Monday, October 31, 2011

Saturday, October 29, 2011

From the Colorlines Website

"Cherrie Moraga Needs Your Help"

From Colorlines:


"It’s been 30 years since queer Chicana poet Cherríe Moraga co-authored “This Bridge Called My Back” with Gloria Anzaldúa. The book is still praised as an influential anthology of radical writings by women of color, and has become standard in many gender and ethnic studies classrooms across the country. Moraga has remained a prolific writer over the past three decades, and now she’s reaching out to her community for help with her latest work.
Her new play is called “New Fire: To Put Things Right Again” and, if it gets the financial support that it needs, will premiere in time for Brava Theater’s 25th anniversary next year in San Francisco. The play is currently in pre-production. Moraga and her partner, producer Celia Herrera Rodríguez, have begun a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds and start rehearsals next month. In short, it’s the story of a 52-year-old woman who battles against apocalyptic notions of 2012 to return to her indigenous heritage.
The project has already got an impressive cast that includes comedian Adelina Anthony. With less than five days left to in the fundraiser, the campaign is still $6,000 short of its $26,500 goal. Go here to make a donation and help the play become a reality."

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Listening to Our Elders

Book Needing to Check Out

About the book:
In 2011, the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) turned one hundred years old. But our profession is endlessly beginning, constantly transforming itself and its purpose as new voices and identities claim their rights in our classrooms and in our country. The recognition of such claims, however, does not occur without a struggle, without collective work.ý

Listening to our Elders attempts to capture the history of those collective moments where teachers across grade levels and institutions of higher education organized to insure that the voices, heritages, and traditions of their students and colleagues were recognized within our professional organizations as a vital part of our classrooms and our discipline. In doing so, Listening to Our Elders demonstrates this recognition was not always easily given. Instead, whether the issue was race, sexuality, class, or disability, committed activist organizations have often had to push against the existing limits of our field and its organizations to insure a broader sense of common responsibility and humanity was recognized.

Listening to Our Elders features interviews with Malea Powell (Native American Caucus), Joyce Rain Anderson (Native American Caucus), Jeffery Paul Chan (Asian/Asian American), James Hill (Black Caucus), James Dolmage (Committee for Disability Issue in College Composition), Geneva Smitherman (Language Policy Commitee), Carlota Cýrdenas de Dwyer (Latino/a Caucus), Victor Villanueva (Latino/a Caucus), Louise Dunlap (Progressive Caucus), Karen Hollis (Progressive Caucus), Louie Crew (Queer Caucus), William Thelin (Working Class Culture and Pedagogy SIG), Bill Macauley (Working Class Culture and Pedagogy SIG).

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

I Need HBO

"It's Not TV"

So I feel a bit behind on this, but I was listening to the NPR Latino USA interview with the director of this, with some excerpts and it sounds really good.
I plan to do some begging or borrowing to see this--maybe it's available online somewhere?




Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Los Angeles Occupado

From a Distance
A photographer friend of mine sent me this photo and said some of the photos he's taken are on the Occupy LA Facebook page, since it seems mainstream media has it's own agenda in terms of what and how it chooses to cover this.
CNN coverage: http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/05/opinion/rushkoff-occupy-wall-street/index.html?hpt=hp_c1

Another image that's made it's rounds on FB showing how newspaper headlines are changed is this one which demonstrates hegemonic discourse in the media.
What's going on right now seems to be a synthesis of the severity of what's happening, and it's difficult to draw clear conclusions because there's also been controversy about the multiple messages within the diverse group of protesters.