Dear Friends of New Village Press,

A short newsletter to announce the newest issue of New Village Online and two upcoming book events:

Issue #4 of New Village Online—Unboxing Democracy’s Magic— offers an inspiring exploration of community building forged from democratic partnerships between off-campus communities and universities. Guest editor Len Krimerman, director of a new degree program in Creative Community Building at the University of Connecticut, infuses the work reported here with his valuable understanding of how cooperatives work. In this issue we not only encounter new ideas, we learn new vocabulary, gaining understanding of a kind of cooperative economy that uses a “Participatory Budget” process, and we discover the “Communiversity.” (more…)

Craig Zelizer, Ph.D., visiting professor in Conflict Resolution studies at Georgetown University and co-founder of the Alliance for Conflict Transformation has written a sensitive and enlightening review of Bill Cleveland’s new book — Art and Upheaval: Artists on the World Frontlines. In his review for the Community Arts Network, Zelizer offers lessons he learned from the book. Here is his opening.

Art and Upheaval: Artists on the World Frontlines by William Cleveland (Oakland, CA: New Village Press, 2008, 352 pp.)

What are the roles that artists can play in the midst of severe violence? How can artists create meaning and empower communities during conflict and war? What are the motivations that lead individuals and groups to undertake arts-based processes at great personal risk? Why do authoritarian regimes feel threatened by creative acts?

These are some of the powerful questions that William Cleveland explores in his timely and compelling new book, “Art and Upheaval: Artists on the World’s Frontlines.” The book is a product of an eight-year journey, in which Cleveland, a leading community-arts practitioner in the United States, journeyed around the world to document and learn from artists working on the “frontlines.”

. . . link to full review