reviews by people who aren't me

On Female Body Experience: "Throwing Like a Girl" and Other Essays by Iris Marion Young
Young's book reacts to phenomenology, a movement in twentieth-century philosophy that is basically about trying to understand things like consciousness by discarding all the previous ideas and theories we might have about them, and instead observing and analyzing our own experience of the world. Unfortunately, the original phenomenologists were white guys who tended to make broad generalizations based on their own personal white-guy experience. Since then, lots of people have taken up the phenomenological method in interesting ways: for example, Frantz Fanon's writing is a phenomenology of the experience of colonized and post-colonial people. Young's book, as the title indicates, is about the ways women and girls in particular experience their bodies, and how gender is expressed and experienced physically, in things like having breasts, being pregnant, and, in the famous title essay, "throwing like a girl". That essay was written in 1980, and in another piece in this book, Young happily acknowledges that the experience of being female has since changed for the better, and girls of her daughter's generation throw much less "like girls" than she did. (reviewed by Lily)

The Taqwacores by Michael Muhammad Knight
There is a character in this Novel, Jehangir Tabari, a drunk punk rock sufi with a “foot-high yellow mohawk thick and bristly like the brush on an old Roman soldier’s helmet”. Near the end of this novel the narrator of the novel refers to him as the Muslim Rob Van Dam. So the image that I am most left with from this book is Jehangir on stage at the Taqwacore (ie Muslim punkrock) show he puts on, doing the whole pointing at his shoulders with his thumbs (and if you aren’t familiar with Rob Van Dam you are missing out) “… I’m Jehangir Ta-Bari, the (and here the crowd joins in) whole fucking show!” and then doing the whole, spin kick in place. Fucking sweet. Although, admittedly it never actually happened in the book. In any case, this book is about a Muslim punk house in Buffalo, NY. House residents include Yusef Ali, the narrator and engeneering student, the aformentioned Jehangir, Fasiq Abasa, Indonesian and often found on the roof smoking pot and reading the Quran, Amazing Ayyub, “the bone-thin Iranian smack-head in tight blue jeans and no shirt and a huge KARBALA tattooed in old English letters just below his collar bone”, Rabeya, a burqa-clad feminist zinester, and Umar, a straight-edge (and tattooed) Sunni. This book deals with the role of women and queers in Islam. The intersections of orthodoxy and heterodoxy (if that’s not too weak a word) are constantly explored. In a lot of ways this book reminds me of my relationship with Catholicism. All these characters are searching in their own ways to sort out what is of value in their religion (not to mention cultural back grounds), and definitely struggling at times. I can imagine that this book would make a lot of conservative Muslims very angry if they read it. Maybe even a lot of Liberal Muslims. It also reminds me how little I know about Islam, and while this didn’t really detract from my enjoyment of this book (I practically read it in one sitting), it certainly did from my understanding. Certainly a challenging and worthwhile read. Michael Muhammad Knight is an American convert to Islam, a journalist who writes for Muslim WakeUp! and other publications. (reviewed by Dave)

The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution by Christopher Hill
If any book could make the case that radicals today should be interested in the English revolution, a period some 350 years distant, then this is the book. Conservative historical narratives represent this period as a civil war between Cromwell and King, between royalists and parliament. Instead of a history of great men, Hill gives us a history of “the lover fifty percent”, of rank and file soldiers, of common people, and of religious and political radicals. He details groups such as the Levellers, radicals within Cromwell’s New Model Army, agitating for radical democracy within the army and in society at large, working against both the state church and the authority of the puritan divines. Hill looks at Gerrard Winstanley and the Diggers who declared the world to be a common treasury for all and practiced agrarian communism on the commons. He looks at religious radicals of all stripes, Baptists, Familists, Muggletonians, Quakers and Seekers. He looks at conspiratorial groups such as the Fifth Monarchists, and perhaps the strangest and most interesting group, the Ranters. Various of these groups demanded the end of the state church, of tithes and religious courts, radical religious toleration (extending even to Muslims and Jews), court proceedings in English instead of Latin and the right to trial by jury and to represent oneself, even the abolition of lawyers, universal suffrage (extending even to servants and women), universal healthcare, free universal education and various schemes of education reform, the redistribution of land seized from royalists to the poor, an end to Imperialist aggression in Ireland. The Diggers even went so far as to advocate ‘true levelling’, that is, the abolition of private land ownership, no wage labour, no law. Many religious communities allowed for easy divorce for men or women, various liberalizations of sexual morality including allowing wife swapping and destigmatizing adultery. Ranters argued that there was no sin and proceeded to practice what they preached. They loved to smoke, drink curse, go nude, have sex with whom they chose, supposedly in public at times. Hill documents that the revolutionary period was marked by widespread opposition and resistance to Calvinism and the protestant work ethic. Cottagers (people who built homes on common land) obstinately refused to work except when absolutely necessary or when wages were unusually high. Many of the radical religious sects and the Ranters were fond of drink and would often have their religious meetings in taverns rather than churches. It was common place for radicals to attend services at conservative congregations and challenge the pastor to a debate, demand the right to address the congregation, or simply to disrupt the service. Radicals declared the right of anyone to preach, not just the educated elite. Hill argues that radical lay preachers in the New Model Army did a lot to spread the radical ideas during the civil war that made it more than just a civil war. Ranters burnt the bible on at least one occasion. Many groups claimed that the bible was not literally true and should instruct by analogy. Others doubted its divine origins, pointing out the human element in translation, not to mention choosing which books are included in the bible. Many argued that God’s light existed in all and that one’s conscience was more important than anything in the bible or any other book, that actions were more important than words ( a radical idea indeed at a time when education was restricted to a small elite). There were many wandering would be messiahs and healers. Miracles and signs were common place. Many of the sects allowed women to preach (at a time when it was illegal for a woman to sit in the same pew as her husband at church). The claim that Jesus or God was within everyone was widespread. As was the denial of the historical Jesus, or even a creator God. Ranters cursed the bible, Jesus, puritans, the rich, almost anyone. Hill provides evidence of all this and more, illustrating it with wonderful excerpts from primary sources. Censorship broke down during the revolutionary period and there is the most wonderful wealth of writings by and about the radicals. Hill’s scholarship is excellent but he never gets bogged down or boring. Despite being a well respected academic and perhaps the world’s leading authority on the English revolution (or perhaps because of it) his writing practically boils over with revolutionary enthusiasm. This book is consequently a wonderful introduction, especially for radicals to an amazingly radical period in the history of England, when common folk very nearly turned the world upside down. Hill notes: “The reader who wishes to restore his perspective might with advantage read the valuable book recently published by Professor David Underdown: Pride’s Purge (Oxford U.P., 1971). This deals with almost exactly the same period as I do, but from an entirely different angle. His is the view from the top, from Whitehall, mine the worm’s eye view. His index and mine contain entirely different lists of names.” I for one am glad I stuck with Hill. (reviewed by Dave)

What’s My Name, Fool! Sports and Resistance in the United States by Dave Zirin
Dave Zirin is the editor of The Prince George's Post in Maryland, and runs edge of sports, where he posts a weekly column about sports from a critical and radical perspective. You may also have seen his writing in Z Magazine or the International Socialist Review. What’s My Name, Fool! is an excelent look at the social history of sport in the US starting with the drive to de-segragate Baseball (origionally spearheaded by the Communist Party) and the significance of Joe Louis and the Joe Louis-Max Schmeling fights, Muhammad Ali, radicalism at the 1968 Olympics (most famously Tommie Smith and John Carlos’ black gloved fists in the air, but there is much more to it than one incident), labour struggles in sports, resistance to war. Zirin attacks racism, sexism and homophobia so prevalent in sports and sport journalism relentlessly.
If you’ve read his columns consistantly from the beginning there will be some overlap, although most of the book is new material, including “original interviews with former heavyweight champ George Foreman, Olympian and black power saluter John Carlos, NBA basketball player and anti-death penalty activist Etan Thomas, antiwar women's college hoopster Toni Smith, Olympic Project for Human Rights leader Lee Evans and many others”. Very worthwhile, especially if you like sports, despite the bullshit that often accompanies it. I am extremely glad that the (Calgary Public) library got this book. (reviewed by Dave)