Aid and Abet

smartMeme now offering workshops February 23, 2009

We are very pleased to add Doyle Canning and Patrick Reinsborough of the smartMeme Strategy and Training Collective to the Aid & Abet Roster! They will be offering their workshops on messaging and strategy beginning in March.

Patrick and Doyle are brilliant social movement thinkers who have spent five years developing theories on narrative, story telling, and campaign strategy. Their workshops are a must for social movement activists and organizations! To host them, please email Jen!

“Feminism and Pop Culture” Review February 22, 2009

From the Feminist Review:

No matter how sophisticated you believe yourself to be, consuming pop culture is often inevitable in modern life. From reacting to coverage of major news events to understanding how advertising permeates our media landscape, chances are most self-identified feminists have considered how so-called low culture affects our perceptions of our selves and our world. As the lines between high and low culture have increasingly blurred over the past several decades, feminists – both polished academics and dilettantes – have begun to examine how mainstream media affects our activism and how we have become necessary agents in the deconstruction of pop culture.

In Feminism and Pop Culture, Bitch magazine cofounder Andi Zeisler is able to do what does not regularly happen in the pages of the magazine. Introducing readers to the reasons why the relationship between feminism and popular culture is important, example after example illustrates how feminist interpretation of television, music, film, and news events has progressively become an important part of understanding our world. While many know Bitch as a “feminist response to pop culture,” some do not always recognize the value in making celebrity gossip, B movies, and shoddy mainstream reporting the locus of activism and (re)action. If you haven’t spent years sifting through Bitch magazine archives, or haven’t read BitchFest, Feminism and Pop Culture will shine new light on these relationships. If you’re already immersed in the language and analysis of the B-word, here you’ll find one more piece of Zeisler’s Bitch-y empire in which she continues to find comprehensive ways to state her purpose.

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“Becoming the Media” Review

From the blog Syndicate Consumption:

Anyone who is involved in any sort of independent, radical, progressive, or otherwise non-mainstream project (be it media, a crafting cooperative, social change org, anything) needs to read this pamphlet. Jen Angel, founder, editor, and publisher of the late CLAMOR magazine (2000-2006) has written an extensive history of the project, covering both the “Successes” (such as standing firm on their American Apparel expose) and “Challenges” through the years. She’s fair and honest, and more than willing to discuss problems and errors. (I also admire that she didn’t label the latter section as “Failures”, because publishing 38 issues of a well-respected, smart, thoughtful magazine is certainly NOT a “failure”.) Jen’s also very truthful about the simple fact that you need money to fund projects.

“A central problem in activist culture is the denial of money as a powerful force. Whether it’s that people are afraid of money because they don’t understand it, they believe it’s just a tool for capitalist lackeys, or they feel that it’s an instrument that can only be used for evil, this kind of mythology around money means that activists and organizations often lag far behind their conservative or for-profit counterparts in terms of building structure and long-term stability. To build projects and institutions that are sustainable and effective within the capitalist system we currently live in, we need to fund them.”

Becoming the Media is available through PM Press and Microcosm Publishing. Read Jen Angel’s blog here.

February 2009 Newsletter February 18, 2009

To get this newsletter in your mailbox, email us or join here!

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Hi Everyone!

January and February have been busy months, with all sorts of new people joining the Aid & Abet Roster. We are working with several speakers who are actively touring the US and Canada. Check their individual pages for all the details, and check all of our upcoming events here.

Also, Please keep us in the loop! Have you moved? Do you have a new email? Is there someone else we should add to our mailing list? Let us know!

Here’s the haps, and remember, it’s not too early to book for Fall 09 or Spring 10!

* Artist Cristy Road has just joined Aid & Abet! watch for updates on her schedule next month! Email Matt for more information.

* Andi Zeisler, co-founder of Bitch Magazine: A Feminist Response to Pop Culture, author of Feminism and Pop Culture (Seal Press 2008), and co-editor of Bitchfest (FSG 2006) has just announced that she will be touring the US and Canada through Spring 2010. Watch the website for updates, or email Jen if you are interested in hosting her unique critique of pop culture.

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New Events for Jen Angel in Oregon, California, Missouri, and the East Coast February 17, 2009

Yep! I’ll be doing several events around the country in March and April! Watch the upcoming events page for all the details on events in California, Oregon, New York, Pennsylvania, Missouri, and Massachusetts! I still have room in my schedule, so if you’re interested in hosting a talk, please email me.
At each event, I’ll be talking about Clamor / Becoming the Media, independent media, zines, building institutions on the left, and media & social movements. Each event will include special guests - past Clamor contributors and other awesome independent media makers.
I hope to see you while I’m on the road!

Cristy Road Joins the Roster! February 16, 2009

We are excited to announce that Cristy C. Road has joined Aid & Abet! The prolific artist and zinester is the author of the illustrated autobiography “Indestructible” (Microcosm), a collection of postcards called “Distance Makes the Heart Grow Sick” (Microcosm), and most recently “Bad Habits: A Love Story” (Soft Skull Press). Cristy has published “Greenzine” since 1994. She works as a freelance illustrator as well as a writer, and over the past two years has given readings and showings of her art throughout the country at various events including a national tour with Sister Spit.

Cristy will be available for events beginning this Spring and beyond.  Email Matt if you are interested in booking her at your school, conference, or community space.

Shira Tarrant joins Aid & Abet February 5, 2009

Shira Tarrant, author of the new book Men & Feminism (Seal Press), has joined Aid & Abet! She will be speaking around the US and Canada through Spring 2010! Email Jen if you are interested in hosting Shira at your school or organization.

Shira is also the author of When Sex Became Gender (Routledge) and editor of the provocative anthology Men Speak Out: Views on Gender, Sex and Power (Routledge). She is currently co-editing Fashion Talks: Undressing the Power of Style (forthcoming).

We look forward to working with her, and are pleased to add her to our line-up of kick-ass feminists, which also includes Andi Zeisler and Sabrina Chapadjiev!

Look for more additions to our roster soon!

Aid & Abet Mailing List! January 15, 2009

We have created a mailing list to keep you updated about upcoming events and other announcements. It will be pretty low-traffic with just one message a month. To join the Aid & Abet listserv just click HERE and follow the simple instructions. Thanks!

Robert Hillary King Tour Dates Announced January 13, 2009

The U.S. Northeast tour dates have been tentatively set for Robert Hillary King. He’ll be passing through Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island — at least! For details, click here.

The only freed member of the “Angola 3″ (so far — and hopefully not for long), King spent 31 years locked up in Louisiana’s notorious Angola State Penitentiary — 29 of them in solitary confinement in a six-by-nine foot cell. In 2001, the state grudgingly acknowledged his innocence and set him free. On the tour, “King” will be sharing his personal story, as related in his autobiography From the Bottom of the Heap, and spreading the word about the plight of his comrades Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox, who are still locked in solitary confinement — for 36 years now — despite substantial evidence that they are innocent.

The time is now to book an event, so please get in touch with Justine ASAP.

To learn more about the Angola 3 and receive periodic updates on the case, visit http://www.angola3.org/

Andi Zeisler joins the Roster! December 9, 2008

Hi All! We are pleased to announce that we are now working with Bitch Magazine co-founder, Andi Zeisler, to promote her new book with Seal Press, Feminism and Pop Culture. Email Jen to bring her to your school or organization in 2009!