David M. Higgins (he/they) is associate professor of English and chair of the Department of Humanities and Communication at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Worldwide, and he is a senior editor for the Los Angeles Review of Books. David is the author of Reverse Colonization: Science Fiction, Imperial Fantasy, and Alt-Victimhood, which won the 2021 Science Fiction…

This special edition of The Saturday Bookshelf showcases, “Kinship in the Fiction of N.K. Jemisin: Relations of Power and Resistance.” It examines the work of N.K. Jemisin through the lens of critical kinship studies. In a world increasingly suffering the effects of climate change, currently undergoing a sixth mass extinction, and where anti-democratic, racist, and…

Join us for an afternoon discussion with leading scholars and activists in the struggle to grasp–and abolish–the chains of student debt. We will be joined by co-organizers of the Debt Collective, Astra Taylor and Jason Wozniak, as well as long-time scholar and critic of student debt and the neoliberal university, Jeffrey J. Williams. This show…

Thursday, June 9, 2022, 7:00 – 9:00 p.m. – Dramatic readings and deep reflections on poetry and its relationship to political struggles, social and individual alike, this event showcases some of our movements’ cutting edge poets! We’ll be joined by returning S&S guest Matt Sedillo, as well as Flowersong Press poet-collaborators: Briana Muñoz, David Romero,…

Join our second show on the unfolding and devastating war in Ukraine. We welcome back two insightful guests, Olena Lyubchenko and Jonathan Feldman; they will be joined by outspoken anti-imperialist US labor leader, David Van Deusen, President of the Vermont AFL-CIO. Together, we’ll ask: Is it possible to build solidarity without relying on militarism –…

This event is co-produced with the Marxist Education Project (NYC) The planet is in deep trouble because of capitalism, and Karl Marx, freed from the chains of “real socialism”, is being rediscovered all around the world as the thinker who provided us with its most insightful critique. The Marx Revival is the best, most complete…

||2:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. (Eastern), REGISTER HERE||This event is co-produced with the Marxist Education Project (NYC) The planet is in deep trouble because of capitalism, and Karl Marx, freed from the chains of “real socialism”, is being rediscovered all around the world as the thinker who provided us with its most insightful critique. The…

[W]e depend on other species, we depend on the biogeological forces that move mountains and unleash the vagaries of weather and climate. We depend on these for our very survival. The trouble is that modern civilization conceals and dismisses these connections . . .. There is something pathologically wrong with a paradigm that obscures the…

Wende & Matt discuss their new book, “Insurrectionary Uprisings: A Reader in Revolutionary Nonviolence and Decolonization” (DarajaPress.com) “I’ve often said that actions that grow out of love have the most power.. . . This powerful book brings together both classic and new works which will help empower future generations in building for peace and decolonization….

Entering the 2000s, Chile’s rulers presented their country as the success story of neoliberalism with even so-called “socialist” leaders assuming management of the capitalist state. By the 2010s, however, waves of student and other popular movements gave the lie to this image. Mobilizing from below, students, pensioners, youth, diverse women’s and indigenous movements reawakened the…

1:00 p.m. Eastern: Join us for a deep dive into the war in Ukraine. We’ll be joined by voices from Ukraine & Russia – co-hosted by Prof. Aviva Chomsky. Our panel includes Olena Lyubchenko (Ukrainian scholar-activist, LeftEast.org), Suzi Weissman (Jacobin contributor), Jonathan Feldman (economist, U. Stockholm), Alisa LaSotnik (Ukrainian living in Spain), and Keti Chukhrov…

Join scholar-activists Barbara Foley, Hester Eisenstein, and Zhongjin Li for a discussion of what International Women’s Day means today, and what the challenges and opportunities are in 2022 for thinking and linking women’s oppression and women’s liberation to struggles for a radically better world. The conversation will be hosted by S&S producer Lena Durkin. Barbara Foley is…

Join lifelong labor activists and higher ed union strategists Joe Berry (Reclaiming the Ivory Tower) and Helena Worthen as they discuss their vital new book, *Power Despite Precarity: Strategies for the Contingent Faculty Movement in Higher Education*. Higher ed organizer Joe Ramsey will join as a respondent, in a show cohosted by veteran contingent organizer…

As world leaders eschew cooperation to address climate change, nuclear proliferation, economic meltdown, and other threats to our survival, more and more people experience a pervasive sense of dread and despair. Is there anything we can do? What can put us on the course from mutual destruction to common preservation? In the past, social movements…

This is an off-cycle event; it starts at 2:00 p.m. (Eastern) on Saturday, 12/18/21. Video and event video coming soon.

Sophie Lewis and Mark Soderstrom discuss family abolition at the Community Church of Boston. Event description and links to follow.

Co-hosts Kira Moodliar and Mark Soderstrom join with Veronica Schanoes in a conversation about her recent book, “Burning Girls and Other Stories” published by Tordotcom Publishing. Veronica Schanoes is an American author of fantasy stories and an associate professor in the department of English at Queens College, CUNY. From Tordotcom Publishing: When we came to…

Richard D. Wolff is Professor of Economics Emeritus, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and a Visiting Professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New School University, NYC. He is the founder of Democracy at Work and host of their nationally syndicated show Economic Update. His latest book is The Sickness is the System:…

Join Rachel Yarashus Patten and Lena Durkin in a conversation with Max Haiven about his recent book, Revenge Capitalism. Max is a writer, teacher, and the Canada Research Chair in Culture, Media and Social Justice at Lakehead University, where he co-directs the ReImagining Value Action Lab (RiVAL). His books include Revenge Capitalism (2020), Art after…

This summer, over 300 higher ed faculty, staff, and student leaders and activists from dozens of union locals in 30 states (representing over 400,000 higher ed workers!) came together to form a new nation-wide coalition: Higher Ed Labor United (HELU). Coming from across faculty ranks and staff job categories, including both tenure track and contingent…

Following a successful national convention (August 2021), Democratic Socialists of America faces a still pandemic-ridden nation, beset with extractive inequalities, political dysfunction, and the rapid onset of catastrophic climate change. As the largest organized, left-wing formation, the moment poses special strategic and organizational challenges, ones surfaced in Bill Fletcher, Jr.’s “The Modern Tecumseh” essay. In…

Join The Saturday Bookshelf in a conversation with Nicole Aschoff about her book, “The Smartphone Society: Technology, Power, and Resistance in the New Gilded Age” on Saturday, August 21st at Noon EST (https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5999353012)! From Beacon Press: “Our smartphones have brought digital technology into the most intimate spheres of life. It’s time to take control of…

Makers of two of the world’s most consequential revolutions, the people of Cuba and Haiti have paid the price for attempting to set forth a freer and more just world – with forced reverse-reparations, sanctions, invasions, and constant threats of “regime change.” By July 2021, in diverse ways, these matters have come to a head….

A Saturday Bookshelf Event: A People’s Guide to Greater Boston reveals the region’s richness and vibrancy in ways that are neglected by traditional area guidebooks and obscured by many tourist destinations. Affirming the hopes, interests, and struggles of individuals and groups on the receiving end of unjust forms of power, the book showcases the ground-level…

Join Shelter & Solidarity for a discussion with special guests, novelist Christine Smallwood (author of The Life of The Mind) and scholar Maggie Doherty (author of The Equivalents and the recent Nation article on “Adjunct Hell”) as we explore the relationship between art, experience and activism in a contemporary higher education system increasingly characterized by…

Reports of anti-Asian racism throughout the U.S. have surged during the COVID-19 pandemic, but have not been the subject of sustained public attention until recent months. The deadly March 16th Atlanta spa shootings, along with a spike in lethal attacks against persons of Asian descent, have brought increased visibility to a form of racism that…

Join Shelter & Solidarity and independent socialist magazine Monthly Review for a live conversation with path-breaking radical thinker, activist, and best-selling, world-famous author Marge Piercy. For the past fifty years, few creative writers have been in deeper dialogue with the movement for emancipatory revolution than poet and novelist Marge Piercy. Author of over 20 books…

Paula Rauhala and Kira Moodliar join in conversation with Ranabir Samaddar to explore Ranabir’s new book, “Karl Marx and the Postcolonial Age.” From Palgrave MacMillian: This book seeks to explicitly engage Marxist and post-colonial theory to place Marxism in the context of the post-colonial age. Those who study Marx, particularly in the West, often lack…

Join David Cobb and Nicola Walters to preview “The Post Capitalism Conference: Building the Solidarity Economy” (part of EarthDayMayDay.org) at Humboldt State University – but open to anyone with online. The conference kicks off on Earth Day, Thursday, April 22, 2021, and includes movement luminaries like Wende Marshall, Richard Wolf, Kali Akuno, Melodie Meyer, Emily Kawano,…

Live performances and discussions with socially engaged artists from across the country, including radical poets Matt Sedillo and Raymond ‘Nat’ Turner, Philadelphia-based musician Melanie Hsu, progressive folk singer-songwriter David Rovics, and somatic artist Marina Lopez. Co-hosted with Tim Sheard (of Hard Ball Press) and Linda Liu, this show will provide a chance to engage both…

Join Co-hosts Rachel Patten and Bobbi-lee Smart in a conversation with David Roediger, Saturday, April 3rd at 12 PM EDT, about his new book, The Sinking Middle Class. Joe Biden’s current emphasis on the “American middle class” is typical of centrist Democrat strategy. It is used as a cudgel to defend the party against more…

Throughout modern history, struggles against Black oppression have generated some of our most powerful and persuasive radical voices, often resonating across lines of race and nation. How do black revolutionary thinkers of the past–from black Marxists like Richard Wright to Black Panther participants like Fred Hampton and Assata Shakur–to contemporary voices like Mumia Abu Jamal,…

The 2020s may prove to be “The Decisive Decade.” But what are the origins of the movements of these times? And what difference do those histories make today? We often are called to look back to the 1960s for lessons. But what of the 1990s and the movements at the turn of the millennium? Join Bill…

In an era of growing corporate control over “the news” (from TV to social media platforms), the role played by independent, alternative, and left media is more precious than ever.  Yet the corporate-dominated media landscape, compounded by the Covid19 crisis, creates new barriers and challenges for left and independent media alike.  How are independent and…

The freeze set in, and the lights went out! And Texans found that free-market fundamentalists can’t keep you warm and definitely won’t keep the water running. Also, climate change does not care about ideology! It might be too early to talk about the numbers, the suffering, and the resistance, but neighbors are helping neighbors. Even…

Political economists Doug Henwood (of The Nation, Jacobin, and Left Business Observer) and Bryan Snyder (of Dollars & Sense) join us to dissect the newly installed Biden administration and what it means for the people and for left politics in our time. What is the meaning of Biden’s actions since taking office? His cabinet appointments?…

In the yawning gap between the crises of economy, environment, and survival on the one hand, and ruling class responses, on the other hand, is there space for socialist solutions and the movements that can deliver them? If so, how will it be filled? We answer these questions with a thoughtful and diverse group of…

Shelter & Solidarity’s host, Joe Ramsey hosted Chris Hedges at an event organized by the Community Church of Boston Correction: Dean Stevens is the Community Church of Boston’s Administrator & Musical Director. Contrary to the opening credits, he is not the Congregational Director. This was an editing error on our part. During Chris Hedges’s talk…

Join Shelter & Solidarity on Thursday, Dec. 17, from 7-8:30 pm EST, as we close out 2020 with a very special roundtable featuring return visits from some of the great guests we’ve had on S&S in our first year. A panel of experienced organizers, activists, scholars and artists will help kick off a community discussion…

Featuring performances and conversations with revolutionary artists:Demetrius Noble, Eartha Watts Hicks, Rafael Medina, Raymond Nat Turner, Linda Liu, Ricardo Levins Morales, Tracy Garrison, Tim Sheard, & Dean Stevens

On November 19th we will take a deep dive into the history, myths, practices, and legacies of popular politics and “small-d” democracy in the United States with scholar and public historian Michael Lansing.The populist tradition is a significant, controversial, and often misunderstood strain of U.S. history. Lansing’s book, Insurgent Democracy: The Nonpartisan League in North…

On Thursday, November 5, 2020, DSA-affiliated David Duhalde, The Nation’s Liza Featherstone, the Green Party’s Jill Stein, and sociologist Ben Manski engaged in a lively conversation about the US elections – together with host Joe Ramsey.

We take a deep dive with 2020 Pulitzer Prize-winner Greg Grandin, author of The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America (among many other books). We will also be joined by scholar and activist Aviva Chomsky, (author of Undocumented and “They Take Our Jobs!” and 20…

October 1 marks the fifty-fifth anniversary of the beginning of one of the worst episodes of mass murder in the twentieth century: the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Indonesians in 1965-1966. Organized and directed by Indonesia’s military, the killings targeted people associated with the country’s communist party, the world’s largest outside of China and…

Amid a resurgence of xenophobic nationalism, Islamophobia, Antisemitism, and racism more generally, how do we refute charges of Antisemitism that are broadly leveled against advocates for Black liberation, immigrant justice and national self-determination for the Palestinian people? To help us navigate these questions, Lara Kiswani from Beit Iksa and Aqir, Palestine, and Executive Director of…

Recent years have seen a resurgence of right-wing nationalism and authoritarian political movements, from Trump in the US to Bolsanaro in Brazil and to Modi in India. How are we best to grasp the nature of these contemporary political trends? Are Trump and the movement to support him usefully understood as a form of neo-fascism?…

Feeling stressed? Seeking strategies for keeping healthy and connected during this period of protracted pandemic, economic crisis, and physical isolation? Join us for our third Shelter & Solidarity social hour – a community discussion about how we can best sustain ourselves, each other, our organizations and movements during these pandemic times. We’ll be led into…

Building on a recent paper by John W. Lawrence, “Organizing the Democratic Capacity for Transformative Change: The 2020 Election and Beyond” published in Socialism and Democracy, this conversation discusses and debates the organizational and political requirements for the left to grow and become an organized voice and transformative force based in the working class. Speaker…