Should racial, sexual, and other forms of liberation be sought through legal change? Will enhanced criminalization, more hate crimes legislation, and demands for same-sex marriage get us to a just society? Dean Spade argues that these kinds of efforts distract and detract from efforts to achieve real racial and economic justice. He also suggests key elements of a critical trans politics.

If the arts have changed with the times, why hasn't literature kept up? According to David Shields, music, theater, and the visual arts have all kept pace with technology and our changing society. But literature sits in the nineteenth century, content to rewrite Dickens and Chekhov, or so Shields contends, bringing in motifs from film, politics, and the world of the internet.

If the problem is violence against women, is the solution the criminal justice system? Many anti-violence activists look to the police, prisons, and stepped-up criminalization for help and protection, but Beth Richie says that's a misguided approach, one that feeds the buildup of what she calls a prison nation. Richie describes the contours of the prison nation and the threats it poses to women on the margins.

Working for economic justice has its rewards, but it's far from easy. Veteran organizer Chris Crass has learned a lot about the nuts and bolts -- and ups and downs -- of organizing strategy, movement-building, and antiracist and feminist praxis. Part of his new book focuses on the efforts of Food Not Bombs, which combines the serving of free meals with radical political work.

Communication forms the basis for how we live with one another. For those who are partially deaf, communication becomes difficult, and society has done little to make their lives easier. Gerald Shea offers a tour through the lives of the partially deaf, from the history of hearing science to the ways in which those with hearing issues fall between the cracks.

The turn of the twentieth century in the US was an age of bigotry, oppression, and exploitation; it's also the setting of a new novel by Joyce Carol Oates. Oates compares and contrasts aspects of that time with life today. She also looks back on her career and on her work as a genre writer, and finds consistency and synchronicity in her novels.