Levana’s Feminist Reading Group Reads “Angela Davis: An Autobiography”

The Levana Gender Advocacy Centre’s feminist reading group meets once a month to discuss a different text and the book we are reading this month (for Black History Month!) is Angela Davis: An Autobiography by none other than Angela Davis.

“First published in 1974, when Angela Davis was 28, this is as fine a memoir of the 60s and 70s as you’ll find. More than that, its a journey from a childhood on Dynamite Hill in Birmingham, Alabama to one of the most significant political trials of the 20th century; from political activity in a New York high school to the Soledad brothers; from the faculty of the Philosophy Dept. at UCLA to the FBI’s list of the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives. A powerful and commanding story told with warmth, brilliance, humor, and conviction.”

The book is available for purchase at Levana’s library (come visit us in the Grey House!) or borrow a copy for free. Also available at Stauffer Library.

We’re meeting to discuss the book on
Tuesday, February 28th at 6:30pm
Kingston Frontenac Public Library, Central branch in the Boucher room (130 Johnson St.)
Everyone is welcome!

The space is wheelchair accessible.
Childcare available — please e-mail us.
Let us know if there’s any other way we can make this event accessible and/or convenient for you. Contact us at levanacentre@gmail.com

Check out the facebook event.

Happy reading!

New Office Hours!

For the next while our office and library will be open at these times:

Monday: 1pm to 6pm
Tuesday: closed
Wednesday & Thursday: 1pm to 5pm
Friday: 10am to 5pm

Come visit us!

Levana’s Feminist Reading Group Reads ZINES!

The Levana Gender Advocacy Centre’s feminist reading group meets once a month to discuss a different text and this month we’re reading a couple of ZINES from our growing zine collection! Specifically, we’ll be reading Learning Good Consent and TimTum: A Trans Jew Zine.

Zines (pronounced ‘zeen,’ like magazine) are self-published booklets or magazines, often handcrafted and photocopied, about anything!

 

Learning Good Consent:

“Curated by Doris editor Cindy Crabb, Learning Good Consent looks at the culture of sexual consent from a standpoint both sexy and educational. In a world of shady abusers, demonized victims, and one-sided dating rituals, Consent has your back. As says Cindy in the zine’s intro, ‘Talking about our experiences with consent, our struggles, our mistakes and how we’ve learned, these are part of a much larger revolutionary struggle.’”

TimTum: A Trans Jew Zine:

Author Micah Bazant uses ‘timtum,’ a Yiddish word for an androgynous person or effeminate man as an identifier, and adds another definition: “a sexy, smart, creative, productive Jewish genderqueer.” The personal zine sees Micah struggle with both transgender and Jewish identities, histories, and terminologies.

Copies of the zines are available for free from Levana’s library (come visit us in the Grey House on or after Jan. 10th!) or read them online/print them out yourself!

Learning Good Consent — READ / PRINT (when printing, make sure to select ‘short-edge’ binding)
TimTum: A Trans Jew Zine – READ / PRINT (when printing, make sure to select ’2 pages per sheet’ and ‘short-edge’ binding)

We’re meeting to discuss the zines on
Thursday, January 19th at 6:30pm
Kingston Frontenac Public Library, Central branch in the Boucher room (130 Johnson St.)
Everyone is welcome!

The space is wheelchair accessible.
Childcare available — please e-mail us.
Let us know if there’s any other way we can make this event accessible and/or convenient for you. Contact us at levanacentre@gmail.com

Check out the facebook event.

Happy reading!

We’re selling copies of Certain Days: The 2012 Freedom for Political Prisoners calendar!

Copies of Certain Days: The 2012 Freedom for Political Prisoners Calendar are available for purchase in our office! 

The calendar is a joint fundraising and educational project between outside organizers in Montreal and Toronto, and three political prisoners being held in maximum-security prisons in New York State and California: David Gilbert, Robert Seth Hayes and Herman Bell.

Today’s anti-war, anti-globalisation, and anti-colonial movements are rooted in the history of earlier struggles for justice, including the mass movements of the 60s and 70s. Many of the political prisoners and prisoners of war featured in this calendar were organisers during that period: members of the Black Panther Party, or the American Indian Movement; Puerto Ricans fighting for their homeland, or white anti-racist allies working in solidarity with oppressed peoples. Some of them have been in prison SINCE THAT TIME – 35 years or more. Yet these prisoners are not relics of past movements; they are still active in their political work, and despite the hardships of organising in prison, they continue to organise for justice in the present day, justice behind bars and justice on the streets. This calendar is our tribute to them.

Free all political prisoners!
Free all prisoners of war!

This year’s calendar theme is COINTELPRO: Repression & Resistance, Then & Now. The calendar is filled with 42 gorgeous full-colour pages of art & writing! And it’s only $12! Makes a very meaningful gift, too.

Learn more about Certain Days!

And stop by our office to purchase a copy!

Levana’s Feminist Reading Group Reads “Helen Keller: Rebel Lives”

The Levana Gender Advocacy Centre’s feminist reading group meets once a month to discuss a different text and the book we are reading this month is Helen Keller: Rebel Lives , a collection of radical writings by Helen Keller and edited by John Davis.

“Poor little blind girl or dangerous radical? This book challenges the sanitized image of Helen Keller, restoring her true history as a militant socialist. Here are her views on women’s suffrage, her defense of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), her opposition to World War I and her support for imprisoned socialist and anarchist leaders, as well as her analysis of disability and class.”

The book is available for purchase at bookstores like Novel Idea (20% off when you mention it’s for the reading group!) or borrow a copy for free at Levana’s library (come visit us in the Grey House!).

We’re meeting to discuss the book on
Thursday, December 8th at 6:30pm
Kingston Frontenac Public Library, Central branch in the Boucher room (130 Johnson St.)
Everyone is welcome!

The space is wheelchair accessible.
Childcare available — please e-mail us.
Let us know if there’s any other way we can make this event accessible and/or convenient for you. Contact us at levanacentre@gmail.com

Check out the facebook event.

Happy reading!

3rd Annual Kingston Zine Fair!

The Levana Gender Advocacy Centre will be tabling at the 3rd Annual Kingston Zine Fair TOMORROW with selections from our growing zine library! Stop by and pick up some new reading material!

3rd Annual Kingston Zine Fair
Saturday, October 29th — 11am to 5pm
The Artel (205 Sydenham St.) 

The space is wheelchair accessible.

Check out the facebook event.

Levana’s Feminist Reading Group Reads “Persepolis”

The Levana Gender Advocacy Centre’s feminist reading group meets once a month to discuss a different text and the book we are reading this month is graphic novel The Complete Persepolis (#1 & 2) by Marjane Satrapi.

“Persepolis is the story of Satrapi’s unforgettable childhood and coming of age within a large and loving family in Tehran during the Islamic Revolution; of the contradictions between private life and public life in a country plagued by political upheaval; of her high school years in Vienna facing the trials of adolescence far from her family; of her homecoming–both sweet and terrible; and, finally, of her self-imposed exile from her beloved homeland. It is the chronicle of a girlhood and adolescence at once outrageous and familiar, a young life entwined with the history of her country yet filled with the universal trials and joys of growing up.”

The book is available for purchase at bookstores like Novel Idea (20% off when you mention it’s for the reading group!) or borrow a copy for free at Levana’s library (come visit us in the Grey House!) and libraries like KFPL and Stauffer.

We’re meeting to discuss the book on
Tuesday, October 25th at 6:30pm
Kingston Frontenac Public Library, Central branch in the Boucher room (130 Johnson St.)
Everyone is welcome!

The space is wheelchair accessible.
Childcare available — please e-mail us.
Let us know if there’s any other way we can make this event accessible and/or convenient for you. Contact us at levanacentre@gmail.com

Check out the facebook event.

Happy reading!

We’re being EVICTED!

The AMS presented us (and OPIRG and EQuIP) with an eviction letter on Monday. They are attempting to vacate the Grey House, a space we have occupied for almost 40 years. This is an attack on queer, feminist, POC, and social justice groups on this campus. This is an attack on safe, inclusive spaces on this campus. We’re fighting this.

Please visit SAVE THE GREY HOUSE for more information and to learn about how to support us.

If the Grey House has ever been a safe, comfortable, educational, challenging, and/or supportive space for you, please help us.

*Rescheduled* Levana’s Feminist Reading Group Reads “Fledgling”

The Levana Gender Advocacy Centre’s feminist reading group meets once a month to discuss a different text and the book we are reading this month is Fledgling by Octavia E. Butler.

“Fledgling, Octavia Butler’s first new novel in seven years, is the story of an apparently young, amnesiac girl whose alarmingly un-human needs and abilities lead her to a startling conclusion: she is in fact a genetically modified, 53-year-old vampire. Forced to discover what she can about her stolen former life, she must at the same time learn who wanted—and still wants—to destroy her and those she cares for, and how she can save herself. Fledgling is a captivating novel that tests the limits of “otherness” and questions what it means to be truly human.”

“Fledgling doesn’t just resurrect the pale trappings of vampire lore, it completely transforms them in a startlingly original story about race, family and free will.” - Washington Post

The book is available for purchase at bookstores like Novel Idea (20% off when you mention it’s for the reading group!) or borrow a copy for free at Levana’s library (come visit us in the Grey House!) and libraries like KFPL Central branch and Stauffer.

We’re meeting to discuss the book on
*rescheduled!* Wednesday, August 24th at 6:30pm
Kingston Frontenac Public Library, Central branch in the Boucher room (130 Johnson St.)
Everyone is welcome!

The space is wheelchair accessible.
Childcare available — please e-mail us.
Let us know if there’s any other way we can make this event accessible and/or convenient for you. Contact us at levanacentre@gmail.com

Check out the facebook event.

Happy reading!

Levana’s Feminist Reading Group Reads “Feminism FOR REAL”

The Levana Gender Advocacy Centre’s feminist reading group meets once a month to discuss a different text and the book we are reading this month is Feminism FOR REAL: Deconstructing the Academic Industrial Complex of Feminism edited by Jessica Yee.

“Against a backdrop exposing a 500+ year legacy of colonization and oppression, Feminism FOR REAL explores what has led us to the existence of “feminism”, who gets to decide what it is, and why. With stories that make the walls of academia come tumbling down, it deals head-on with the conflicts of what feminism means in theory as opposed to real life, the frustrations of trying to relate to definitions of feminism that never fit no matter how much you try to change yourself to fit them, and the anger of changing a system while being in the system yourself.”

The book is available for purchase at Novel Idea (20% off when you mention it’s for the reading group!) and for a limited time in the Levana Centre (come visit us in the Grey House!) with a third of proceeds going to support the Sex Worker Action Group of Kingston. Or borrow a copy for free at Levana’s library.

We’re meeting to discuss the book on
Wednesday, June 22nd at 6:30pm
Kingston Frontenac Public Library, Central branch in the Boucher Room (130 Johnson St.)
Everyone is welcome!

The space is wheelchair accessible.
Childcare available — please e-mail us.
Let us know if there’s any other way we can make this event accessible and/or convenient for you. Contact us at levanacentre@gmail.com

Check out the facebook event.

Happy reading!