An Act Of Defiance

Harare, 2000: Gabrielle is a newly-qualified lawyer fighting for justice for a young girl. Ben is an urbane and charismatic junior diplomat attached to Harare with the American embassy. With high-level pressure on Gabrielle to drop the case, and the president's youth wing terrorizing his political opponents as he tightens his grip on power, they begin a tentative love affair. But when they fall victim to a shocking attack, their lives splinter across continents and their stories diverge, forcing Gabrielle on a painful journey towards self-realization. Irene Sabatini, winner of the 2010 Orange Award for New Writers, navigates Zimbabwe's unfolding political crises, showing how the dehumanizing effects of state-sponsored violence can shape and remake a life. An Act of Defiance is a sweeping political drama about a young woman's fight for love and agency in turbulent times.

"In Small Acts of Defiance, Michelle Wright paints a beautifully intimate portrait that celebrates the courage and resilience of the human spirit."— Jane Harper, author of The Survivors A stunning debut WWII novel from award-winning short story writer Michelle Wright, about the small but courageous acts a young woman performs against the growing anti-Jewish measures in Nazi-occupied Paris. “Doing nothing is still a choice. A choice to stand aside and let it happen.” January 1940: After a devastating tragedy, young Australian woman Lucie and her mother Yvonne are forced to leave home and flee to France. There they seek help from the only family they have left, Lucie’s uncle, Gérard. As the Second World War engulfs Europe, the two women find themselves trapped in German-occupied Paris, sharing a cramped apartment with the authoritarian Gérard and his extremist views. Drawing upon her artistic talents, Lucie risks her own safety to engage in small acts of defiance against the occupying Nazi forces and the collaborationist French regime – illustrating pro-resistance tracts and forging identity cards. Faced with the escalating brutality of anti-Jewish measures, and the indifference of so many of her fellow Parisians, Lucie must decide how far she will go to protect her friends and defend the rights of others before it’s too late.

The only account of this seminal trial, written by Mandela's defence attorney The only account of this seminal trial, written by Mandela’s defence lawyer and with a new foreword by Denis Goldberg, accused alongside Mandela and sentenced to life imprisonment. On 11 July 1963, police raided Liliesleaf Farm in Rivonia near Johannesburg, arresting alleged members of the high command of the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC). Together with the already imprisoned Nelson Mandela, they were put on trial and charged with conspiring to overthrow the apartheid government by violent revolution. Their expected punishment was death. In this compelling book, their defence attorney, Joel Joffe, gives a blow-by-blow account of the most important trial in South Africa’s history, vividly portraying the characters of those involved, and exposing the astonishing bigotry and rampant discrimination faced by the accused, as well as showing their incredible courage under fire.

The prevailing image of European Jews during the Holocaust is one of helpless victims, but in fact many Jews struggled against the terrors of the Third Reich. In Defiance, Nechama Tec offers a riveting history of one such group, a forest community in western Belorussia that would number more than 1,200 Jews by 1944--the largest armed rescue operation of Jews by Jews in World War II. Tec reveals that this extraordinary community included both men and women, some with weapons, but mostly unarmed, ranging from infants to the elderly. She reconstructs for the first time the amazing details of how these partisans and their families--hungry, exposed to the harsh winter weather--managed not only to survive, but to offer protection to all Jewish fugitives who could find their way to them. Arguing that this success would have been unthinkable without the vision of one man, Tec offers penetrating insight into the group's commander, Tuvia Bielski. Tec brings to light the untold story of Bielski's struggle as a partisan who lost his parents, wife, and two brothers to the Nazis, yet never wavered in his conviction that it was more important to save one Jew than to kill twenty Germans. She shows how, under Bielski's guidance, the partisans smuggled Jews out of heavily guarded ghettos, scouted the roads for fugitives, and led retaliatory raids against Belorussian peasants who collaborated with the Nazis. Herself a Holocaust survivor, Nechama Tec here draws on wide-ranging research and never before published interviews with surviving partisans--including Tuvia Bielski himself--to reconstruct here the poignant and unforgettable story of those who chose to fight.

The essays in this volume develop the highly suggestive insights and theory of James C. Scott--especially those related to patterns of domination and subordination, the role of religion in supporting or opposing the powerful, and the "arts of resistance" by the subordinated--to tackle key issues in the interpretation of Jesus and Paul. All the contributors implicitly or explicitly assume a stance sympathetic with subordinatd peoples of the past and present. While all pursue primarily critical literary, historical and social analysis on New Testament texts in historical contexts, some also examine historical or contemporary comparative materials. In addition, some even find Scott useful in critical self-examination of our own scholarly motives, stances, and approaches in relation to texts and their uses. --From publisher's description.

This scholarly study explores the conflicting forces of assimilation and cultural heritage in literary portrayals of Jewish American identity. In Passing Fancies in Jewish American Literature and Culture Judith Ruderman takes on the fraught question of who passes for Jewish in American literature and culture. In today’s contemporary political climate, religious and racial identities are being reconceived as responses to culture and environment, rather than essential qualities. Many Jews continue to hold conflicting ideas about their identity?seeking deep engagement with Jewish history and the experiences of the Jewish people while holding steadfastly to the understanding that identity is fluid and multivalent. Looking at carefully chosen texts from American literature, Ruderman elaborates on the strategies Jews have used to “pass” from the late nineteenth century to the present?nose jobs, renaming, clothing changes, religious and racial reclassification, and even playing baseball. While traversing racial and religious identities has always been a feature of America’s nation of immigrants, Ruderman shows how the complexities of identity formation and deformation are critically relevant during this important cultural moment.

“[A] landmark book . . . Solnit illustrates how the uprisings that begin on the streets can upend the status quo and topple authoritarian regimes” (Vice). A book as powerful and influential as Rebecca Solnit’s Men Explain Things to Me, her Hope in the Dark was written to counter the despair of activists at a moment when they were focused on their losses and had turned their back to the victories behind them—and the unimaginable changes soon to come. In it, she makes a radical case for hope as a commitment to act in a world whose future remains uncertain and unknowable. Drawing on her decades of activism and a wide reading of environmental, cultural, and political history, Solnit argues that radicals have a long, neglected history of transformative victories, that the positive consequences of our acts are not always immediately seen, directly knowable, or even measurable, and that pessimism and despair rest on an unwarranted confidence about what is going to happen next. Now, with a moving new introduction explaining how the book came about and a new afterword that helps teach us how to hope and act in our unnerving world, she brings a new illumination to the darkness of our times in an unforgettable new edition of this classic book. “One of the best books of the 21st century.” —The Guardian “No writer has better understood the mix of fear and possibility, peril and exuberance that’s marked this new millennium.” —Bill McKibben, New York Times–bestselling author of Falter “An elegant reminder that activist victories are easily forgotten, and that they often come in extremely unexpected, roundabout ways.” —The New Yorker

An easy-to-use field guide for teaching on climate injustice and building resilience in your students--and yourself--in an age of crisis. As feelings of eco-grief and climate anxiety grow, educators are grappling with how to help students learn about the violent systems causing climate change while simultaneously navigating the emotions this knowledge elicits. This book provides resources for developing emotional and existential tenacity in college classrooms so that students can stay engaged. Featuring insights from scholars, educators, activists, artists, game designers, and others who are integrating emotional wisdom into climate justice education, this user-friendly guide offers a robust menu of interdisciplinary, plug-and-play teaching strategies, lesson plans, and activities to support student transformation and build resilience. The book also includes reflections from students who have taken classes that incorporate their emotions in the curricula. Galvanizing and practical, The Existential Toolkit for Climate Justice Educators will equip both educators and their students with tools for advancing climate justice.