Claire Barliant on how books have figured in recent protest movements: http://nyr.kr/Zn94fL

millions of users of [Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks] have supplanted their profile pictures with that symbol to display their support and hope that the Justices will rule in favor of marriage equality…

…but how effective is this form of online activism? Matt Buchanan considers: http://nyr.kr/YJO5TP

(Source: http:http)

Aaron Swartz was brilliant and beloved. But the people who knew him best saw a darker side. 

In this week’s issue, Larissa MacFarquhar looks at the various events that led to Internet activist Aaron Swartz’s suicide earlier this year, through interviews with those closest to Swartz, including his parents and girlfriend at the time. Since his death, “his family and closest friends have tried to hone his story into a message, in order to direct the public sadness and anger aroused by his suicide to political purposes,” MacFarquhar writes. “They have done this because it is what he would have wanted.” Continue reading: http://nyr.kr/YEO7ei

(Source: newyorker.com)

Alexis Okeowo on Uganda’s “Anti-Homosexuality Bill,” which would imprison gays (and originally suggested the death penalty for certain homosexual behavior). Ugandan lawmakers left for vacation last Friday without holding a vote on the bill, and they will not return to work until February, leaving

 …the notorious “Kill the Gays” bill is back in limbo, along with the lives of those in Uganda’s L.G.B.T. community.

Continue reading: http://nyr.kr/12yBjLr

Photograph, of Frank Mugisha, by Jonathan Torgovnik/Getty.

This week in the magazine, Peter Schjeldahl reviews “Ai Weiwei: According to What?” at the Hirshhorn Museum, in Washington, D.C. The show is a retrospective of work by the Chinese artist and activist, ranging from video installations to enormous sculptures. “Ai broadcasts the jolting, even triumphalist, dynamism of a booming Chinese art world, on a grand scale,” Schjeldahl writes.

In this audio slide show, Schjeldahl describes Ai’s work as a test of his personal freedoms under the repressive Chinese government. “Ai is revealing where the lines are because he keeps crossing them,” Schjeldahl says. “Is Ai Weiwei a political artist, or an artful politician?”

In a series of portraits, Davide Monteleone captures the activists taking part in the “new kind of protest movement” sweeping through Russia.  Click-through for a photo slideshow of a selection of his works: http://nyr.kr/JTUw0r

(Source: newyorker.com)

theatlantic:

Responding to Malcolm Gladwell, the co-founder and Creative Director of Twitter discusses how social media can affect real change.

People who lived through this time repeatedly referred to feeling a “fever” to participate. Gladwell says this fever is better described as “a military campaign,” adding that “Martin Luther King, Jr., was the unquestioned authority.” Gladwell tells us that, “the center of the movement was the black church,” and makes a strong argument that the status quo can only be truly challenged and changed by a hierarchical, militarily-like organization. Gladwell is wrong. Big change can come in small packages too.

Read the full essay here.

Gladwell’s original essay, “Small Change,” is available here.