The Art of Activism Reader: A Decentered Canon

This reader brings together scholars from different eras, cultures and geographic locations. With this diversity of voices, the book opens a dialogue about the social power of art and how change is envisioned by deliberately juxtaposing radically different conceptions of art and activism. Among the writers included are: James Baldwin, Lucy Lippard, Herbert Marcuse, Audre Lorde, Trinh T. Minh-ha, Rabindranath Tagore, John Dewey, John Berger, Augusto Boal, Franz Fanon, Raymond Williams, Jacque Ranciere, Rosalyn Deutche, Stuart Hall, bell hooks, Mikhail Baktin, Octavia Butler, and W. E. B. DuBois.

The reader focuses on concepts that scholars have grappled with as to how art and politics can combine to achieve social change. It deliberately does not include case studies or manifestos. Rather, the texts are organized thematically: Art Unsettles: Social Systems and Critique; Art Reveals: Making the Invisible Visible; Art Resists: Everyday Interventions; Art Acts: Activism as Art; Art (Re)Orders: Making Sense of the World; and Art Imagines: Envisioning New Worlds. This thematic structure allows the reader to engage with different perspectives with the theme for engaged dialogue. Each thematic section opens with a brief essay by the editors framing the central conceptual concerns that follow.

Dipti Desai is a Professor of Art and Art Education in the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development at New York University where she teaches courses on socially engaged art practices and its politics, critical pedagogy and artistic activism as radical research. Her praxis based pedagogy requires students to engage directly with communities to envision and enact art activist projects. She is the author of two books and numerous articles on the intersection between art, social justice, and pedagogy.

Stephen Duncombe is a Professor of Media and Culture in the Gallatin and Steinhardt Schools of New York University, where he teaches the history and politics of media and culture. He is the author and editor of eight books on the intersection of culture and politics, and the cofounder of The Center for Artistic Activism, a training and research organization dedicated to helping activists create more like artists and artists strategize more like activists.