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Kalle Lasn is the creator of Adbusters Magazine, a Vancouver based non-profit, reader-based and supported magazine concerned with the erosion of the earth’s physical and cultural environments by commercial forces. Lasn began his career running a market research company in Tokyo, earning enough money to travel around the world for three years. Upon his return to Japan, Lasn and his new wife immigrated to Canada where he started a documentary film production company; his films were broadcasted on PBS, CBC and around the world, winning over 15 international awards. In 1989 Lasn produced a 30-second TV commercial concerning the disappearance of old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest. No commercial TV station would sell Kalle airtime to show the advertisement exposing British Columbia’s forestry industry. And through this incident Adbusters Magazine was born. In the last sixteen years Adbusters has launched many campaigns dedicated to raising social awareness, including Buy Nothing Day, held on the mos...[read more] James Gordon is a musician, songwriter and director/producer of many musicals, more recent being Hardscrabble Road, which debuted in 2003. Founder of Canadian folk group Tamarack, with whom he has toured extensively with and recorded fourteen albums, James has also contributed to the CBC radio programs "Basic Black" and "Ontario Morning", the latter being his "Hometown Tunes" feature in which he wrote songs from stories that listeners had written about their hometowns and sent in. Last month, foundinthemargins met up with James in his hometown of Guelph, Ontario to talk with him about some of the books that he has been reading recently which have had an influence on his work as a songwriter and performer and to what ends he has used his passion for folk music to deliver messages about relevant social issues along the way. Hesitant to label his work as a musician as "activist", James explained that, "When I started playing music professionally, I'd chosen a style of music that reflected my interest in Canadian h...[read more] Jennifer Baumgardner is a writer, a speaker and an activist, making her career as a prominent voice for women in the 21st Century. After her five-year stint as the youngest editor at Ms. magazine, Jennifer partnered with colleague Amy Richards to co-author the books Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism and the Future and Grassroots: A Field Guide for Feminist Activism. Jennifer has explored and written about many issues concerning the state of feminism, specifically woman and their opinions on matters of pro-choice and sexual assault. Appearing at over 180 colleges and high schools, the demand for touring prompted Jennifer and Amy to found Soapbox Inc.: Speakers Who Speak Out, a feminist-speakers bureau that represents two dozen prominent feminist writers and activists including; Katha Pollitt, Gloria Steinem, Irshad Manji, and Rebecca Walker. In 2003, the Commonwealth Club of California hailed Jennifer in their centennial year as one of six “Visionaries for the 21st Century,” commenting that ”in her rol...[read more] Amy Richards, co-author of the books Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism and the Future and Grassroots: A Field Guide for Feminist Activism, is a pioneer of the third-wave of feminism, one that is both complicated and highly-debated within feminist communities. Amy began her career at Ms., a progressive magazine for women founded in the 1970’s, during the height of the second-wave of feminism. As a young activist, Amy was both inspired and disillusioned with a society that touted notions of girl power and white-washed feminism juxtaposed against the gritty reality of being a woman in the twenty-first century. She decided to take change into her own hands. Amy’s first book, co-authored with Jennifer Baumgardner, Manifesta, examines everything from feminism and femininity in popular culture to body politics and asserts the changing role of women in contemporary society. Similarly, Grassroots inspires its readers to examine their own communities and lives, stressing the importance of any change, big or...[read more] |
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The online magazine that delves into the reading habits and preferred literary works of your favourite musicians, authors, and activists.
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