Reclaiming Ugly

Flip the script on how you think about UGLY--what it means, what it is, and how to reclaim it to Uplift, Glorify, and Love Yourself in an uglified world. Blending joyful self-help magic with incisive social analysis and personal narrative, Vanessa Rochelle Lewis empowers readers to heal, connect, and revolt against uglification. Uglification is "ugly" weaponized: a tool, ideology, and type of oppression that designates some bodies as more or less worthy of love, respect, access, and dignity. It defines who's accepted in what spaces, which identities are marginalized, and how we all move through the world--and is part and parcel of systems like white supremacy, ableism, sizeism, sexism, and queer- and transphobia. Here, Lewis takes on uglification, showing us how reclaiming UGLY is a subversive act that roars an unapologetic "yes!" to joy, healing, and community-building in a world that's engineered to hold us back. Lewis asks us to go beyond analysis, inviting us to boldly perform UGLY as an act of rebellion, liberation, and radical self-love. Through self-help exercises, reflective meditations, and lesson plans, Lewis moves us closer to a collective liberation that takes back what society tells us is ugly and taboo...and teaches us to deconstruct what we've told ourselves is ugly and taboo. In sharing her analysis, personal journey, and activity toolkit, Lewis offers a warm embrace and compassionately guides us toward lives of radical self-acceptance, joyful community-centered healing, and unfiltered self-love.

While the issue of beauty has recently resurfaced after a long silence in Europe and North America, this is the first book of its kind to tackle the subject of beauty in Africa. The essays suggest that the concept of beauty cannot be understood without a simultaneous understanding of the idea of ugliness. Writtten by continental and diasporic scholars, essays focus on sculpture, photography, art, music, fiction, food, clothing and urban design. Contributors include William Kentridge, Achille Mbembe, Simon Gikandi and Mia Couto.

Ugly as sin, the ugly duckling—or maybe you fell out of the ugly tree? Let’s face it, we’ve all used the word “ugly” to describe someone we’ve seen—hopefully just in our private thoughts—but have we ever considered how slippery the term can be, indicating anything from the slightly unsightly to the downright revolting? What really lurks behind this most favored insult? In this actually beautiful book, Gretchen E. Henderson casts an unfazed gaze at ugliness, tracing its long-standing grasp on our cultural imagination and highlighting all the peculiar ways it has attracted us to its repulsion. Henderson explores the ways we have perceived ugliness throughout history, from ancient Roman feasts to medieval grotesque gargoyles, from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to the Nazi Exhibition of Degenerate Art. Covering literature, art, music, and even the cutest possible incarnation of the term—Uglydolls—she reveals how ugliness has long posed a challenge to aesthetics and taste. She moves beyond the traditional philosophic argument that simply places ugliness in opposition to beauty in order to dismantle just what we mean when we say “ugly.” Following ugly things wherever they have trod, she traverses continents and centuries to delineate the changing map of ugliness and the profound effects it has had on the public imagination, littering her path with one fascinating tidbit after another. Lovingly illustrated with the foulest images from art, history, and culture, Ugliness offers an oddly refreshing perspective, going past the surface to ask what “ugly” truly is, even as its meaning continues to shift.

Writing in response to our current “constitutional crisis,” New York Times bestselling author and Christian activist Jim Wallis urges America to return to the tenets of Jesus once again as the means to save us from the polarizing bitterness and anger of our tribal nation. In Christ in Crisis Jim Wallis provides a path of spiritual healing and solidarity to help us heal the divide separating Americans today. Building on “Reclaiming Jesus”—the declaration he and other church leaders wrote in May 2018 to address America’s current crisis—Wallis argues that Christians have become disconnected from Jesus and need to revisit their spiritual foundations. By pointing to eight questions Jesus asked or is asked, Wallis provides a means to measure whether we are truly aligned with the moral and spiritual foundations of our Christian faith. “Christians have often remembered, re-discovered, and returned to their obedient discipleship of Jesus Christ—both personal and public—in times of trouble. It’s called coming home,” Wallis reminds us. While he addresses the dividing lines and dangers facing our nation, the religious and cultural commentator’s focus isn’t politics; it’s faith. As he has done throughout his career, Wallis offers comfort, empathy, and a practical roadmap. Christ in Crisis is a constructive field guide for all those involved in resistance and renewal initiatives in faith communities in the post-2016 political context.