"An extraordinary volume that provides nothing less than a detailed cognitive mapping of the terrain for everyone who wants to engage in radical politics."—Slavoj Žižek, author of Living in the End Times“Keywords for Radicals recognizes that language is both a weapon and terrain of struggle, and that all of us committed to changing our social and material reality, to making a world justice-rich and oppression-free, cannot drop words such as ‘democracy,’ ‘occupation,’ ‘colonialism,’ ‘race,’ ‘sovereignty,’ or ‘love’ without a fight. —Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination"From its thought-provoking Introduction though its energizing accounts of the tensions underlying our most prized concepts, Keywords for Radicals will be indispensable to any scholar or activist who is serious about critique and change."—Stephen Duncombe, editor of Cultural Resistance Reader“A primer for a new era of political protest.” —Jack Halberstam, author of Female Masculinity“This keywords upgrade puts powerful weapons into revolutionaries' hands. Unexpected entries expand into new terrain.… Indispensable.” —Jodi Dean, author of The Communist HorizonIn Keywords (1976), Raymond Williams devised a «vocabulary» that reflected the vast social transformations of the post-war period. He revealed how these transformations could be grasped by investigating changes in word usage and meaning. Keywords for Radicals—part homage, part development—asks: What vocabulary might illuminate the social transformations marking our own contested present? How do these words define the imaginary of today's radical left?With insights from dozens of scholars and troublemakers, Keywords for Radicals explores the words that shape our political landscape. Each entry highlights a term's contested variations, traces its evolving usage, and speculates about what its historical mutations can tell us. More than a glossary, this is a crucial study of the power of language and the social contradictions hidden within it.Contributors include Patrick Bond, Silvia Federici, John Bellamy Foster, Joy James, Ilan Pappé, Justin Podur, Nina Power, Mab Segrest, and over forty others.Kelly Fritsch is a Banting Postdoctoral Fellow in Women's and Gender Studies at the University of Toronto.Clare O'Connor is a doctoral student in Communication at the University of Southern California.A.K. Thompson teaches social theory at Fordham University in New York.
Whenever we envision a world without war, without prisons, without capitalism, we are producing speculative fiction. Organizers and activists envision, and try to create, such worlds all the time. Walidah Imarisha and adrienne maree brown have brought twenty of them together in the first anthology of short stories to explore the connections between radical speculative fiction and movements for social change. The visionary tales of Octavia’s Brood span genres—sci-fi, fantasy, horror, magical realism—but all are united by an attempt to inject a healthy dose of imagination and innovation into our political practice and to try on new ways of understanding ourselves, the world around us, and all the selves and worlds that could be. The collection is rounded off with essays by Tananarive Due and Mumia Abu-Jamal, and a preface by Sheree Renée Thomas. PRAISE FOR OCTAVIA'S BROOD: "Those concerned with justice and liberation must always persuade the mass of people that a better world is possible. Our job begins with speculative fictions that fire society's imagination and its desire for change. In adrienne maree brown and Walidah Imarisha's visionary conception, and by its activist-artists' often stunning acts of creative inception, Octavia's Brood makes for great thinking and damn good reading. The rest will be up to us." —Jeff Chang, author of Who We Be: The Colorization of America “Conventional exclamatory phrases don’t come close to capturing the essence of what we have here in Octavia’s Brood. One part sacred text, one part social movement manual, one part diary of our future selves telling us, ‘It’s going to be okay, keep working, keep loving.’ Our radical imaginations are under siege and this text is the rescue mission. It is the new cornerstone of every class I teach on inequality, justice, and social change....This is the text we’ve been waiting for.” —Ruha Benjamin, professor of African American Studies at Princeton University and author of People’s Science: Bodies and Rights on the Stem Cell Frontier "Octavia once told me that two things worried her about the future of humanity: The tendency to think hierarchically, and the tendency to place ourselves higher on the hierarchy than others. I think she would be humbled beyond words that the fine, thoughtful writers in this volume have honored her with their hearts and minds. And that in calling for us to consider that hierarchical structure, they are not walking in her shadow, nor standing on her shoulders, but marching at her side." —Steven Barnes, author of Lion’s Blood “Never has one book so thoroughly realized the dream of its namesake. Octavia's Brood is the progeny of two lovers of Octavia Butler and their belief in her dream that science fiction is for everybody.... Butler could not wish for better evidence of her touch changing our literary and living landscapes. Play with these children, read these works, and find the children in you waiting to take root under the stars!” —Moya Bailey and Ayana Jamieson, Octavia E. Butler Legacy “Like [Octavia] Butler's fiction, this collection is cartography, a map to freedom.” —dream hampton, filmmaker and Visiting Artist at Stanford University’s Institute for Diversity in the Arts Walidah Imarisha is a writer, organizer, educator, and spoken word artist. She is the author of the poetry collectionScars/Stars and facilitates writing workshops at schools, community centers, youth detention facilities, and women's prisons. adrienne maree brown is a 2013 Kresge Literary Arts Fellow writing science fiction in Detroit, Michigan. She received a 2013 Detroit Knight Arts Challenge Award to run a series of Octavia Butler–based writing workshops.
The End of the World as We Know It? explores the origins and effects of the capitalist crisis that began in 2008. It moves on to examine the responses of both the dispossessed and the ruling classes to the catastrophe, giving special attention to student mobilizations around the world. Weaving together a global network of stories and analyses, editor Deric Shannon creates an outline of what real and effective opposition to the forces that are destroying our lives and our planet might look like. From solidarity networks to revolutionary unionism, student strikes, and ever-new forms of state and corporate control, The End of the World as We Know It? is a guide to the future of anticapitalist struggle “Highly recommended reading for the contemporary dissident.”—Ruth Kinna, author of A Beginner’s Guide to Anarchism  “The End of the World As We Know It? will be an invaluable resource for students of political economy in our momentous times.... [it] offers an indispensable array of perspectives on the crisis in contemporary global capitalism, with an eye toward dismantling it.” —Alessandro De Giorgi, author of Re-thinking the Political Economy of Punishment  “A must-read for those interested in navigating the turbulent waters of economic uncertainty, political instability, and global resistance. The contributors not only provide clear and accessible analyses but also, and more importantly, a range of thought-provoking proposals for change which challenge an increasingly unequal and unsustainable status quo.” —Nathan Jun, Author of Anarchism and Political Modernity  "There is nothing more important for anticapitalists than providing sharp analysis and relevant answers to the problems of our time, rather than merely propagating noble ideals. Here is a book that lives up to the task." —Gabriel Kuhn, editor of All Power to the Councils! A Documentary History of the German Revolution of 1918–1919  “The contributions in The End of the World As We Know It? provide us with important lessons concerning the economic crisis and the attempts of working people to create a world worth living in.” —Andrej Grubacic, author of Don’t Mourn, Balkanize! Essays After Yugoslavia
Dear Sister, It wasn't your fault; it was never your fault. You did nothing wrong. Hold this tight to your heart: it wasn't your fault. At night when you lay there and your mind fills with images and you wonder if only, if you had . . . if you hadn't . . . . Remember: it wasn't your fault. Dear Sister highlights the lessons, memories, and vision of over forty artists, activists, mothers, writers, and students who share a common bond: they are survivors of sexual violence. Written in an epistolary format, this multi-generational, multi-ethnic collection of letters and essays is a moving journey into the hearts and minds of the survivors of rape, incest, and other forms of sexual violence, written directly to and for other survivors. Dear Sister goes far beyond traditional books about healing, which often use «experts» to explain the experience of survivors for the rest of the world. Where other books about rape weave the voices of feminists and activists together and imagine what a world without violence might look like, Dear Sister describes the reality of what the world looks like through the eyes of a survivor. From a professor in the Midwest to a poet in Belgium, an escapee from a child prostitution ring, a survivor advocate in the Congo, and a sex worker in San Francisco, Dear Sister touches on issues of feminism, love, disability, gender, justice, identity, and spirituality. Lisa Factora-Borchers is a Filipina writer and editor whose work has been published in make/shift, Bitch, Left Turn, and Critical Moment. Contributors: Aaminah Shakur, Adrienne Maree Brown, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Allison McCarthy, Amita Y. Swadhin, Amy Ernst, Ana Heaton, Andrea Harris, Angel Propps, anna Saini, Anne Averyt, annu Saini, Ashley Burczak, brownfemipower, Brooke Benoit, Denise Santomauro, Desire Vincent, Dorla Harris, «Harriet J.», Indira Allegra, Isabella Gitana-Woolf, Joan Chen, Judith Stevenson, Juliet November, Kathleen Ahern, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Marianne Kirby, Maroula Blades, Mary Zelinka, Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, Melissa Dey Hasbrook, Melissa G., Mia Mingus, Michelle Ovalle, Premala Matthen, Rebecca Echeverria, Renee Martin, River Willow Fagan, Sara Durnan, Sarah M. Cash, Shala Bennett, Shanna Katz, Sofia Rose Smith, Sumayyah Talibah, Sydette Harry, Birdy, Viannah E. Duncan, and Zöe Flowers.
• The debate around marriage in the LGBT community is heating up. The striking down of the Defense of Marriage Act may have pleased many, but there is a loud portion of the queer community that is demanding more than inclusion and assimilation. • Civil rights and issues of visibility for the LGBT community continue to occupy the spotlight in the media.• The LGBT movement is united by sexual orientation solidarity, but there are great divides politically. Against Equality confronts each of those without fear, and makes compelling arguments for an anti-assimilationist movement.
This title will be timed to release in April, when presidential primaries will be in full swing, and national attention will be on Obama as a candidate.Because presidential politics is something that everyone has a stake in, we feel that this title will have a readership that spans all points on the political spectrum, from Obama supporters, to those who feel let down by the promises of his campaign rhetoric, to fierce opponents of his administration.More than just a critique of the shortcomings of the Obama administration, this title offers some broader analysis of presidential politics in general. This is a collection of new and previously published essays by an array of some of the best writers on the left, including Conn Hallinan, Gideon Levy, Kevin Alexander Gray, John Ross, Andrew Levine, and many frequent contributors to Counterpunch.org.The editors and many of the contributors will be doing speaking events for the book nationwide during the months following the launch of the book.
This is a fascinating window into the development of the women's movement in the words of those who moved it. Compiled and introduced by the UK-based anarchist-intellectual collective Dark Star, Quiet Rumours features articles and essays from four generations of anarchist-inspired feminists, including Emma Goldman, Voltairine de Cleyre, Jo Freeman, Peggy Kornegger, Cathy Levine, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Mujeres Creando, Rote Zora, and beyond. All the pieces from the first two editions are included here, as well as new material bringing third and so-called fourth-wave feminism into conversation with twenty-first century politics. An ideal overview for budding feminists and an exciting reconsideration for seasoned radicals.
In this refreshingly different book one can relish the works and ideas of numerous Muslim scholars and leaders of the 20th century. The contributors include Muhammad Asad, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Hasan al-Banna, Sayyid Qutb, Khurshid Ahmad and Sayyid Abul A'la Mawdudi.This title is especially useful for those seeking to enhance their understanding of Islam through personal and group study.
This book of poems and stark, vivid illustrations is rooted in the female soul of indigenous Mexico. The Tzotzil women of the Chiapas Highlands are the poets and the artists. Ambar Past, who collected the poems and drawings, includes a moving essay about their poetics, beliefs, and history. In the 1970s, living among the Maya, Past watched the people endure as an epidemic swept through a village. No help came. Many children died. One mother offered her dead child a last sip of Coca-Cola and uttered a prayer: Take this sweet dew from the earth, take this honey. It will help you on your way. It will give you strength on your path. Incantations like this—poems about birth, love, hate, sex, despair, and death—coupled with primitive illustrations, provide a compelling insight into the psychology of these Mayan women poets. The Cinco Puntos edition of Incantations is a facsimile of the original handmade edition produced by the Taller Leñateros. It was reviewed in The New York Times. At the age of twenty-three, Ambar Past left the United States for Mexico. She lived among the Mayan people, teaching the techniques of native dyes and learning to speak Tzotzil. She is the creator of the graphic arts collective Taller Leñateros in Chiapas and was a founding member of Sna Jolobil, a weaving cooperative for Mayan artisans.
Will little Corky—so quirky and curious—live her life and her dreams to the fullest? When Corky is a baby, Old Bear gives her the keys to her days. As she grows, she lives in wonderment. As her days grow short, she asks Old Bear for a few more days. Old Bear reminds Corky that she holds the key to her days. She must do what needs to be done, and dream what needs to be dreamed. When she is ready, she will not be afraid to open the door to wonder. Paula Wallace lives in Omaha, Nebraska.