User:Alan Barnett

The account of this former contributor was not re-activated after the server upgrade of March 2022.

I am a veteran writer and activist in politics and art. Born in Chicago in 1928, I studied at the Art Institute and have an undergraduate degree from the University of Chicago and MA and Ph.D from Columbia University. At 78, I am an Emeritus Professor of Humanities from San Jose State University where I specialized in politics, philosophy, history, literature and art since the 19th century. Before that I taught at San Francisco State during the early '60s. My principal publication is Community Murals: the People's Art, Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 1984, 510pp. I have published numerous articles on political art of the US, Mexico, Haiti, the rest of Latin America, Britain and Germany. I have written a host of op-ed pieces on political affairs during the last 40+ years. I've been a political activist since high school back in 1945 and my whole adult life, working in the civil rights, anti-war and criminal justice areas. I have participated and often have had leadership roles in most of the major activist organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area and especially Marin County since the 1960s.. I am currently working on a large work on the history of murals and social art in the Western Hemisphere and Europe since the caves. I've travelled extensively throughout the Americas meeting with socially-concerned artists. My special bent is toward examining the integration and disconnects among work, art and community. I go into more detail on this on my website, www.politicsandart.com. which has a number of articles as well as my own art.