Imagination, Ruha Benjamin
Imagination, Ruha Benjamin
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Imagination
A Manifesto

Author: Ruha Benjamin

Narrator: Janina Edwards

Unabridged: 4 hr 16 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 04/30/2024


Synopsis

A world without prisons? Ridiculous. Schools that foster the genius of every child? Impossible. Work that doesn't strangle the life out of people? Naive. A society where everyone has food, shelter, love? In your dreams. Exactly.

We have the power to use our imaginations to create a world in which everyone can thrive. But obstacles abound. We have inherited destructive ideas that trap us inside a dominant imagination. Consider how racism, sexism, and classism make hierarchies, exploitation, and violence seem natural and inevitable—but all emerged from the human imagination.

The most effective way to disrupt these deadly systems is to do so collectively. Ruha Benjamin highlights the educators, artists, activists, and many others who are refuting powerful narratives that justify the status quo, crafting new stories that reflect our interconnection, and offering creative approaches to seemingly intractable problems.

Imagination: A Manifesto offers visionary examples and tactics to push beyond the constraints of what we think, and are told, is possible. This book is for anyone who is ready to take to heart Toni Morrison's instruction: "Dream a little before you think."

About Ruha Benjamin

Ruha Benjamin is a professor of African American studies and the founder of the Ida B. Wells Just Data Lab at Princeton University. The author of the Stowe Prize-winning Viral Justice, as well as Race After Technology and People's Science, Benjamin lives in Princeton, New Jersey.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Bek

This was such an incredible book! The author discusses how Imagination is essential for social change. In order to change the world, we must first have a vision in mind. But she doesn't leave it there in some vauge terms - there are examples of so many different ways that the current larger social i......more

Goodreads review by Spring

I want to like this book because Ruha is brilliant. Her conversation about the book is moving and highlights important contrasts in what many are and are not willing to imagine. I think her intent is good but reading without the conversation, it reads more like a book of lament than a book about ima......more