"Full marks to Duke University Press... for this welcome addition to the pop music pantheon. Not only is it not another foray along well-trodden routes (do we really need more books about the Beatles and Bob Dylan?), but it's also an exemplary demonstration of exactly what a biography should do.
In his rigorously researched investigation of musician and composer Arthur Russell, ... Tim Lawrence effortlessly explores his subject and in so doing shines fresh light on the darkened recesses of both New York's downtown music scene and the popular cultural landscape of Russell's times...." - Times Higher Education
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"... I had been taught by television and movies that the sweet queer life was to be found in the hustle and bustle of the city. At 18, I had left home for college three hours away to find fulfillment (and that dating pool) promised to queer kids like me. While working in the queer dotcom bubble, trying to figure out how new media might create social change for LGBT folk and finishing a master's thesis on narratives of queer youth activism, I began to wonder what the everyday skirmishes in places that did not have a strong network of LGBT services looked like, and I tried to make sense of why we knew so little about them..." – Mary Gray, The Guardian
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“Readers may ask one of the most obvious questions surrounding the interest in Baartman —why her? She was neither the first nor the only African woman on display in Europe. Some of the writers in this volume noted that at least one other African woman was exhibited as a “Hottentot Venus” after Baartman’s death. We have only to look at contemporary culture to see the way in which Sarah Baartman’s image continues to be recycled as fashion in the works of some contemporary photographers. The anthology also examines the lives of women who were and still are iconic figures in the twentieth century, such as Josephine Baker.” - Deb Willis, editor of Black Venus 2010
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The Invention of Hebrew is the first book to approach the Bible in light of recent findings on the use of the Hebrew alphabet as a deliberate and meaningful choice. Seth L. Sanders connects the Bible's distinctive linguistic form - writing down a local spoken language - to a cultural desire to speak directly to people, summoning them to join a new community that the text itself helped call into being.
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"At once shocking, frustrating and inspiring, the book chronicles the courageous and hard-working lawyers who took time from law firms, small and large, human rights organizations and military assignments to step up and provide legal aid to people whom the Bush administration was calling "the worst of the worst" after 9/11." - Stephen Rhode, TruthoutClick Here to Order
"The Editors of Torah Queeries have gathered together many leading rabbis and scholars to provide a perspective through what they call a "bent lens." This exceptional collection brings together the voices of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and gay-friendly writers, including some of the best-known names in the Jewish world, from all of the major denominations, including Orthodox. … [Torah Queeries] should appeal to those who wish to read the Torah with an open mind and the willingness to look at the words from 3,000 years ago with new, and often jarring, perspectives…. this is a volume that I would describe as a must for the Jewish bookshelf."
- Andrew Sacks, director of the Rabbinical Assembly in Israel
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"Academic freedom, as imbedded in the customs and practices of institutions of higher education, is an essential ingredient of intellectual life. It ensures the remarkable progress in all disciplines and underpins the vast changes that have collectively defined the world in which we live. It is difficult, if not impossible to imagine that the modern university could not exist, much less succeed, without it....
Cary Nelson seeks to provide [guidance for the futureof academic freedom] in this engaging book that starts with the premise that academic freedom is under attack and that it needs “saving”.... The scholarship is extensive and makes several telling points...." - Charles R. Middleton, Times Higher Education
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Ariel Dorfman to deliver the Eighth Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture
World-acclaimed Chilean-American author, human rights activist and distinguished professor of Literature and Latin-American Studies, Ariel Dorfman, will present the Eighth Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture at Johannesburg’s Linder Auditorium on July 31, 2010.
Dorfman served as the cultural advisor to Salvador Allende, Chile’s president from 1970 to 1973. The democratically elected Allende died during the 1973 coup, staged by Augusto Pinochet. This coup also resulted in the death and disappearance of thousands of Chileans and forced Dorfman into exile.
The author of many novels, plays, poems, essays and films will speak on the theme “Memory and Justice” at the 2010 Annual Lecture.
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“There's a certain Keats-like romance in "discovering" an artist who died before their time, before their gifts were truly appreciated. And so it is with Arthur Russell who, thanks to a series of posthumous releases of and on his music, has in the last few years come to more widespread – and deserving – attention. The latest of these eulogies comes from Tim Lawrence, whose recently released biography, Hold on to Your Dreams, adds flesh to the basic facts of Russell's life...” – The Guardian Click Here to Read Full Article
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Quietus has just announced that Arthur’s Landing, a collective of musicians and collaborators who originally worked with Arthur Russell, will perform their debut UK gig on 20th February at the ICA to coincide with the launch of Hold On to Your Dreams, Tim Lawrence’s critically acclaimed biography of Arthur Russell.
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Sky Train Receives Air Time
Canyon Sam, author of Sky Train, will be on Diane Rehm's nationally aired NPR show in the USA on February the 23rd 2010
"Canyon Sam's Sky Train powerfully moves the heart, as it brings to life deep truths about our world today, about Tibet, the land and people and especially its outstanding women. Just as important is the author's own revelatory discovery of 'Tibet' as a compassionate, wise, and down to earth state-of-mind essential to the survival of the whole world. Words cannot express how wonderful is this honest, generous, and perceptive book." -Robert Thurman, Jey Tsong Khapa Professor of Buddhist Studies at Columbia University
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