Arijana Lekić-Fridrih: All Art is a Political Statement introduces audiences to the work of Croatian artist Arijana Lekić-Fridrih and, in particular, to her Silent Mass, a performance resisting the “Be Manly” movement, a series of mass prayer events held in Croatian public squares by a battalion of men who pray for the abolition of women’s rights, for women’s “chastity,” and for men’s “masculine authority.” All Art is a Political Statement links the erosion of women’s rights across intercontinental boundaries and offers Lekić-Fridrih’s multimedia art as a guide for activism against retrograde restrictions on the freedom of women.

Arijana Lekić-Fridrih: Svaka umjetnost je politička izjava upoznaje publiku s radom hrvatske umjetnice Arijane Lekić-Fridrih, a posebno s njezinom Tihom misom, performansom otpora pokretu “Budi muško”, nizu masovnih molitvenih događanja koje na hrvatskim javnim trgovima održava bataljun muškaraca moleći za ukidanje ženskih prava, za žensku “čednost”, a za muškarce “muški autoritet”. Svaka umjetnost je politička izjava spaja eroziju ženskih prava preko interkontinentalnih granica i nudi multimedijsku umjetnost Lekić-Fridrih kao vodič za aktivizam protiv nazadnih ograničenja slobode žena.

The essays collected in this book honor H. Chandler Davis (1926-2022), a University of Michigan faculty member who became a symbol of principled dissent when suspended and fired in 1954 for refusing to testify about his political affiliations to the House Un-American Activities Committee. Invoking academic freedom and First Amendment protection, Davis was convicted of contempt of Congress. He served six months in prison before moving to Canada, where he established himself as a brilliant mathematician, prolific writer, and ardent and much beloved advocate for justice.

At a time when a new McCarthyism has come roaring back to threaten free inquiry everywhere, the 12 contributors to this book argue against censorship, the suppression of protest, the policed and surveilled campus, the self-silencing of "institutional neutrality," and other enemies of academic freedom. Also included in this volume is posthumously published work by Davis and by his late wife, the historian Natalie Zemon Davis, which reflects on the importance of facing, and not accepting, authoritarian threats. 

Inspired by Chandler Davis’ courage, integrity, and devotion to the struggle against oppression, injustice, and the persecution of speech, these essays offer crucial insights into the importance of defending intellectual independence, institutional autonomy, and the right to free expression.

Natalie Zemon Davis and Elizabeth Douvan’s Operation Mind is a body of evidence, a prophetic warning, and a call to action about the urgency of doing all we can to prevent thought control in America. In 1952, this meticulously researched pamphlet documented the House Committee on Un-American Activities’ attacks and impact. The HUAC abused its charge to intimidate and silence academics, union members, social critics, scientists, artists, teachers, political opponents, rabbis and other religious leaders, to make them appear suspect and “un-American” in the eyes of the American people.

The 2025 reprint of Operation Mind offers a foreword by comparatist Silke-Maria Weineck, an essay by historian Alan Wald connecting Operation Mind’s history of McCarthyism with present-day attacks on academic freedom, and a new (2023) introduction to the text by Natalie Zemon Davis.

From Florida, whose “Don’t Say Gay” law prohibits K-12 instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation, to Texas, which is shuttering libraries in schools, America is in the middle of a far-right war on public education.
 
Now, for the first time, K-12 educators from across the nation give readers a teacher’s-eye view of the radical right crusade to take down public education, coordinated by well-funded, well-connected far-right political interests. Christian nationalists hell-bent on erasing the line between church and state, white supremacists opposed to a curriculum that teaches the enduring effects of anti-Black racism, political action committees, such as Moms for Liberty, calling for the banning of novels featuring LGBTQ+ people, and profiteers eager to divert taxpayer dollars into private schools are mounting a relentless attack on teachers, the students they serve, and the commitment to public education that is a cornerstone of democracy. “It’s a phenomenal, unprecedented moment that we’re in,” says a librarian, recently retired from her Texas school. “It’s surprising how many people don’t know what’s going on. I talk to reporters who have no idea. And they’re reporters.”
 
In Trouble in Censorville, public school teachers from states as far-flung as Florida, Texas, Kentucky, New Jersey, Tennessee, Wisconsin, and Washington describe, in their own words, being threatened, stalked, doxxed, ostracized, smeared as “pedophiles" and "Marxists," placed on leave, and fired for teaching historical truth and racial justice, supporting LGBTQ+ students and, in one case, for wearing "insufficiently" feminine attire. Their stories bring readers face-to-face with the human cost of these attacks, which range from social isolation to pent-up anger over institutional betrayal to the terrible toll on teachers’ mental and physical health.
 
And yet, teachers are fighting back. They’re mobilizing colleagues, parents, and community members who share their faith in the freedom to read, the freedom to think critically, the freedom to challenge small-minded provincialism. Their stories of frontline resistance, collected here, provide a battle plan for confronting censorship, rallying support, and mobilizing a grassroots defense of public schools.
 
Their gripping testimonials are enhanced by a timeline that situates today’s far-right war on public education in the context of American history, moving briskly from Reconstruction to the anti-left and anti-gay fearmongering of the McCarthy era to the Black Lives Matter movement to the Trump presidency.
 
Terrifying, infuriating, and inspiring, Trouble in Censorville sounds the alarm for a democracy on fire.