Lierre Keith
| Lierre Keith | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1964 |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Notable work(s) | Deep Green Resistance: Strategy to Save the Planet, The Vegetarian Myth, Skyler Gabriel, Conditions of War |
|
www.lierrekeith.com | |
Lierre Keith /liˈɛər/ is an American writer, radical feminist, food activist, and radical environmentalist.
Biography
Keith began her public involvement in the feminist movement in high school, where she was the founding Editor of Vanessa and Iris: A Journal for Young Feminists (1983–85), at Brookline High School in Massachusetts.[1][2] During this same period she also volunteered with a group called Women Against Violence Against Women in Cambridge, where she participated in educational events and protest campaigns.[2] In 1984 she was a founding member of Minor Disturbance, a protest group against militarism from a feminist perspective.[2] In 1986 she was a founding member of Feminists Against Pornography in Northampton, Massachusetts.[2] She is a founding editor of Rain and Thunder, a radical feminist journal in Northampton.[2][3]
As a radical feminist and more recently as a radical environmentalist, Keith has had many appearances, interviews, and speeches around the U.S. and Canada.[4]
Keith was an early public advocate of the U.S. local food movement. In a 2006 Boston Globe human interest story, she said, "I like knowing that I'm supporting the local economy and not corporate America."[5]
Her views have attracted negative attention from some vegetarians, what one journalist has called a "Vegan War."[6] Illustrative of the heated political debate, protesters hit Keith with chili pepper laced pies during a presentation of her book The Vegetarian Myth at the 2010 Bay Area Anarchist Bookfair.[7]
The Vegetarian Myth
Keith's 2009 book The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability is an examination of the ecological effects of agriculture and vegetarianism. In The Vegetarian Myth, she sees agriculture as destroying entire ecosystems, such as the North American prairie. Agriculture also destroys topsoil.[6] Keith includes “slavery, imperialism, militarism, class divisions, chronic hunger, and disease” as historical outcomes of civilization and its over-dependence on mass cultivation.[6]
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker endorsed the book, saying "[The Vegetarian Myth] is one of the most important books people, masses of them, can read, as we try with all our might, intelligence, skill, hope, dream, and memory, to turn the disastrous course the planet is on."[8]
Deep Green Resistance
Keith is associated with the Deep Green Resistance movement, and together with Aric McBay and Derrick Jensen, she co-wrote Deep Green Resistance: Strategy to Save the Planet, published in May 2011.[9] The book describes itself as a "manual on how to build a resistance movement that will bring down industrial civilization and save the planet."[9] It "evaluates strategic options for resistance, from nonviolence to guerrilla warfare, and the conditions required for those options to be successful. It provides an exploration of organizational structures, recruitment, security, and target selection for both above-ground and underground action."[9]
After the publication of this book, the authors co-founded an organization by the same name. Aric McBay left the organization at the beginning of 2012, however, attributing his departure to the alleged cancellation of a transgender-inclusive policy by Derrick Jensen and Lierre Keith.[10] Deep Green Resistance has disputed this account, saying that the women's safe space policy was one issue amongst many which caused the divide; furthermore, the decision to restrict women's spaces was made by the women of DGR, and not by Derrick Jensen or Lierre Keith.[11]
Works
- Earth at Risk: Building a Resistance Movement to Save the Planet (edited by L.K. and Derrick Jensen), PM Press, 2012, ISBN 978-1-60486-674-2
- Deep Green Resistance: Strategy to Save the Planet, Seven Stories Press, 2011, ISBN 978-1-58322-929-3
- The Vegetarian Myth, PM Press, 2009, ISBN 978-1-60486-080-1 (also in Swedish)
- Skyler Gabriel, Fighting Words Pr, 1995, ISBN 978-0-9632660-2-6
- Conditions of War, Fighting Words Pr, 1993, ISBN 978-0-9632660-1-9
Notes
- ↑ Periodicals Collection, 1784- (ongoing), Sophia Smith Collection, Five College Archives & Manuscript Collections, Asteria.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Lierre Keith CV, Lierre Keith official website
- ↑ Rain and Thunder, About
- ↑ Lierre Keith appearance, contains many external links to radio and press interviews
- ↑ "Movement toward more sustainable food systems is growing", By Emily Shartin, Boston Globe Staff, July 26, 2006
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 "Vegan Wars", Uttarika Kumaran / DNA, Saturday, February 20, 2010
- ↑ "Pies-in-face attack roils anarchist-vegan world", Demian Bulwa, San Francisco Chronicle Staff, March 17, 2010
- ↑ Editorial Reviews, Amazon.com. Additional commentary - including the full Alice Walker quote - can be found at the publisher's website. The book has also been reviewed in Feminist Review, UTNE Reader, Briarpatch Magazine, The Huffington Post, and elsewhere.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 Aric McBay, Derrick Jensen, Lierre Keith. Deep Green Resistance: Strategy to Save the Planet. Seven Stories Press, May 2011. ISBN 978-1-58322-929-3. Last accessed May 29, 2011.
- ↑ Aric McBay, "DGR and Transphobia", May 14, 2013.
- ↑ "Response to Aric McBay". deepgreenresistance.org. 2013. Retrieved 10 June 2013.
External links
- Lierre Keith, official website.
- Interview with Lierre Keith, by Aric McBay, InTheWake, ca. 2005. (original archive copy).
- The Vegetarian Myth review, Jill Nienhiser, published in Wise Traditions in Food, Farming and the Healing Arts, Summer 2009, Weston A. Price Foundation.
- Interview with Lierre Keith by Ian McKenzie, on Why Agriculture is Destroying the Planet