Theories

Theorizing the “Present”

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re/thinking temporality

• Greg Jobin-Leeds and AgitArte. 2016. “Grounded in Community: The Fight for the Soul of Public Education” in When We Fight, We Win! Twenty-First Century Social Movements That Are Transforming Our World. The New Press.

• Rasheedah Phillips. 2016. “Future” in Fritsch, Kelly, Clare O'Connor, and A. K. Thompson (eds). Keywords for Radicals: The Contested Vocabulary of Late-Capitalist Struggle. AK Press.

• Mark Rifkin. 2017. Beyond Settler Time: Temporal Sovereignty and Indigenous Self-Determination. Ch. 1 “Indigenous Orientations,” pp. 1-47. Duke U Press.

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THE CRISES “AGAIN”

• John Clarke. 2010. "Of crises and conjunctures: The problem of the present." Journal of Communication Inquiry 34, no. 4: 337-354.

• Doreen Massey and Michael Rustin. 2015.  “Displacing Neoliberalism” (pp. 191-221) in Stuart Hall et al. (eds), After Neoliberalism: The Kilburn Manifesto.Soundings.

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• “The 1619 project.” NY Times Magazine. Full PDF

• Robin D.G. Kelley. 2016. “Trump Says Go Back, We Say Fight Back” in Boston Review forum, “After Trump.” https://bostonreview.net/forum/after-trump/robin-d-g-kelley-trump-says-go-back-we-say-fight-back (see more responses by following the link)

• Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor. 2016. From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation.Ch. 6, “Black Lives Matter: A Movement, Not a Moment,” pp. 153-190. Haymarket Books.

• “War, Peace and Global Justice”recorded panel with Johana Fernandez, Glen Ford, Vijay Prashad, and George Cicarello-Maher at Reclaiming Our Future: The Black Radical Tradition in Our Timesconference at Temple University, January 7-10, 2016. [1hr35min] 

• Robin Truth Goodman. 2013. Gender Work: Feminism After Neoliberalism. Ch. 5 “Gender Work: Feminism After Neoliberalism,” pp. 139-173. Palgrave McMillan.

Freedom Dreams: Activism and Radical Traditions

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Paradigms of political action

• Audre Lorde. 1984. “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action.” Sister Outsider. Ten Speed Press.

• Carol Mueller. 2004. “Ella Baker and the Origins of ‘Participatory Democracy’” in Jacqueline Bobo et al. (eds), The Black Studies Reader, pp. 79-90.

• Susan Stall and Randy Stoecker. 1998. “Community Organizing or Organizing Community? Gender and the Crafts of Empowerment.” Gender &Society. 12(6): 729-756.

• Astra Taylor. 2016. “Against Activism” The Baffler: http://thebaffler.com/salvos/against-activism

• Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang. 2012. “Decolonization is not a metaphor.” Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, 1(1), pp. 1-40.

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Manifestos of/for the Moment

• “The Combahee River Collective Statement” and “Barbara Smith” in Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor (ed.). 2017. How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective, pp. 15-28 and 29-71. Haymarket Books.

• The Council of the Red Nation.2015.“Native Liberation Struggles in North America: The Red Nation 10-point Program.”

  • See also: #StandingRockSyllabus. 2016. 

• Alyson Escalante. 2016. “Gender Nihilism: An Anti-Manifesto.”

• Johanna Hedva. 2014. “Sick woman theory.”Mask Magazine. 

• “The Queer Nation Manifesto.”1990.

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Movement Cultures

• Alicia Garza. 2017. “Our cynicism will not build a movement. Collaboration will.” Mic.

• David Graeber. 2009. Direct Action: An Ethnography. Ch. 5, “Direct Action, Anarchism, Direct Democracy” and Ch. 6, “Some Notes on ‘Activist Culture’,” (focus on 239-256 of Ch. 6).

• Loretta Ross. 2019. “I’m a Black Feminist. I Think Call-Out Culture is Toxic.”NY Times. Aug. 17, 2019. 

•  “Transformative justice in an era of mass incarceration with Mariame Kaba and Victoria Law” episode of Center for Constitutional Rights The Activist Filespodcast. March 14, 2019. [56 min] Episode website and link to episode on Apple podcasts.

• Aja Romano. 2018. “Hopepunk, the latest storytelling trend, is all about weaponized optimism.” Vox.

Struggles to Transform the School

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theorizing Resistance and Education

• Henry Giroux. 2001. “Reproduction, Resistance & Accommodation in the Schooling Process” in Theory and Resistance in Education: Toward a Pedagogy for the Opposition. Bergin & Garvey Press.

Philadelphia Contexts

• Matthew Countryman. 2005. Up South, Ch. 6 “Community Control of the Schools,” pp. 223-257. Penn Press.

• Kristina Rizga. 2016. “Black Teachers Matter.”Mother Jones.

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Contemporary Struggles

• Susan Booysen (ed). 2016. Fees must fall: student revolt, decolonisation and governance in South Africa. Ch. 2, “The roots of the revolution,” pp. 54-73, Ch. 3, “The game’s the same: ‘Must Fall’ moves to Euro-America,” pp. 74-86, and Ch. 6, “Standing on the shoulders of giants? Successive generations of youth sacrifice in South Africa,” pp. 126-147.

• Eve L. Ewing. 2018. Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago’s South Side. Ch 3. “Dueling Realities” and Ch. 4 “Mourning,” pp. 94-156. U Chicago Press. 

• Movement For Black Lives. 2016. “A Vision For Black Lives.” 2016. The Movement For Black Lives’ policy platform related to education. [On Canvas: M4BL Education Plan]

• “The Problem We All Live With,” a two-part series of This American Life podcast focusing on segregation in U.S. schools. Part One (7.31.2015) and Part Two (8.7.2015).[56 min]

• Precious Knowledge (2011), film detailing the banning of the Mexican American Studies program in Tucson Arizona. [70 min] View here.

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Abolitionism

• Stefano Harney & Fred Moten. 2013. The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning and Black Study, Ch. 2. “The University and the Undercommons,” pp. 25-43. Minor Composition.

• Abigail Boggs et al. 2019. “Abolition University Studies: An Invitation”from Abolition University—studying  within/ against/beyond the university. 

• Bettina Love. 2019. We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom. Ch. 5, “Abolitionist Teaching, Freedom Dreaming, and Black Joy,” pp. 88-123. Beacon.

• “Restorative Justice in School: An Overview,” an episode of The Cult of Pedagogy podcast. Feb. 17, 2018. Episode website and link to Apple podcasts.

Power and Social Transform-ation

primers

• “Power” in Encyclopedia of Political Theory

• Christian Scholl. 2016. “Prefiguration” in Fritsch, Kelly, Clare O'Connor, and A. K. Thompson (eds). Keywords for Radicals: The Contested Vocabulary of Late-Capitalist Struggle. AK Press.

• adrienne maree brown and Walidah Imarisha. 2015. “Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements.” AK Press. Selections.

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Re/imagining power

• Frances Fox Piven. 2008. “Can Power from Below Change the World?” American Sociological Review.

• John Holloway. 2002. Change the World without Taking Power: The Meaning of Revolution Today, Ch. 3. “Beyond Power?,” pp. 19-42. Pluto.

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Praxes

• Charlene Carruthers. 2018. Unapologetic: A Black, Queer, and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements, Ch. 4, “Three Commitments,” and Ch. 5, “Five Questions” pp. 63-110. Beacon Press. 

• adrienne maree brown. 2017. Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds. Selections: “principles of emergent strategy,” “intentional adaptation: how we change,” and “interdependence and decentralization: who we are and how we share,” pp. 41-42; 67-83; 83-103. AK Press.

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Transformative Movement Building

• Asian American Racial Justice Toolkit

• Regotsofetse Chikane. 2018. “Should Coconuts be trusted with the revolution?” Chapter 16 in Breaking a Rainbow Building a Nation: The politics behind #MustFall Movements. Picador Africa. pp. 233

• Patrisse Cullors. 2019. “Abolition and Reparations: Histories of Resistance, Transformative Justice and Accountability.” Harvard Law Review.

• Antony Dapiran. Aug. 1, 2019. “‘Be Water!’: seven tactics that are winning Hong Kong’s democracy revolution.”New Statesman.

• Jacqueline Villarrubia-Mendoza and Roberto Vélez-Vélez. Aug. 24 2019. “Puerto Rico: The Shift from Mass Protests to People’s Assemblies.”Portside.

•  Youth United for Change. 2019. “Y’all Tryna Win or Nah? Lessons on Organization Development and Youth Organizing on Shifting Terrain.”

Praxes