Resistance literature includes but is not limited to fiction, cinema, drama, poetry, visual art, and song, reflecting the many forms of political resistance throughout history.[1][2][3][4] Resistance literature and media actively resist oppression or oppressive systems in a creative manner.[5][6] Resistance literature is one of the frameworks of art that allows movements to communicate and preserve stories of resistance.[7][8][9]

History of resistance literature

American Abolitionism

Poetry, newspapers, and songs were commonly used to try and increase enthusiasm and support for the abolitionist movement.[10] In addition, some enslaved people published slave narratives which documented and spoke out about their firsthand experiences of being enslaved.[11]

American Resistance to the Vietnam War

In the early '60s and into the '70s, Americans of many backgrounds were unified over a shared opposition to the Vietnam War. The most well-known demonstration for many is the Kent State University protest where four students were killed by the Ohio National Guard on May 4, 1970.[12] Among the many forms of resistance during this time, the most enduring product of this movement is the United States voting age being lowered from 21 to 18 years of age.[13]

Argentinian Resistance and The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo

The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo (Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo) is an Argentinian human rights group that began demonstrating in 1977 in response to the National Reorganization Process of Jorge Rafael Videla's military dictatorship. They are a group of mothers and grandmothers whose initial goal was finding their disappeared family members, or desaparecidos, who were illegally abducted and detained by the Argininian regime and holding accountable those who were responsible. Their political resistance, which continues today, is characterized by both large demonstrations in front of the Casa Rosada presidential palace and various graffiti art exhibitions,[14] which act as a public archive of this atrocity and a call to action in addressing current events. Subsequent photo art, films, poetry and memoirs have continued to commemorate the group's ongoing activism.

Literary Studies

In literary studies, resistance literature is one subfield in which to study literary output that may be understood as a socio-political activity to resist dominant ideologies.[15] Resistance literature can be used to resist gender-based oppression, or to demonstrate difficulties in liberation struggles or writing in exile.[15][16] Studying resistance literature is one way to challenge norms and defy culture practices that can, in some instances, give hope.[15][17] Analyzing depictions of armed resistance in fields like political science or history can demonstrate how governmental and civil change occur, only literature also has a role to play. Barbara Harlow's book Resistance Literature (1987), which came to define this literary subfield, demonstrates how literary analysis and engagement can give rise to new conceptions of political resistance.[18]

Weimar Republic Anti-fascist Resistance

Christopher Isherwood was a queer author who lived in Weimar Germany from 1929 to 1933, fleeing in '33 to escape Nazi Germany. During this period of time he wrote Goodbye to Berlin, a fictitious novel based on his experiences in Berlin.[19] Goodbye to Berlin captures a small sliver of queer history within its pages, and also was highly influential in the New Objectivity art movement in Germany.[20]

Southern U.S. Border Militarization

The Mexico-United States border is heavily policed in the United States, with some stretches of it including fences, walls, floodlights, and guards that became more common place after the introduction of "prevention through deterence" strategies in the 1990s.[21] Arizona is one of the most dangerous places to cross the border due to the presence of the Sonoran Desert and conservative immigration laws. Groups like Beyond the Wall work to use art, such as puppetry, to explore positive cultural identities and combat negative stereotypes and narratives.

Women's Suffrage

Popular forms of art that were used during the Women's Suffrage Movement were banners, posters, postcards, and newspaper cartoons.[22] In 1907 the Artists' Suffrage League was formed, founded by Mary Lowndes, a British stained-glass artist.[23] By 1913, the ASP was forming a united front in America as well, supplying art to women's suffrage groups and aiding the spread of information.[23]

Black Feminism

While Black feminist writings have been recorded as far back as the 1830s the first widely known Black feminist was Sojourner Truth who believed that race and gender could not be separated in discussions of oppression.[24] Kimberlé Crenshaw would coin this term in an essay as intersectionality.[25] Black feminism relies on three distinct principles: that Black women's experiences of classism, sexism and racism are all inextricably linked, that racism, sexism, and "all other -isms" need to addressed together, and that black women have different needs and worldviews than those of both white women and black men.[24]

Iranian Revolution

Censorship and suppression of human rights during the Iranian Revolution (1978-179) prompted the publication of novels and poems speaking about experiences of abuse and oppression.[26] There has been a particular rise in Iranian women's literature addressing restrictive laws and social norms surrounding dress code, marriage, and the workforce.[27] Many stories are written by Iranian women who grew up during the Shah and/or Khomeini regime but are now writing in exile, reflecting on their experiences and the impact these events continue to have on Iranian culture.[28]

Forms of resistance literature

Resistance can also be in the form of humour, bitching and gossip.[29]

Archival Creation and Restoration

Archives can often be the site of recovered or restored pieces of history such as newspapers, zines, flyers, manuscripts, letters, photographs, bills, interviews (in conjunction with oral history), other documents, and digital resources.[30]  Archives naturally become a part of resistance literature because they reaffirm a person, people's, or events place in history[31] and combats the narrative that only what is immediately documented, available, or institutionally produced is true. They've become a pivotal resource in keeping the memory of marginalized communities alive and are undoubtedly a piece of resistance literature.

Novel Writing

Throughout many periods of history, novels of fiction have been written by authors who lived through periods of resistance, and the power of these stories has brought positive social change.[32] Some well-known examples of this include Upton Sinclair's 1906 novel The Jungle and The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, both of which resulted in more rights for the working class.[33]

Theater

Since the beginning of Western civilization, plays have been used as a way to protest against social problems and reflect the social and political trends of society.[34] For example, The San Francisco Mime Troupe was created to produce theater that exposes injustices through political satire in the form of plays and musicals.[35]

Zine Making

Zines, short for magazine or fanzine, have been used to cheaply spread political views and information. Zines began in fan communities in the 1930s, but began to gain a political edge in the 1960s and 70s in punk communities when zines began to be easier to produce.[36]

Photography

Throughout history, photography has been used to oppose war and violence, resist repressive regimes, and confront racism and the heteronormative patriarchy.[37] Faye Schulman, a partisan photographer during World War II, is an example of someone using photography as a form of resistance.[38]

Film

Historically, films have been used by directors as a means of resisting dominant narratives and histories in order to show opposition to war and violence, and as a means to promote international understanding.[39] Modes of film, such as documentaries, have the ability to combine real world footage and people as a part of a performance or message to a larger group on resisting oppressive ideologies.[40]

Concrete Poetry

Concrete poetry is a form of poetry which places particular emphasis on the visual imagery of the words' formation on the page. The meaning of the words may come second to or be enhanced by this typographic significance. Example of this can be found in M. NourbeSe Philip's Zong!,[41] Alex Balgiu and Mónica de la Torre's anthology Women in Concrete Poetry 1959-1979[42], Alan Pelez Lopez's Intergalactic Travels: Poems from a Fugitive Alien,[43] and much of the poetry of E.E. Cummings.[44]

Music

Music has traditionally showcased simple, repetitive songs used in social movements or for inspiring collective calls to action.[45] "Strange Fruit" by Billie Holiday (1939) is considered to be one of the first protest songs that breaks away from traditional styles, providing a dark, haunting commentary about lynchings in the United States.[46]

Writers, artists, and makers who resist

James Baldwin

James Baldwin (1924-1987) was an American writer and activist whose body of work includes If Beale Street Could Talk (1974), Sonny's Blues (1954), and Notes of a Native Son (1954).[47] Through his plays, essays, short stories, and novels, Baldwin remains highly influential as his work often addressed race, sexuality, and morality. Baldwin was active in American movements for civil rights and gay liberation, and his legacy can be traced in contemporary writers and activists.[48]

Alice Walker

Alice Walker (born February 9, 1944) is an American writer, poet, and activist who is known for her poetry, novels, and short stories – the most notable being The Color Purple.[49] As a social activist, she became involved in the civil rights movement, considers herself a feminist,[50] and coined the term womanist to mean a feminist of color or Black feminist in her 1983 collection In Search of Our Mother's Gardens: Womanist Prose.[51]

Taylor K. Shaw

Taylor K Shaw is the co-founder of a coalition of BIPOC artists called Black Women Animate.[52] She co-founded BWA Studios with JLove Calderón in 2017 in order to resist the underrepresentation of both women of color and nonbinary people behind the scenes of the animation industry.[53]

Art Spiegelman

Art Spiegelman is an American cartoonist most famous for his book Maus.[54] In it, he uses the narrative of his relationship with his father and his father's story of surviving the Holocaust to spread true information on the Holocaust and the generational trauma it has caused. It stands in defiance of Holocaust denial narratives.

Faye Schulman

Faye Schulman (November 1919 - April 2021) was a Jewish partisan resistance fighter during World War II.[38] The wartime photos Schulman took documented the resistance to the Nazi regime in Eastern Europe, helping to prove that Jewish people did not go "like sheep to the slaughter."[38][55]

Akwaeke Emezi

Akwaeke Emezi (born in 1987) is a Nigerian artist who engages video, performance, writing, and sculpture[56] as mediums for their work and is well known for their debut autobiographical novel,Freshwater. They create art that reflects being an ogbanje and talk openly about the difficulties of gender dysphoria.[57] Akwaeke is the recipient of a Stonewall Honor, a Walter Honor, and an Otherwise Award Honor for their debut YA novel, PET.[56]

Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison (1931-2019) was a Black author who wrote her books specifically for a Black audience, making a point to resist the white gaze.[58] Her body of work included The Bluest Eye (1970), Song of Solomon (1977) and Beloved (1987). She continued to resist dominant ideologies by focusing many of her books on women characters who engaged in violent acts of resistance and rebellion against their own victimization.[59] She often focused on the social construction of race and its effect on the psyche.

Lorraine Hansberry

Lorraine Hansberry (May 19, 1930 – January 12, 1965) remains a prominent playwright and author within American literary history. Her play Raisin in the Sun is about an African American family aspiring to move beyond the segregation and disenfranchisement in 1950s Chicago. This work made her the first Black woman to have a play performed on Broadway. This play (and much of her other work) deals with these themes of aspirations for social progress and disagreement on how to achieve this.[60] After her death, a broader selection of her writings was also produced on Broadway as To Be Young, Gifted and Black (the title popularized by Nina Simone's song by the same name). This text grapples with many of the same themes of raising a Black family in America while also integrating her own personal struggles as successful young playwright and a Black woman in America.[61]

Marjane Satrapi

Marjane Satrapi (born in 1969) is an Iranian-born writer known for her graphic memoir Persepolis (2000) and subsequent film adaptation by the same name in 2007.[62] The graphic novel describes Satrapi's childhood experiences as a rebellious, punk-rock teenager growing up in Tehran during the Iranian Revolution.[63]

References

  1. ↑ Saʻdāwī, Nawāl (2007). Woman at point zero. ISBN 978-1-350-22401-8. OCLC 1241540108.
  2. ↑ Olsson, Göran; et al. The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975. OCLC 1204753681.
  3. ↑ Doris Y. Kadish; Deborah Jenson, eds. (January 2015). Poetry of Haitian independence. Translated by Norman R. Shapiro. ISBN 978-0-300-19559-0. OCLC 946294720.
  4. ↑ Pussy Riot (Musical group) (5 February 2013). Pussy Riot! : a punk prayer for freedom: letters from prison, songs, poems, and courtroom statements, plus tributes to the punk band that shook the world. ISBN 978-1-55861-834-3. OCLC 812258791.
  5. ↑ Pozdorovkin, Maxim; et al., Pussy Riot- A Punk Prayer, OCLC 1202533007
  6. ↑ Accilien, Cécile (2016-06-01), "Peck, Raoul", African American Studies Center, Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acref/9780195301731.013.74764, ISBN 978-0-19-530173-1
  7. ↑ Pontecorvo, Gillo; et al. La Bataille d'Alger = The Battle of Algiers. OCLC 1246183406.
  8. ↑ DuVernay, Ava; et al., Selma, OCLC 1117277733
  9. ↑ White, Edmund. The Stonewall reader. ISBN 978-1-9848-4633-4. OCLC 1099657074.
  10. ↑ "The African American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship: Abolition, Anti-Slavery Movements, and the Rise of the Sectional Controversy". Library of Congress. Retrieved 2021-05-04.
  11. ↑ Olney, James (1984). ""I Was Born": Slave Narratives, Their Status as Autobiography and as Literature". Callaloo (20): 46–73. doi:10.2307/2930678. ISSN 0161-2492. JSTOR 2930678.
  12. ↑ "A People's History of the United States", Howard Zinn on Democratic Education, Routledge, pp. 73–92, 2016-01-08, doi:10.4324/9781315636245-7, ISBN 978-1-315-63624-5
  13. ↑ "The 26th Amendment". HISTORY. Retrieved 2021-05-11.
  14. ↑ themetropoleblog (2018-05-14). "Graffiti art, Protest and Memory in the Plaza de Mayo, Buenos Aires city". The Metropole. Retrieved 2021-05-11.
  15. 1 2 3 DeShazer, Mary K. (1994). A Poetics of Resistance: Women Writing in El Salvador, South Africa, and the United States. University of Michigan Press. pp. 9. ISBN 978-0-472-06563-9. resistance literature.
  16. ↑ Kaplan, Caren (1989). "Resistance Literature, and: The Writer Written: The Artist and Creation in the New Literatures in English (review)". MFS Modern Fiction Studies. 35 (1): 181–186. doi:10.1353/mfs.0.0551. ISSN 1080-658X. S2CID 161854949.
  17. ↑ Bevan, David (1990). Literature and War. Rodopi. p. 123. ISBN 978-90-5183-162-7.
  18. ↑ "Erin Hurt on "Resistance Literature" | E3W Review of Books". www.dwrl.utexas.edu. Retrieved 2020-02-27.
  19. ↑ "About Christopher Isherwood". www.isherwoodfoundation.org. Retrieved 2021-05-14.
  20. ↑ UFH SPECIAL: The Weimar Republic, retrieved 2021-05-14
  21. ↑ Operation Gatekeeper and beyond: the war on "illegals" and the remaking of the U.S. - Mexico boundary. 2010-10-01.
  22. ↑ "Art & Women's Suffrage - Museum of London". Google Arts & Culture. Retrieved 2021-05-23.
  23. 1 2 MutualArt (2020-08-23). "Women, Art, and Suffrage: How Interconnection Propelled a Movement". Medium. Retrieved 2021-05-23.
  24. 1 2 "THE REVOLUTIONARY PRACTICE OF BLACK FEMINISMS". The National Museum of African American History and Culture. Retrieved 2021-05-23.
  25. ↑ Crenshaw, Kimberle (1991). "Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color". Stanford Law Review. 43 (6): 1241–1299. doi:10.2307/1229039. JSTOR 1229039.
  26. ↑ Ziaee, Donya (February 8, 2019). "Anguish, hope and resistance: 40 years since the Iranian Revolution". CBC.
  27. ↑ Fathi, Nazila (2005-06-29). "Women Writing Novels Emerge as Stars in Iran". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-05-24.
  28. ↑ "Voices in Exile: Three Poets". FRONTLINE - Tehran Bureau. Retrieved 2021-05-24.
  29. ↑ Dutta, Mohan J. (2012). Voices of Resistance: Communication and Social Change. Purdue University Press. p. 11. ISBN 978-1-55753-627-3.
  30. ↑ "Archives 101: Preservation, Conservation, Restoration". Medium. 23 April 2020.
  31. ↑ "OSU Queer Archives: LGBTQ+ ARCHIVAL REPOSITORIES". Oregon State University.
  32. ↑ Müller, Aline (2020-02-05). "What's the Role of Fiction in Social Change?". Medium. Retrieved 2021-05-11.
  33. ↑ "12 books that forever transformed America as we know it". Business Insider Nederland (in Dutch). 2018-11-05. Retrieved 2021-05-11.
  34. ↑ Lippman, Monroe (1955-12-01). "An analysis of the protest play". The Southern Speech Journal. 21 (2): 127–132. doi:10.1080/10417945509371398. ISSN 0038-4585.
  35. ↑ "About Us". SFMT. Retrieved 2021-05-11.
  36. ↑ "A Brief History of Zines | Digital Collections Blog". Retrieved 2021-05-11.
  37. ↑ "Photography and Resistance | H-Announce | H-Net". networks.h-net.org. Retrieved 2021-05-23.
  38. 1 2 3 "Faye Schulman, partisan photographer who captured Jewish resistance during the Holocaust, dies at 101". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2021-05-23.
  39. ↑ "FILMS TO CHANGE THE WORLD". Retrieved 2021-05-23.
  40. ↑ Landry, Olivia (2014). ""Don't Panic, I'm Islamic": Voicing Resistance through Documentary". Colloquia Germanica. 47 (1/2): 83–106. JSTOR 44242729.
  41. ↑ "Zong! | M. NourbeSe Philip". www.nourbese.com. Retrieved 2021-05-24.
  42. ↑ "Women in Concrete Poetry: 1959-1979 | Primary Information". primaryinformation.org. Retrieved 2021-05-24.
  43. ↑ "Intergalactic Travels: poems from a fugitive alien – The Operating System". Retrieved 2021-05-24.
  44. ↑ "E. E. Cummings". Poetry Foundation. 2021-05-23. Retrieved 2021-05-24.
  45. ↑ Henwood, Bridgett (2017-04-12). "The history of American protest music, from "Yankee Doodle" to Kendrick Lamar". Vox. Retrieved 2021-05-24.
  46. ↑ "Strange Fruit: the first great protest song". the Guardian. 2011-02-16. Retrieved 2021-05-24.
  47. ↑ "James Baldwin". Biography. Retrieved 2021-05-11.
  48. ↑ "James Baldwin | Biography, Books, Essays, Plays, & Facts". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2021-05-11.
  49. ↑ "About | Alice Walker | The Official Website for American Novelist & Poet". alicewalkersgarden.com. Retrieved 2021-05-11.
  50. ↑ "Alice Walker | Biography, Books, & Facts". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2021-05-11.
  51. ↑ "Womanist | Student Affairs". studentaffairs.duke.edu. Retrieved 2021-05-11.
  52. ↑ "Taylor K. Shaw on Building Community with Black Women in Animation". Toon Boom Animation. 2020-05-02. Retrieved 2021-05-14.
  53. ↑ Shaw, Taylor (2020-02-20). "Taylor K. Shaw on Black Women Animate and an Invitation to Dream". Variety.
  54. ↑ "Graphic artist Art Spiegelman on Maus, politics and 'drawing badly'". the Guardian. 2020-10-17. Retrieved 2021-05-18.
  55. ↑ "Photographer Faye Schulman lived in the forest with resistance fighters during the Holocaust". Retrieved 2021-05-23.
  56. 1 2 "Biography". Akwaeke Emezi. Retrieved 2021-05-23.
  57. ↑ Emezi, Akwaeke (2018-01-19). "Transition". The Cut. Retrieved 2021-05-23.
  58. ↑ "Toni Morrison: 'I'm writing for black people … I don't have to apologise'". TheGuardian.com. 25 April 2015. Retrieved 2021-05-23.
  59. ↑ Putnam (2011). "Mothering Violence: Ferocious Female Resistance in Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, Sula, Beloved, and A Mercy". Black Women, Gender + Families. 5 (2): 25–43. doi:10.5406/blacwomegendfami.5.2.0025. JSTOR 10.5406/blacwomegendfami.5.2.0025. S2CID 144464148.
  60. ↑ "Lorraine Hansberry: "A Raisin in the Sun" | Analyzing Theme". PBS LearningMedia. Retrieved 2021-05-24.
  61. ↑ "How 'Raisin in the Sun' author Lorraine Hansberry defined what it meant to be 'young, gifted and black'". PBS NewsHour. 2019-05-17. Retrieved 2021-05-24.
  62. ↑ "Guest Columnist Biography: Marjane Satrapi - New York Times". archive.nytimes.com. Retrieved 2021-05-24.
  63. ↑ "Marjane Satrapi | Biography, Books, Films, & Facts". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2021-05-24.

Bibliography

Further reading

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