Comix with footnotes--hubba hubba! But of course one's enjoyment is tempered by the fact that the facts presented about the prison industry are infuriating.
Quotations:
These prisoners are now seen as an economic opportunity. "When legislators cry 'Lock 'em up!,' they often mean 'Lock 'em up in my district!'"
"Prison Town: Paying the Price" by Kevin Pyle and Craig Gilmore
On average 80% of new prison jobs go tot folks who don't live, or pay taxes, in the prison town.
"Prison Town: Paying the Price" by Kevin Pyle and Craig Gilmore
African Americans make up 13% of the U.S. population
And 13% of drug users
35% of drug arrests
55% of drug convictions
74% of those sentenced to prison for drugs.
"What's Race Got to Do with It?" by Sabrina Jones, Ellen Miller-Mack, and Lois Ahrens
Vikki Law, who also edits a zine by and for incarcerated women called Tenacious, has written a dense (664 endnotes!), but eminently readable chronicle of the struggles and travails of women in prison.
This book is ridiculously informative, but be warned it is also meant to incite. As Vikki inscribed in my copy, "Remember, prisons don't fall on their own--they need that extra push!"
Don't tell anyone, but I've never taken a women's studies class. I knew Dworkin was a controversial figure and anti-pornography activist, but not much more than that. Unfortunately, she turned me a bit against her in the first couple of chapters, with sentiments like:
On Saturday April 25, 2009 ASIS&T and SILSSA will be jointly hosting a New Media Symposium at PMC room 609 from 2pm to 7pm. Pratt Institute, New York, NY.
Background on what zines are and on the Barnard Library Zine Collection.
Discussion of the value of zines as research materials.
Discussion of three particular zines: Figure 8, Evolution of a Race Riot, and the "Fuck You, High School" issue of Boredom Sucks.
I recommend a change in Library of Congress Subject Headings from -VICTIMS to -SURVIVORS. Affected subject headings for materials I've cataloged for the Barnard Library Zine Collection include:
ADULT CHILD ABUSE VICTIMS
RAPE VICTIMS
SEXUAL ABUSE VICTIMS
Ileana's bio:
Ileana Jimenez has been teaching English in independent schools for twelve years. For the first seven years of her career, Ileana brought a feminist vision to single sex girls’ schools in Baltimore and Washington, DC. Working with girls and encouraging them to write personal stories about race, class, gender, ethnicity, religion, sexuality, and body image became the focus of both her classroom and scholarly work. She now teaches at the Little Red School House & Elisabeth Irwin High School (www.lrei.org), where she offers courses on feminist women writers, artists, and activists; race, class, and gender in American culture; LGBT literature and film; Latino/a literature; memoir writing; and a seminar on Toni Morrison. Ileana also coordinates a professional affinity group for LGBT independent school educators in New York, and continues to be involved in national conversations about education and social justice. She frequently leads presentations on integrating Latina/o and LGBT authors in the classroom as well as creating inclusive programming for LGBT students of color and their allies at the annual NAIS People of Color Conference and the NYSAIS diversity conference. She is also a frequent panelist and speaker at Smith, particularly for the college’s diversity, alumnae admissions, and alumnae affinity group initiatives. She is currently the board vice chair and secretary of the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice (www.astraea.org) and is a judge for the Lambda Literary Awards, one of the nation’s premier LGBT awards. Ileana received her MA in English Literature at Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf School of English and her BA in English Literature at Smith College.
This started as a Facebook update, but I thought it would be worth exploring at greater length here, especially as I hope to have a nice bibliography of queer women's fiction by the time I'm through.
Women's Studies Conference panel, "Grrrls in the Library: the Collections and Preservation of Feminist Zines." My talk, "Self-Publication with Punk Rock Ideals: Zines ≠ Vanity Press Publications." New Haven, CT, October 18, 2008.
Zines are self-published, but the motivation behind their publication is different than that driving many vanity press and chapbook authors. The principles of punk rock and riot grrrl community are fundamental to zines, not just as the cultures that birthed them in their current incarnation, but also as what separates them from other self-publications. By collecting and preserving zines, the non-music primary sources of punk rock, librarians are documenting these movements in the participants’ own voices—the voices of those too young, too politically radical, too crusty, and/or too bad mannered to appeal to the corporate media. It is important to note that zine producers are not only people who have been relegated to the margins but also people who have chosen to claim the margins. In contrast to most writers, many zine producers might choose to reject an offer from corporate publishing house. Why let someone else control what you can say, when you can do it yourself? This presentation will address the politics and cultural motivations of zine publication and contrast them with other types of self-publication. Focusing specifically on materials from Barnard College’s open-stack zine collection that uses riot grrrl and other third wave feminist zines to enhance its research-oriented Women’s Studies book collection, this paper will go on to explore why zines belong in established library collections.
