Between the Lines

David AUSTIN

In the 1960s, for at least a brief moment, Montreal became what seemed an unlikely centre of Black Power and the Caribbean left. In October 1968 the Congress of Black Writers at McGill University brought together well-known Black thinkers and activists from Canada, the United States, Africa, and the Caribbean–people like C.L.R. James, Stokely Carmichael, Miriam Makeba, Rocky Jones, and Walter Rodney. Within months of the Congress, a Black-led protest at Sir George Williams University (now Concordia) exploded on the front pages of newspapers across the country–raising state security fears about Montreal as the new hotbed of international Black radical politics.

Fear of a Black Nation won the 2014 Casa de las Americas Prize in Caribbean Literature in English or Creole and was a silver medalist in the 2014 Independent Publisher Book Awards - Best Regional Non-Fiction (Canada-East).

2013; 256 pages; 152 x 228 mm;
ISBN (Paperback): 9781771130103 | $34.95 CAD
ISBN (Digital): 9781771130110 | $23.95 CAD

Stephen D’ARCY

“What we must see,” Martin Luther King once insisted, “is that a riot is the language of the unheard.” In this new era of global protest and popular revolt, Languages of the Unheard draws on King’s insight to address a timely and controversial topic: the ethics and politics of militant resistance.
Using vivid examples from the history of militancy—including armed actions by Weatherman and the Red Brigades, the LA Riots, the Zapatista uprising, the Mohawk land defence at Kanesatake, the Black Blocs at summit protests, the occupations of Tahrir Square and Zuccotti Park, the Indigenous occupation of Alcatraz, the Quebec Student Strike, and many more—this book will be of interest to democratic theorists and moral philosophers, and practically useful for protest militants attempting to grapple with the moral ambiguities and political dilemmas unique to their distinctive position.
Stephen D’Arcy is an associate professor of philosophy at Huron University College, Western University. A long-time social activist and protest organizer, he teaches and writes about democratic theory and practical ethics.

2013; 232 pages; 152 x 228 mm;
ISBN (Paperback): 9781771131063 | $24.95 CAD
ISBN (Digital): 9781771131070 | $17.50 CAD

Karen MESSING

In 1978, when workers at a nearby phosphate refinery learned that the ore they processed was contaminated with radioactive dust, Karen Messing, then a new professor of molecular genetics, was called in to help. Unsure of what to do with her discovery that exposure to the radiation was harming the workers and their families, Messing contacted senior colleagues but they wouldn’t help. Neither the refinery company nor the scientific community was interested in the scary results of her chromosome studies.
Over the next decades Messing encountered many more cases of workers around the world—factory workers, cleaners, checkout clerks, bank tellers, food servers, nurses, teachers—suffering and in pain without any help from the very scientists and occupational health experts whose work was supposed to make their lives easier. Arguing that rules for scientific practice can make it hard to see what really makes workers sick, in Pain and Prejudice Messing tells the story of how she went from looking at test tubes to listening to workers.
Karen Messing is an award-winning (including a Governor General of Canada award and YWCA (Montreal) Women of Distinction) and internationally recognized expert on occupational health. She is the author of more than 130 peer-reviewed scientific articles and the book One-eyed Science: Occupational Health and Working Women. She is also the editor of Integrating Gender in Ergonomic Analysis, which has been translated into six languages.

2014; 168 pages; 152 x 228 mm;
ISBN (Paperback): 9781771131476 | $24.95 CAD
ISBN (Digital): 9781771131483 | $17.50 CAD