Thursday, March 1, 2007
7:00 pm

Loyal to the Sky: Notes from an Activist with Marisa Handler and Rebecca Solnit

New College of California (Theater)
777 Valencia Street
San Francisco

"For readers interested in liberal political activism in this new century, including war protests in 2003, the FTAA protests in Miami, and protests during the Republican National Convention in New York, [Loyal to the Sky] is a must-read... A deeply intelligent, absorbing call to action." --Emily Cook, Booklist

Through music and speech Marisa Handler reveals the inside world of global activism. How are protests organized? What are affinity groups? What do you do if you and your friends turn the corner and come face to face with a line of armed, baton wielding police? Handler's new book Loyal to the Sky answers these questions and others. It is the story of her life on the front lines of the global justice movement, and her coming of age in apartheid South Africa, America, Israel, and other countries across the globe. Handler has worked as an activist with numerous organizations, including Direct Action to Stop the War, United for Peace and Justice, and the Tikkun Community. Her articles have appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, Earth Island Journal, Salon.com, Alternet, and Orion, Tikkun, and Bitch magazines.

Rebecca Solnit (who wrote the foreword to the book Loyal to the Sky) is an activist, historian and writer in San Francisco. Her work deals in particular with landscape, cityscapes, cultural geographies, the environment, place, memory, photography, and counternarratives and the uses of story. Among her eleven books are four dealing with Yosemite in particular, 1994's Savage Dreams: A Journey into the Landscape Wars of the American West, Wanderlust: A History of Walking, River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West, and Yosemite in Time: Ice Ages, Tree Clocks, Ghost Rivers. Among her awards are a Guggenheim, the Lannan Literary Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award in criticism.

$5 Donation requested.

Co-sponsored by: New College Center for Education and Social Action, Global Exchange, Bitch Magazine and Amazon Watch.
For more information contact:
June Brashares
Global Exchange
415-575-5542
june@globalexchange.org