Astra Taylor
Canadian-American documentary filmmaker, writer, and activist
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Astra Taylor (born September 30, 1979)[2] is a Canadian-American documentary filmmaker, writer, activist, and musician. She is a fellow of the Shuttleworth Foundation for her work on challenging predatory debt practices.[3]
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Astra Taylor | |
|---|---|
Taylor in 2014 | |
| Born | September 30, 1979 |
| Alma mater | The New School |
| Spouse | [1] |
| Relatives | Sunaura Taylor (sister) |
Life
Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Taylor grew up in Athens, Georgia,[4] and was unschooled until age 13 when she enrolled in ninth grade.[5] At 16 she abandoned high school to attend classes at the University of Georgia; at the university she studied Deleuze and Guattari under Ronald L. Bogue.[6][7]
Taylor enrolled at Brown University, where she attended classes for a year before dropping out.[8] Taylor completed a Master of Arts in liberal studies at The New School.[6]
Taylor has taught sociology at the University of Georgia and SUNY New Paltz. Her writings have appeared in numerous magazines, including Dissent,[9] n+1,[10] Adbusters,[11] The Baffler,[12] The Nation,[13] Salon,[14] and the London Review of Books.[15]
Taylor is the sister of painter and disability activist Sunny Taylor,[16] and is married to Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel.[17] She joined Neutral Milk Hotel onstage for a number of shows in 2013 and 2014, playing guitar and accordion.[18] She is a vegan.[19] She lives in New York City.[20]
Her book The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together as Things Fall Apart was shortlisted for the Governor General's Award for English-language non-fiction at the 2024 Governor General's Awards.[21] The book was also a finalist for the 2024 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing.[22]
Activism
Taylor was active in the Occupy movement and was the co-editor of Occupy!: An OWS-Inspired Gazette with Sarah Leonard and Keith Gessen.[23][24] 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.[25] Taylor is a co-founder of Debt Collective, a debtors' union fighting to cancel debts.[26][27][28]
Taylor has resisted the label "activist" in her writing.[29] She is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America[30] and on the Progressive International council.[31][32] She supports a boycott of Israeli cultural institutions, including publishers and literary festivals. She was an original signatory of the manifesto "Refusing Complicity in Israel's Literary Institutions".[33][34]
In 2026, Taylor endorsed Avi Lewis in that year's federal NDP leadership race.[35]
Works
Film
- Zizek!, 2005[36]
- Examined Life, 2008[37]
- What Is Democracy?, 2018[38][39]
Writing
- Examined Life: Excursions with Contemporary Thinkers (editor), The New Press, 2009, ISBN 9781595584472[40]
- Occupy!: Scenes From Occupied America (co-editor with Keith Gessen), Verso Books, 2012, ISBN 9781844679409[41]
- The People's Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age, Henry Holt and Company, 2014, ISBN 9780007525591[42]
- "The faux-bot revolution", in A Field Guide to The Future of Work, Royal Society of Arts Future Work Centre, 2018[43]
- Democracy May Not Exist, but We'll Miss It When It's Gone, Metropolitan Books, 2019, ISBN 9781250179845[44]
- Can't Pay, Won't Pay: The Case for Economic Disobedience and Debt Abolition (foreword), Haymarket Books, 2020, ISBN 9781642594003[45]
- Remake the World: Essays, Reflections, Rebellions, Haymarket Books, 2020, ISBN 9781642594546[46]
- The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together as Things Fall Apart (CBC Massey Lectures), House of Anansi Press, 2023, ISBN 978-1-4870-1193-2[47]
