Synopses & Reviews
From anti-war walkouts to anarchist youth newspapers, rallies against educational privatization, and workshops on fair trade, teenage girls are active participants and leaders in a variety of social movements.
Rebel Girls: Youth Activism and Social Change Across the Americas illuminates the experiences and perspectives of these uniquely positioned agents of social change. Jessica K. Taft introduces readers to a diverse and vibrant transnational community of teenage girl activists in the San Francisco Bay Area, Mexico City, Caracas, Buenos Aires, and Vancouver. Expansive in scope and full of rich details, Taft brings to life the voices of these inspiring activists who are engaged in innovative and effective organizing for global and local social justice, highlighting their important contributions to contemporary social movements and social theory.
Rebel Girls explores how teenage girls construct activist identities, rejecting and redefining girlhood and claiming political authority for youth in the process. Taft examines the girl activists' social movement strategies and collective political practices, detailing their shared commitments to process-based political education, participatory democracy, and hopeful enthusiasm. Ultimately, Rebel Girls has substantial implications for social movements and youth organizations, arguing that adult social movements could learn a great deal from girl activists and making clear the importance of increased collaboration between young people and adults.
Review
“In this riveting book, Taft takes us on a journey from San Francisco to Mexico City, Caracas, Vancouver, and Buenos Aires to learn about girls' struggles for social justice in a variety of social movements.”
-Verta Taylor,co-author of Drag Queens at the 801 Cabaret
Review
"From interviews with seventy-six teenage girls in five locations and from observations of their political strategies, Taft builds an in-depth picture of girl activism in different socio-cultural and political environments, comparing the more politicized and radical activism in Latin America to that practiced in North America." -Hilary Crew,VOYA Library Magazine
Review
"Jessica K. Taft describes how teenage girls are active participants and leaders in a variety of social movements, from anti-war walkouts to anarchist youth newspapers, rallies against educational privitization, and workshops on fair trade."-,Z Magazine
Review
"This is not only a powerful sociological account of the making of a counter-culture girl identity - that of the socially active, community-minded girl; it is also a treasure trove of data . . ." -Maya Bernstein,Lilith Magazine
Review
"Taft adds a valuable contribution to youth, girlhood, and activist studies"
-R.C. Raby,Choice
Synopsis
Explores how teenage girls across the world--Mexico City, Vancouver, Buenos Aires, San Francisco--reject the patriarchy and redefine their girlhood to claim their political authority and become activists
From anti-war walkouts to anarchist youth newspapers, rallies against educational privatization, and workshops on fair trade, teenage girls are active participants and leaders in a variety of social movements. Rebel Girls: Youth Activism and Social Change Across the Americas illuminates the experiences and perspectives of these uniquely positioned agents of social change. Jessica K. Taft introduces readers to a diverse and vibrant transnational community of teenage girl activists in the San Francisco Bay Area, Mexico City, Caracas, Buenos Aires, and Vancouver. Expansive in scope and full of rich details, Taft brings to life the voices of these inspiring activists who are engaged in innovative and effective organizing for global and local social justice, highlighting their important contributions to contemporary social movements and social theory.
Rebel Girls explores how teenage girls construct activist identities, rejecting and redefining girlhood and claiming political authority for youth in the process. Taft examines the girl activists' social movement strategies and collective political practices, detailing their shared commitments to process-based political education, participatory democracy, and hopeful enthusiasm. Ultimately, Rebel Girls has substantial implications for social movements and youth organizations, arguing that adult social movements could learn a great deal from girl activists and making clear the importance of increased collaboration between young people and adults.
Synopsis
When we talk about what "freedom of speech" means in America, the discussion almost always centers on freedom rather than speech. Taking for granted that speech is an unambiguous and stable category, we move to considering how much freedom speech should enjoy. But, as Randall Bezanson demonstrates in
Speech Stories, speech is a much more complicated and dynamic notion than we often assume. In an age of rapidly accelerated changes in discourse combined with new technologies of communication, the boundaries and substance of what we traditionally deem speech are being reconfigured in novel and confusing ways.
In order to spark thought, discussion, and debate about these complexities and ambiguities, Bezanson probes the "stories" behind seven controversial free speech cases decided by the Supreme Court. These stories touch upon the most controversial and significant of contemporary first amendment issues: government restrictions on hate speech and obscene and indecent speech; pornography and the subordination of women; the constitutionality of campaign finance reform; and the treatment to be accorded new technologies of communication under the Constitution. The result is a provocative engagement of the reader in thinking about the puzzles and paradoxes of our commitment to free expression.
About the Author
Randall Bezanson is Professor of Law at the University of Iowa. His previous books include the award- winning Libel Law and the Press, coauthored with Gilbert Granberg and John Soloski, and his most recent, Taxes on Knowledge in America: Exactions on the Press from Colonial Times to the Present.