"You have the right to remain silent." These words, drawn from the Supreme Court's famous decision in Miranda v. Arizona, have had a tremendous impact on the public imagination. But what a strange right this is. Of all the activities that are especially worthy of protection, that define us as human beings, foster human potential, and symbolize human ambition, why privilege silence? This thoughtful and iconoclastic book argues that silence can be an expression of freedom. A defiant silence demonstrates determination, courage, and will. Martyrs from a variety of faith traditions have given up their lives rather than renounce their god. During the Vietnam era, thousands of anonymous draft resisters refused to take the military oath that was a prelude to participating in what they believed was an immoral war. These silences speak to us. They are a manifestation of connection, commitment, and meaning. This link between silence and freedom is apparent in a variety of different contexts, which Seidman examines individually, including silence and apology, silence and self-incrimination, silence and interrogation, silence and torture, and silence and death. In discussing the problem of apology, for example, the author argues that although apology plays a crucial role in maintaining the illusion of human connection, the right to not apologize is equally crucial. Similarly, prohibition against torture--so prominent in national debate since the events of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib--is best understood as a right to silence, essential in preserving the distinction between mind and body on which human freedom depends.

"Chronicles the stories that narrate our First Amendment right to speak our minds"--

Academic freedom is under siege, as our universities become the sites of increasingly fraught battles over freedom of speech. While much of the public debate has focussed on ‘no platforming’ by students, this overlooks the far graver threat posed by concerted efforts to silence the critical voices of both academics and students, through the use of bureaucracy, legal threats and online harassment. Such tactics have conspicuously been used, with particularly virulent effect, in an attempt to silence academic criticism of Israel. This collection uses the controversies surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a means of exploring the limits placed on academic freedom in a variety of different national contexts. It looks at how the increased neoliberalisation of higher education has shaped the current climate, and considers how academics and their universities should respond to these new threats. Bringing together new and established scholars from Palestine and the wider Middle East as well as the US and Europe, Enforcing Silence shows us how we can and must defend our universities as places for critical thinking and free expression.

One of the Civil Rights movement's most memorable voices tells the inspirational story of her remarkable life as she journeyed from sharecropper to activist, sharing the lessons she learned along the road.

Alice Walker has described the Barbadian American novelist Paule Marshall as "unequaled in intelligence, vision, craft, by anyone of her generation, to put her contributions to our literature modestly." Such praise has echoed through reviews and analyses of Marshall's work since the 1959 publication of Brown Girl, Brownstones, a novel followed by The Chosen Place, the Timeless People (1969), Praisesong for the Widow (1984), and Daughters (1991). Places of Silence, Journeys of Freedom is the first study of Paule Marshall's work to focus explicitly on her contribution to feminism. It is also the first to identify one of her original contributions to narrative art-a technique of "superimposition" or "double exposure" through which her books have explored topics now at the heart of feminist debate. Centered around the subject of voice and silence, these issues include the interrelation between women's power and powerlessness, the interpenetration of the political and economic world with the world of the psyche, and the mechanisms through which oppressions on the basis of race, class, and gender operate as mutually shaping forces.

Gold Winner of the 2008 Foreword Magazine Book of the Year Award, Biography Category Brings to life the inspiring story of one of America's Black Founding Fathers, featured in the forthcoming documentary The Black Church: This is Our Story, This is Our Song Freedom's Prophet is a long-overdue biography of Richard Allen, founder of the first major African American church and the leading black activist of the early American republic. A tireless minister, abolitionist, and reformer, Allen inaugurated some of the most important institutions in African American history and influenced nearly every black leader of the nineteenth century, from Douglass to Du Bois. Born a slave in colonial Philadelphia, Allen secured his freedom during the American Revolution, and became one of the nation’s leading black activists before the Civil War. Among his many achievements, Allen helped form the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, co-authored the first copyrighted pamphlet by an African American writer, published the first African American eulogy of George Washington, and convened the first national convention of Black reformers. In a time when most Black men and women were categorized as slave property, Allen was championed as a Black hero. In this thoroughly engaging and beautifully written book, Newman describes Allen's continually evolving life and thought, setting both in the context of his times. From Allen's early antislavery struggles and belief in interracial harmony to his later reflections on Black democracy and Black emigration, Newman traces Allen's impact on American reform and reformers, on racial attitudes during the years of the early republic, and on the Black struggle for justice in the age of Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Washington. Whether serving as Americas first Black bishop, challenging slave-holding statesmen in a nation devoted to liberty, or visiting the President's House (the first Black activist to do so), this important book makes it clear that Allen belongs in the pantheon of Americas great founding figures. Freedom's Prophet reintroduces Allen to today's readers and restores him to his rightful place in our nation's history.

Izydora Dąmbska (1904-1982) was a Polish philosopher; a student of Kazimierz Twardowski, and his last assistant. Her output consists of almost 300 publications. The main domains of her research were semiotics, epistemology and broadly understood methodology as well as axiology and history of philosophy. Dąmbska’s approach to philosophical problems reflected tendencies that were characteristic of the Lvov-Warsaw School. She applied high methodological standards but has never limited the domain of analyzed problems in advance. The present volume includes twenty-eight translations of her representative papers. As one of her pupils rightly wrote: “Dąmbska’s works may help everyone [...] to think clearly. Her attitude of an unshaken philosopher may help anyone to hold oneself straight, and, if necessary, to get up after a fall”.

"The texts in this volume represent earlier contributions to the ongoing conversation about the meaning of "the freedom of speech, and of the press," collected and selected to help the reader situate and understand what has gone on before and to advance the contemporary argument in a more informed way."--Introduction, page v.