storytelling practitioners and institutions use ethics-driven methodologies to gather narratives. The VOW Book Series depicts human rights issues through the edited oral histories of people, VOW narrators, who are most deeply impacted and at the heart of solutions to address injustice. The series explores issues of race-, gender-, and class-based inequity through the lenses of personal narrative. The VOW Education Program brings unheard stories and our ethical oral history methodology to classrooms and organizations across the US, connecting students, educators, and advocates with training and tools for storytelling in order to advance social change. Through our partnerships and consulting, VOW offers expert storytelling and program support to nonprofits, activists, schools, foundations, and more. These customized projects and workshops use VOW’s award-winning approach to promote empathy, build relationships, and amplify community voices.

B&N Reads - We're halfway through the year already, so it's time to recognize our Best Books of 2022 (So Far)!

NPR's annual Books We Love project rounded up hundreds of books that scratch whatever your reading itch might be. Today, we're going to talk about some of the nonfiction we loved.

The latest edition of NPR's Books We Love project rounded up hundreds of book recommendations from critics, writers and NPR journalists to try to give you just the read you're looking for. Today, we're giving recommendations for our favorite books about identity and culture.