Biography:Astra Taylor
.jpg)
Astra Taylor (born September 30, 1979)[1] is a Canadian-American documentary filmmaker, writer, activist and musician. She is a fellow of the Shuttleworth Foundation, for her work on challenging predatory practices around debt.[2]
Life
Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Taylor grew up in Athens, Georgia,[3] and was unschooled until age 13 when she enrolled in ninth grade.[4] At 16 she abandoned high school to attend classes at the University of Georgia, which she only stayed at for a year before heading to Brown University. She attended classes there for a year and dropped out when she realized that unschooling was a lifelong commitment.[5] Taylor has taught sociology at the University of Georgia and SUNY New Paltz. Her writings have appeared in numerous magazines, including Dissent,[6] n+1,[7] Adbusters,[8] The Baffler,[9] The Nation,[10] Salon,[11] and The London Review of Books.[12]
Taylor is the sister of painter and disability activist Sunny Taylor,[13] and is married to Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel.[14] She joined Neutral Milk Hotel onstage for a number of shows in 2013 and 2014, playing guitar and accordion.[15] She is a vegan.[16] She lives in New York.[17]
Activism
Taylor was active in the Occupy Movement and was the co-editor of Occupy!: An OWS-Inspired Gazette with Sarah Leonard of Dissent magazine and Keith Gessen of n+1.[18] The broadsheet covered Occupy Wall Street in five issues over the course of the first year of the occupation and was later anthologized by Verso Books.[19]
Works
Films
Writing
- Examined Life: Excursions with Contemporary Thinkers (editor), The New Press, 2009, ISBN:9781595584472[22]
- Occupy!: Scenes From Occupied America (co-editor), Verso, 2012, ISBN:9781844679409[23]
- The People's Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age, Henry Holt and Company, 2014, ISBN:9780007525591[24]
- "The faux-bot revolution", in A Field Guide to The Future of Work, RSA Future Work Centre, 2018[25]
- Democracy May Not Exist, but We'll Miss It When It's Gone, Metropolitan Books, 2019
Projects
- http://www.hiddendriver.com/ archived
Notes
- ↑ Tortorici, Dayna, ed. (2013), "Group three", No Regrets: Three Discussions, Brooklyn, New York, p. 71, http://shop.nplusonemag.com/products/no-regrets, retrieved 2014-12-30
- ↑ "Astra Taylor". https://shuttleworthfoundation.org/fellows/astra-taylor/.
- ↑ http://www.hiddendriver.com/about Astra Taylor's official bio, accessed February 8, 2009
- ↑ Michelle Drew. "Interview with Unschooled Filmmaker, Astra Taylor". http://citizenshift.org/node/21634&term_tid=100004.
- ↑ "The Unschooled Life: Astra Taylor's Story" (in en-US). PopularResistance.Org. 2014-01-16. https://popularresistance.org/the-unschooled-life-astra-taylor-story/.
- ↑ "Authors: Astra Taylor". https://www.dissentmagazine.org/author/astra-taylor. Retrieved February 14, 2016.
- ↑ "Astra Taylor - Authors". https://nplusonemag.com/authors/taylor-astra/. Retrieved October 26, 2014.
- ↑ "Astra Taylor". https://www.adbusters.org/authors/astra-taylor.html. Retrieved October 26, 2014.
- ↑ "Astra Taylor - The Baffler" (in en-US). http://thebaffler.com/astra-taylor.
- ↑ "Author Bios: Astra Taylor". http://www.thenation.com/authors/astra-taylor. Retrieved October 26, 2014.
- ↑ "Astra Taylor". http://www.salon.com/writer/astra_taylor/. Retrieved October 26, 2014.
- ↑ "Astra Taylor". http://www.lrb.co.uk/contributors/astra-taylor. Retrieved October 26, 2014.
- ↑ http://www.freewilliamsburg.com/january_2002/sunny.html "Sunny Taylor", Free Williamsburg, accessed February 8, 2009.
- ↑ http://www.gloriousnoise.com/articles/2008/jeff_mangum_married.php Article from Glorious Noise, accessed February 8, 2009.
- ↑ Jarnow, Jesse. "Neutral Milk Hotel's First Show in 15 Years Was Ragged, Glorious". Spin.com. https://www.spin.com/2013/10/neutral-milk-hotel-reunion-show-tour-baltimore-ragged-glorious/. Retrieved October 26, 2014.
- ↑ "Jeff Mangum Benefit for WFAS". Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary. October 28, 2011. http://woodstocksanctuary.org/news/jeff-mangum-benefit-for-wfas/. Retrieved June 14, 2016.
- ↑ Taylor, Astra (2014). The People's Platform. New York.
- ↑ "Read Our New Gazette" (in en-US). https://nplusonemag.com/online-only/occupy/read-our-new-gazette/.
- ↑ "VersoBooks.com". http://www.versobooks.com/books/1122-occupy.
- ↑ Phillips, Charlie (2018-06-11). "What Is Democracy? review searing analysis of who's really in control" (in en-GB). The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/jun/11/what-is-democracy-review-astra-taylor-documentary.
- ↑ Brown, Drew (2018-09-11). "The Epic Conversation About Democracy We Need Right Now" (in en-CA). Vice. https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/vbngyb/an-epic-conversation-on-astra-taylors-what-is-democracy. Retrieved 2018-09-15.
- ↑ Dougherty, Sally (December 2009). "Book Review Examined Life: Excursions with Contemporary Thinkers edited by Astra Taylor.". Theosophy Northwest (Theosophy Northwest). http://www.theosophy-nw.org/theosnw/reviews/examined_life.htm. Retrieved October 26, 2014.
- ↑ "Occupy!: Scenes from Occupied America". http://www.versobooks.com/books/1122-occupy. Retrieved October 26, 2014.
- ↑ Wu, Tim (July 18, 2014). "Content and Its Discontents". The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/20/books/review/the-peoples-platform-by-astra-taylor.html?_r=0. Retrieved September 2, 2014. ""The People's Platform" should be taken as a challenge by the new media that have long claimed to be improving on the old order. Can they prove they are capable of supporting a sustainable cultural ecosystem, in a way that goes beyond just hosting parties at the Sundance Film Festival?"
- ↑ "Field Guide to the Future of Work: Essay collection - RSA". 2019-01-09. https://www.thersa.org/discover/publications-and-articles/reports/field-guide-to-the-future-of-work-essay-collection.
External links
 "Utopian Potential of the Internet": Astra Taylor on How to Take Back Power & Culture in Digital Age, Democracy Now, April 25, 2014 |
- What Is Democracy?
- Astra Taylor on IMDb
- Appearances on C-SPAN
- Sarah Leonard (June 4, 2014). "Can the Internet Be a 'People's Platform'? A Q&A With Astra Taylor". The Nation. http://www.thenation.com/article/180133/can-internet-be-peoples-platform-qa-astra-taylor.
- "Astra Taylor on The People's Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age". Harper's. August 7, 2014. http://harpers.org/blog/2014/08/astra-taylor-on-the-peoples-platform/.
- Elisabeth Donnelly (April 17, 2014). "Everyone On the Internet Needs to Read 'The People's Platform': An Interview With Astra Taylor". flavorwire. http://flavorwire.com/452141/everyone-on-the-internet-needs-to-read-the-peoples-platform-an-interview-with-astra-taylor/.
 |
