Events

Wednesday 17th December 2025: Encounters with James Baldwin

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On Wednesday 17th December 2025, from 7.30-9.30pm, Stroud Radical Reading Group will host a discussion of Encounters with James Baldwin – a collection celebrating the centenary of his birth. It’s a wide-ranging volume of short essays, reflections and poetry, demonstrating the significant legacy of the writer and activist from his work during the era of the Black Civil Rights movement in the US, and after. We will meet at Redz Youth Hub, 6 Threadneedle St, GL5 1AF. Entry is free and anyone interested in the book is welcome – you don’t need to have read it to join us. See below for more information. At this event we’ll be celebrating 10 years of Stroud Radical Reading Group, so people are encouraged to stay after the discussion for a social where we’ll make plans for 2026 and share memories from the last year and, indeed, last decade.

In the literary anthology Encounters With James Baldwin, over 30 contributors reveal the influence of Baldwin’s thought, speech and writing to their personal journeys and their awareness of the need for social justice. Local resident Ronnie McGrath will introduce the book and his essay “What’s Love Got to Do with It?”

Below in our resources section you can find a link to buy the book at a discount, and free audio/visual resources. There is also more information about the book and Stroud Radical Reading Group events.

Entry to the reading group session is free and everyone is welcome – you do not need to have attended previous sessions, and we do our best to make the sessions welcoming to people who have not been to reading groups or similar settings like university seminars before. We encourage people to read as much of the book as possible, but you are welcome to attend to listen to the discussion without reading any of it.

About James Baldwin

James Baldwin (1924 – 1987) was an American writer and civil rights activist who garnered acclaim for his essays, novels, plays, and poems. His 1953 novel Go Tell It on the Mountain was ranked by Time magazine as one of the top 100 English-language novels. His 1965 debate with William Buckley is regarded as one of the most influential debates on Racism. As well as being an influential public figure and orator discussing racism, especially during the civil rights movement in the United States, Baldwin’s writing explored themes of masculinity, sexuality, and class. His unfinished manuscript Remember This House was expanded and adapted as the 2016 documentary film I Am Not Your Negro, winning the BAFTA Award for Best Documentary. His 1974 novel If Beale Street Could Talk was adapted into a 2018 film of the same name. Read more: the Wikipedia page on James Baldwin.

About Ronnie McGrath

Ronnie teaches creative writing at Imperial College London, Bath Spa University, and South Gloucestershire and Stroud College. A published writer and poet, Ronnie is a graduate of Manchester University’s MA in Novel writing and was both a runner up and 1st place winner of Len Garrison’s ACER award for Young Penmanship. Born in the UK, he spent his early years growing up with his grandmother Sarah, brother Michael, and other members of his extended family in Kingston, Jamaica. Just like his neo-surrealist poetry and postmodern writing, Ronnie produces contemporary works of art which are informed by the changing same of his ‘black’ identity. Read more on Ronnie McGrath’s website.

Resources

  • Buy Encounters With James Baldwin – RRP £15.99, £13.59 with discount (saving £2.40). To get the 15% discount: Look at your “basket”, and enter the “couponcode” 25stroudradical. Pick up book from Nailsworth, Tetbury or Chalford shops, or get books delivered to your door for £3.50 postage.
  • Wikipedia page on James Baldwin
  • Watch James Baldwin on the Dick Cavett Show (17 minutes, embedded below)
  • Watch James Baldwin in conversation with Maya Angelou (26 minutes, embedded below)
  • Watch James Baldwin debating William F Buckley in 1965 at Cambridge University – a legendary debate broadcast on the BBC at the time (1 hour, embedded below)
  • Available on some streaming services through subscription, for rent, or to buy online is “I Am Not Your Negro” – a documentary “Narrated entirely in the words of James Baldwin, through both personal appearances and the text of his final unfinished book project, this film touches on the lives and assassinations of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr and Medgar Evers, and how the images and reality of black lives in America today are fabricated and enforced”.

About our events

Stroud Radical Reading Group events are free to attend, though we will make a collection to cover venue hire costs – please bring some cash if you can afford it (a few pounds would be great).

We try to create a comfortable discussion space for everyone, including people who have not been part of a reading group or been to university. We do not want the sessions to feel like school – the idea is that everyone has something to contribute, even if primarily through finding the discussion texts difficult and having questions with other attendees can attempt to answer.

To ensure marginalised people feel welcome, we encourage care and thoughtful contributions that respect people’s identities and lives. We are an LGBTQ+ inclusive and anti-racist space.

Anyone is welcome to listen to the discussion, though we encourage contributions only from those who have read at least some of the book we are discussing.

There is an opportunity for more informal discussion after the session in the Ale House pub for anyone who wants to continue their evening.

About the venue

The venue for this session is Redz Youth Hub, a hub for organising, creativity, and community building. It’s a free space for young people to host their own events, workshops, and meetups. They’ve been hosting sessions by Mutiny: Stroud’s Youth Assembly and The RYSE – the Radical Youth Space for Educations – see their schedule for the rest of the year here, including sessions on the Peace Movement, Stroud Water riots, and decolonial action.

Redz is in central Stroud, close to the train station and bus station, with nearby stands to lock bikes, and parking for cars nearby at Fawkes Place or Church St car park. There is step-free access to the ground floor but for this session we will be meeting upstairs. Please get in touch if you’d like to get more of an idea of what the sessions are like or if you have any accessibility needs.

Get in touch
Facebook event – invite friends/receive reminders
Join the Stroud Radical Reading Facebook Group for online discussion with others who attend the discussions
Events

Wednesday 26th November 2025: Lipstick Traces: a secret history of the 20th Century by Griel Marcus

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On Wednesday 26th November 2025, from 7.30-9.30pm, Stroud Radical Reading Group will host a discussion of Lipstick Traces: a secret history of the 20th Century by Griel Marcus. We will meet at Redz Youth Hub, 6 Threadneedle St, GL5 1AF. Entry is free and anyone interested in the book is welcome – you don’t need to have read it to join us. See below for more information.

The book examines alternative histories of resistance and reads the archival record ‘against the grain’, exploring parallels between underground 20th century art movements such as Dada, the political theories that inspired French youth to revolt in May 1968 and the punk explosion in late-70s Britain. This is a big book, physically at least, so we will focus our discussion on the opening prologue and first chapter “The Last Sex Pistols Concert”. While the book follows on well from our previous readings, you do not need to have attended a Radical Reading Group session before to attend for this session.

Below in our resources section you can find a link to buy the book at a discount, a free PDF version of both the whole book, and the section we offer as a focus for our discussion, and free audio/visual resources. There is also more information about the book and Stroud Radical Reading Group events.

Entry to the reading group session is free and everyone is welcome – you do not need to have attended previous sessions, and we do our best to make the sessions welcoming to people who have not been to reading groups or similar settings like university seminars before. We encourage people to read as much of the book as possible, but you are welcome to attend to listen to the discussion without reading any of it.

About the book:

This book is about a single, serpentine fact: late in 1976 a record called ‘Anarchy in the UK’ was issued in London, and this event launched a transformation of pop music all over the world. Made by a four-man rock’n’roll band called the Sex Pistols, and written by singer Johnny Rotten, the song distilled, in crudely poetic form, a critique of modern society once set out by a small group of Paris-based intellectuals. First organised in 1952 as the Lettrist International, and refounded in 1957 at a conference of European avant-garde artists as the Situationist International, the group gained its greatest notoriety during the French revolt of May 1968, when its slogans were spray-painted across the walls of Paris, after which their critique was given up to history and the group disappeared. The group looked back to the surrealists of the 1920s, the Dadaists who made their names during and just after the First World War, the young Karl Marx, Saint-Just, various medieval heretics, and the Knights of the Round Table.

“Some people say a record or a film changed their life. In my case, it was a book. Griel Marcus’s Lipstick Traces did that back in 1990. It really was that important” – Nicky Wire, bassist and lyricist in the Manic Street Preachers

About the author

Greil Marcus (né Gerstley; born June 19, 1945) is an American author, music journalist and cultural critic. He is notable for producing scholarly and literary essays that place rock music in a broader framework of culture and politics.

His other books include Mystery Train (published in 1975), notable for placing rock and roll in the context of American cultural archetypes; Dead Elvis, a collection of writings about Elvis Presley, in 1991, Invisible Republic: Bob Dylan’s Basement Tapes, published in 1997, and Like a Rolling Stone: Bob Dylan at the Crossroads – a book providing full analysis and context of the 1965 song.

Resources

LipstickTracesFocusDownload
LipstickTracesFullDownload

About our events

Stroud Radical Reading Group events are free to attend, though we will make a collection to cover venue hire costs – please bring some cash if you can afford it (a few pounds would be great).

We try to create a comfortable discussion space for everyone, including people who have not been part of a reading group or been to university. We do not want the sessions to feel like school – the idea is that everyone has something to contribute, even if primarily through finding the discussion texts difficult and having questions with other attendees can attempt to answer.

To ensure marginalised people feel welcome, we encourage care and thoughtful contributions that respect people’s identities and lives. We are an LGBTQ+ inclusive and anti-racist space.

Anyone is welcome to listen to the discussion, though we encourage contributions only from those who have read at least some of the book we are discussing.

There is an opportunity for more informal discussion after the session in the Ale House pub for anyone who wants to continue their evening.

About the venue

The venue for this session is Redz Youth Hub, a hub for organising, creativity, and community building. It’s a free space for young people to host their own events, workshops, and meetups. They’ve been hosting sessions by Mutiny: Stroud’s Youth Assembly and The RYSE – the Radical Youth Space for Educations – see their schedule for the rest of the year here, including sessions on the Peace Movement, Stroud Water riots, and decolonial action.

Redz is in central Stroud, close to the train station and bus station, with nearby stands to lock bikes, and parking for cars nearby at Fawkes Place or Church St car park. There is step-free access to the ground floor but for this session we will be meeting upstairs. Please get in touch if you’d like to get more of an idea of what the sessions are like or if you have any accessibility needs.

Get in touch
Facebook event – invite friends/receive reminders
Join the Stroud Radical Reading Facebook Group for online discussion with others who attend the discussions
Events

Wednesday 29th October 2025: Black History Month – Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments by Saidiya Hartman

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On Wednesday 29th October 2025, from 7.30-9.30pm, Stroud Radical Reading Group will host a discussion of Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments, Intimate Histories of Riotous Black Girls, Troublesome Women and Queer Radicals, Saidiya Hartman. We will meet at Redz Youth Hub, 6 Threadneedle St, GL5 1AF. Entry is free and anyone interested in the book is welcome – you don’t need to have read it to join us. See below for more information.

October is Black History Month and while this isn’t the only book of Black history we are discussing this year, it is a book that explore Black history.

Wayward Lives… look at how, at the dawn of the twentieth century, black women in the US were carving out new ways of living. The first generations born after emancipation, their struggle was to live as if they really were free.

Below in our resources section you can find a link to buy the book at a discount, content notes, free audio/visual resources and a 20 page excerpt from the book. There is also more information about the book and Stroud Radical Reading Group events.

Entry to the reading group session is free and everyone is welcome – you do not need to have attended previous sessions, and we do our best to make the sessions welcoming to people who have not been to reading groups or similar settings like university seminars before.

We encourage people to read the whole book, but you are welcome to attend to listen to the discussion without reading any of it. An excerpt, podcast interview, and youtube video are available for those who do not have the time or money for the whole book.

Content notes:

Graphic: Racism, Racial slurs, Rape

Moderate: Sexual violence, Domestic abuse, Sexual assault

Also mentioned: Pedophilia, Slavery, Sexual harassment

Taken from Storygraph – click for more detail

About the book:

In Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments, Saidiya Hartman deploys both radical scholarship and profound literary intelligence to examine the transformation of intimate life that Black women in the generations born after emancipation instigated in the USA. With visionary intensity, she conjures their worlds, their dilemmas, their defiant brilliance.

These women refused to labour like slaves. Wrestling with the question of freedom, they invented forms of love and solidarity outside convention and law. These were the pioneers of free love, common-law and transient marriages, queer identities, and single motherhood – all deemed scandalous, even pathological, at the dawn of the twentieth century, though they set the pattern for the world to come.

About the author

Saidiya Hartman is an American academic and writer focusing on African-American studies. She is currently a professor at Columbia University in their English department. Her work focuses on African-American literature, cultural history, photography and ethics, and the intersections of law and literature.

As well as Wayward Lives, she is the author Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-Making in Nineteenth-Century America (1997), Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Route (2007)

Resources

About our events

Stroud Radical Reading Group events are free to attend, though we will make a collection to cover venue hire costs – please bring some cash if you can afford it (a few pounds would be great).

We try to create a comfortable discussion space for everyone, including people who have not been part of a reading group or been to university. We do not want the sessions to feel like school – the idea is that everyone has something to contribute, even if primarily through finding the discussion texts difficult and having questions with other attendees can attempt to answer.

To ensure marginalised people feel welcome, we encourage care and thoughtful contributions that respect people’s identities and lives. We are an LGBTQ+ inclusive and anti-racist space.

Anyone is welcome to listen to the discussion, though we encourage contributions only from those who have read at least some of the book we are discussing.

There is an opportunity for more informal discussion after the session in the Ale House pub for anyone who wants to continue their evening.

About the venue

The venue for this session is Redz Youth Hub, a hub for organising, creativity, and community building. It’s a free space for young people to host their own events, workshops, and meetups. They’ve been hosting sessions by Mutiny: Stroud’s Youth Assembly and The RYSE – the Radical Youth Space for Educations – see their schedule for the rest of the year here, including sessions on the Peace Movement, Stroud Water riots, and decolonial action.

Redz is in central Stroud, close to the train station and bus station, with nearby stands to lock bikes, and parking for cars nearby at Fawkes Place or Church St car park. It is one street over from John St – for those who have joined recent sessions at Creative Sustainability. Please get in touch if you’d like to get more of an idea of what the sessions are like or if you have any accessibility needs.

Get in touch
Facebook event – invite friends/receive reminders
Join the Stroud Radical Reading Facebook Group for online discussion with others who attend the discussions
Events

Wednesday 24th September 2025: Burn Out – The Emotional Experience of Political Defeat

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On Wednesday 24th September 2025, from 7.30-9.30pm, Stroud Radical Reading Group will host a discussion of Burnout: The Emotional Experience of Political Defeat at The Exchange, Brick Row, Stroud, GL5 1DF (free entry). Anyone is welcome. The session will be introduced by regular attendee, Helen.

An unending stream of grim news from our own country and around the world, on top of the struggles of living under capitalism and an increasingly authoritarian state can feel overwhelming. Our political ancestors have faced similar circumstances – how did organisers and activists of the past keep going? In Burnout, Hannah Proctor answers that question through historical examples, exploring “how revolutionary movements have balanced the grief of political defeat and lost hope, with the imminent needs of organising and continued resistance”.

Below in our resources section you can find a link to buy the book at a discount, and free audio/visual resources including a free excerpt from the book. There is also more information about the book and Stroud Radical Reading Group events.

Entry to the reading group session is free and everyone is welcome – you do not need to have attended previous sessions, and we do our best to make the sessions welcoming to people who have not been to reading groups or similar settings like university seminars before. The whole point is to help each other not only understand the book but relate it to our own lives and the actions we take – to read and discuss the book not only to change our minds, but to change the world.

We encourage people to read the whole book, but you are welcome to attend to listen to the discussion without reading any of it. An excerpt, podcast interview, and youtube video are available for those who do not have the time or money for the whole book.

About the book:

In the struggle for a better world, setbacks are inevitable. Defeat can feel overwhelming at times, but it has to be endured. How then do the people on the front line keep going? To answer that question, Hannah Proctor draws on historical resources to find out how revolutionaries and activists of the past kept a grip on hope.

Burnout considers despairing former Communards exiled to a penal colony in the South Pacific; exhausted Bolsheviks recuperating in sanatoria in the aftermath of the October Revolution; an ex-militant on the analyst’s couch relating dreams of ruined landscapes; Chinese peasants engaging in self-criticism sessions; a political organiser seeking advice from a spiritual healer; civil rights movement activists battling weariness; and a group of feminists padding a room with mattresses to scream about the patriarchy. Jettisoning self-help narratives and individualizing therapy talk, Proctor offers a different way forward – neither denial nor despair. Her cogent exploration of the ways militants have made sense of their own burnout demonstrates that it is possible to mourn and organise at once, and to do both without compromise.

About the author

Hannah Proctor is a historian of the human sciences interested in intersections between left-wing politics and the psy’ disciplines, Communist and anti-Communist theories of the mind, histories and theories of radical psychiatry, theories and practices of Freudo-Marxism, and emotional histories of the left.

She has written for both academic and non-academic publications on topics including rayon stockings, gender and the death drive, utopian pedagogy, Communist motherhood, wrinkles, the aesthetics of fMRI, Soviet babies, revolutionary commemoration, British antipsychiatry, mourning, Carl Jung’s influence on Jordan Peterson, depression, perfume and Ulrike Meinhof’s brain.

Resources

  • Buy Burn Out from the Yellow Lighted Bookshop – RRP £14.99, £12.74 with discount (saving £2.25). To get a 15% discount: Look at your “basket”, and enter the “couponcode” 25stroudradical. Pick up book from Nailsworth, Tetbury or Chalford shops, or get books delivered to your door for £3.50 postage. If posting books, you may wish to buy other books we are reading this year.
  • Read “Beyond Left Melancholy“, a 4,500 word excerpt from the book – approximately 30 minute read.
  • Listen to an 80 minute interview (embedded below) with host, Eleanor Penny, author Hannah Proctor and Ajay Singh Chaudhary (author of a different book – The Exhausted of the Earth: Politics in a Burning World) discussing how revolutionary movements have balanced the grief of political defeat and lost hope, with the imminent needs of organising and continued resistance.
  • Watch a 90 minute interview with the author hosted by Haymarket Books (embedded below), discussing how to maintain hope in the face of despair, with Hannah Proctor and Sarah Jaffe.
  • Explore Hannah Proctor’s website with further links to her work and reviews.

About our events

Stroud Radical Reading Group events are free to attend, though we will make a collection to cover venue hire costs – please bring some cash.

We try to create a comfortable discussion space for everyone, including people who have not been part of a reading group or been to university. We do not want the sessions to feel like school – the idea is that everyone has something to contribute, even if primarily through finding the discussion texts difficult and having questions with other attendees can attempt to answer.

To ensure marginalised people feel welcome, we encourage care and thoughtful contributions that respect people’s identities and lives. We are an LGBTQ+ inclusive and anti-racist space.

Anyone is welcome to listen to the discussion, though we encourage contributions only from those who have read at least some of the book we are discussing.

There is an opportunity for more informal discussion after the session in the Ale House pub for anyone who wants to continue their evening.

About the venue

We will meet in the Robert Owen Room at The Exchange, Brick Row, Stroud. This is the smaller of two meeting rooms at The Exchange, at the end of the covered walkway, which provides step-free access. There is a small kitchen next door – which we’ll use to provide people with water. There are two toilets, including an accessible toilet. The Exchange is a short walk (10 minutes) from Stroud Bus Station or Train Station. There is a small amount of parking at the venue, and more parking in the nearby Church St car park. The room is clean and bright. We pay for the room, so will collect donations at the end of the session – please bring a little cash if you can – approimately £3 would be great.

Get in touch
Facebook event – invite friends/receive reminders
Join the Stroud Radical Reading Facebook Group for online discussion with others who attend the discussions

Events

Wednesday 27th August 2025: Toussaint Louverture, The Story of the Only Successful Slave Revolt in History

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On Wednesday 27th August 2025, from 7.30-9.30pm, Stroud Radical Reading Group will host a discussion of Toussaint Louverture, The Story of the Only Successful Slave Revolt in History (free entry). We will meet at Redz Youth Hub, 6 Threadneedle St, GL5 1AF. See below for more information on the venue.

The session will be introduced by long-time regular attendee, Asha.

In 1791, the enslaved people of the most prized French sugar plantation colony, San Domingo, revolted against their masters. For over twelve years, against a backdrop of the French Revolution, they fought an epic black liberation struggle for control of the island.

Theirs was the first and only successful slave revolution. It was the creation of Haiti as a nation, the first independent black republic outside of Africa, and an international inspiration to the persecuted and enslaved. This month’s book is the impassioned and beautifully drawn story of the Haitian Revolution and its incredible leader: Toussaint Louverture, based on a play by C.L.R. James – whose book The Black Jacobins is highly revered, and which we discussed as a group in October 2020.

Below in our resources section you can find a link to buy the book at a discount, content notes, and free audio/visual resources including a 20 page excerpt from the book. There is also more information about the book and Stroud Radical Reading Group events.

Entry to the reading group session is free and everyone is welcome – you do not need to have attended previous sessions, and we do our best to make the sessions welcoming to people who have not been to reading groups or similar settings like university seminars before.

We encourage people to read the whole book, but you are welcome to attend to listen to the discussion without reading any of it. An excerpt, podcast interview, and youtube video are available for those who do not have the time or money for the whole book.

Content notes:

Discussions of slavery, non-graphic portrayals of scars from beatings, period depictions of racism and classism, depictions of slave ships and drowning, non-graphic portrayal of armed conflict.

About the book:

The end of slavery started in what was then San Domingo. In 1791, the enslaved people of the most prized French sugar plantation colony revolted against their masters. For over twelve years, against a backdrop of the French Revolution, they fought an epic black liberation struggle for control of the island.

Theirs was the first and only successful slave revolution. It was the creation of Haiti as a nation, the first independent black republic outside of Africa, and an international inspiration to the persecuted and enslaved. This is the impassioned and beautifully drawn story of the Haitian Revolution and its incredible leader: Toussaint Louverture.

Further background

The text of this graphic novel is a play by C. L. R. James that opened in London in 1936 with Paul Robeson in the title role. For the first time, black actors appeared on the British stage in a work by a black playwright. The script had been lost for almost seventy years when a draft copy was discovered among James’s archives.

Toussaint Louverture is an indispensable companion work to The Black Jacobins (1938), James’s classic account of Haiti’s revolutionary struggle for liberation.

The extraordinary drama has been reimagined by artists Nic Watts and Sakina Karimjee.

Nic Watts is a freelance illustrator who has illustrated a range of works including newspapers, booklets and comics. This is his first graphic novel.

Sakina Karimjee is a theatre designer and draughtsperson. She co-produced the book with Watts.

Resources

About our events

Stroud Radical Reading Group events are free to attend, though we will make a collection to cover venue hire costs – please bring some cash.

We try to create a comfortable discussion space for everyone, including people who have not been part of a reading group or been to university. We do not want the sessions to feel like school – the idea is that everyone has something to contribute, even if primarily through finding the discussion texts difficult and having questions with other attendees can attempt to answer.

To ensure marginalised people feel welcome, we encourage care and thoughtful contributions that respect people’s identities and lives. We are an LGBTQ+ inclusive and anti-racist space.

Anyone is welcome to listen to the discussion, though we encourage contributions only from those who have read at least some of the book we are discussing.

There is an opportunity for more informal discussion after the session in the Ale House pub for anyone who wants to continue their evening.

About the venue

The venue for this session is Redz Youth Hub, a hub for organising, creativity, and community building. It’s a free space for young people to host their own events, workshops, and meetups. They’ve been hosting sessions by Mutiny: Stroud’s Youth Assembly and The RYSE – the Radical Youth Space for Educations – see their schedule for the rest of the year here, including sessions on the Peace Movement, Stroud Water riots, and decolonial action.

Redz is in central Stroud, close to the train station and bus station, with nearby stands to lock bikes, and parking for cars nearby at Fawkes Place or Church St car park. It is one street over from John St – for those who have joined recent sessions at Creative Sustainability. Please get in touch if you’d like to get more of an idea of what the sessions are like or if you have any accessibility needs.

Get in touch
Facebook event – invite friends/receive reminders
Join the Stroud Radical Reading Facebook Group for online discussion with others who attend the discussions
Events

Wednesday 23rd July 2025: Syria Speaks

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On Wednesday 23rd July 2025, from 7.30-9.30pm, Stroud Radical Reading Group will host a discussion of Syria Speaks Art and Culture from the Frontline (free entry). We will meet at Coco Caravan (a short distance from the town centre train or bus station, with a limited amount of parking available nearby at Fawkes Place). Coco Caravan are hosting an exhibition of work by Cammy Leon, “Hope & Imagining – Syria’s past and future”, which will run from 10th July to 9th August. Before the reading group session, there will be an event at the exhibition from 5.30-7pm, for people to gather, explore the artwork, buy hot chocolate and hopefully poetry from a Syrian living locally (entry with a donation to the White Helmets).

Syria Speaks is not a conventional book—it’s a kaleidoscopic collection of art, stories, essays, poems, cartoons, photography, and graffiti that documents the Syrian people’s creative resistance during the early years of the revolution that began in 2011 (written in 2012 and 2013). Compiled by Syrian and international editors, it gives voice to those who dared to challenge repression with words, images, and dreams.

The book is diverse in medium and voice—from tragic personal narratives to bold graphic art, from lyrical poetry to bitter satire—and it is united by a deep commitment to freedom of expression and the courage to imagine something beyond dictatorship and violence.

Below in our resources section you can find a link to buy the book at a discount, content notes, free audio/visual resources, and a recently published short article about the current situation in Syria. There is also more information about the book and its editors.

Entry to the reading group session is free and everyone is welcome – you do not need to have attended previous sessions, and we do our best to make the sessions welcoming to people who have not been to reading groups or similar settings like university seminars before.

We encourage people to read the whole book, but you are welcome to attend to listen to the discussion without reading any of it. We have collated some short sections, audio-visual material and an article for those who do not have the time or money for the whole book (these are available as previews on Google Books):

  • Introduction and Hama ’82 (pages vii-1)
  • Between the cultures of sectarianism & citizenship by Hassan Abbas (pages 48-59)
  • The Art of Persuasion by Anonymous Artists Collective (pages 66-77)

This event follows our event on Burning Country in June last year, and the fall of the Assad regime since.

Content notes:

The book deals with repression, war and genocide – involving specifically violence, murder, death, torture, police brutality, rape and sexual violence, injury, grief, death of parents, blood and gore.

About the book:

In Syria, culture became the critical line of defence against tyranny. Villagers have joined the cultural frontline alongside urban intellectuals, artists, writers and filmmakers and to create art and literature that challenge official narratives. With contributions by over fifty artists and writers, both established and emerging, Syria Speaks explores the explosion of creativity and free expression by the Syrian people.

They have become their own publishers on the Internet and formed anonymous artists collectives which are actively working in their country’s war zones. The art and writing featured in this book, including literature, poems and songs as well as cartoons, political posters and photographs, document and interpret the momentous changes that have shifted the frame of reality so drastically in Syria.

About the editors:

Malu Halasa is a London-based writer, journalist, and editor with a focus on Palestine, Iran, and Syria. She is Literary Editor at The Markaz Review, and was the curator of Art of the Palestinian Poster at the P21 Gallery, as part the Shubbak: A Window on Contemporary Arab Culture Festival, from 23 May to 14 June 2025.

Zaher Omareen is a Syrian writer and researcher based in London. He has worked on independent cultural initiatives in Syria and Europe, and co-curated exhibitions on the art of the Syrian uprising. He is currently working on a collection of short stories drawn from the collective memories of the 1982 Hama massacre.

Nawara Mahfoud is a Syrian journalist and documentary producer who has worked for the New York Times. She blogs for the New Yorker, among other publications.

About the Exhibition 

A bold collection of four digital art prints centres the courage and defiance of the Syrian revolution. Through striking visual storytelling, two of the series honours key figures who embodied the spirit of resistance: Mazen Hamada, Razan Zaitouneh, Samira Khalil, and May Skaf—each a symbol of unwavering dignity in the face of repression.

Two of the works evoke collective liberation: one captures the moment Aleppo was liberated, Syrian and Palestinian flags raised in solidarity; the other shows a quiet revolution—people cycling freely through Damascus, reclaiming joy where it was once forbidden by the brutal Assad regime. This is a tribute to memory, movement, humanity and a future that refuses to die.

The exhibition is a fundraiser for the White Helmets. There will be an auction for the artworks, and donations collected on entry to the exhibition event and during the exhibition.

Resources

  • Buy Syria Speaks from the Yellow Lighted Bookshop – RRP £14.99, £12.74 with discount (saving £2.25). To get a 15% discount: Look at your “basket”, and enter the “couponcode” 25stroudradical. Pick up book from Nailsworth, Tetbury or Chalford shops, or get books delivered to your door for £3.50 postage. If posting books, you may wish to buy other books we are reading this year
  • This short article gives a vivid snapshot of early post-Assad Syria—where grassroots activists of all ages are reclaiming political space, pushing back against HTS’s religious conservatism, and building the beginnings of a pluralistic, left alternative rooted in social and economic justice.
  • Listen to this 6 month old podcast episode dedicated to Omar Aziz, Razan Zeituneh and Alan Kurdi “Long Live the Syrian Revolution” (30 minutes, Politically Depressed podcast, embedded below).
  • 8 month old podcast “Roundtable on Syria” (90 minutes, The Fire These Times podcast). “For episode 178, From the Periphery collective members Leila Al-Shami, Elia Ayoub, Karena Avedissian, and Ayman Makarem gathered together for a roundtable to discuss the latest developments in Syria and to provide a historical and political background to help understand the current moment.”
  • Cartoon by Anarchist activist Omar Aziz, “Revolution in Every Country Comic Series: Episode 1 – Syria: Erasing an Inconvenient Revolution“
  • Video recording of panel discussion from the “Discover Syria in Stroud” event held on Saturday 11th January 2025, marking the fall of the Assad regime. After a screening of For Sama, Emma from CSSD and Stroud Against Racism hosted a panel discussion, featuring Leila Al-Shami, British-Syrian activist and writer. She is co-author of ‘Burning Country: Syrians in Revolution and War’ and is co-founder of From The Periphery media collective; Robin Yassin-Kassab, a regular media commentator on Syria and the Middle East. He is the author of the novel The Road from Damascus (Penguin, 2009), contributor to Syria Speaks (Saqi, 2014), and – with Leila Al-Shami – the co-author of ‘Burning Country: Syrians in Revolution and War’; Rami Emad, a Syrian Refugee living locally (embedded below)

About our events

Stroud Radical Reading Group events are free to attend, though we will make a collection to cover venue hire costs – please bring some cash.

We try to create a comfortable discussion space for everyone, including people who have not been part of a reading group or been to university. We do not want the sessions to feel like school – the idea is that everyone has something to contribute, even if primarily through finding the discussion texts difficult and having questions with other attendees can attempt to answer.

To ensure marginalised people feel welcome, we encourage care and thoughtful contributions that respect people’s identities and lives. We are an LGBTQ+ inclusive and anti-racist space.

Anyone is welcome to listen to the discussion, though we encourage contributions only from those who have read at least some of the book we are discussing.

There is an opportunity for more informal discussion after the session in the Ale House pub for anyone who wants to continue their evening.

About the venue

We will meet at the Coco Caravan Cacao House (2 Bedford St, GL5 1AY). This is a venue connected to a chocolate studio which brings together people to share different cacao knowledges, specially selected chocolate varieties, and experience chocolate as a plant food of immense cultural, historical, and spiritual value.

This is close to the train station and not far from the bus station. There are stands to lock bikes to on the High St nearby, and parking for cars nearby at Fawkes Place or Church St car park. There are no toilets at the venue. There step free access the building. The room is well lit. Please get in touch if you’d like to get more of an idea of what the sessions are like or if you have any accessibility needs.

Get in touch
Facebook event – invite friends/receive reminders
Join the Stroud Radical Reading Facebook Group for online discussion with others who attend the discussions
Events

Saturday 28th June 2025 – Black on Both Sides

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On Saturday 28th June 2025, from 7.30-9.30pm, Stroud Radical Reading Group will host a discussion of C. Riley Snorton’s Black on Both Sides: a racial history of trans identity. We have selected the final chapter, “DeVine’s Cut” as a focus chapter for those unable to read the full book – and will spend around half the discussion time on this. See below for links to download the chapter free as a pdf, buy the book at a discount from the local Yellow Lighted Bookshop and to view free audio/visual resources relevant to the book.

We will meet at Creative Sustainability’s shopfront space at 10 John St, GL5 2HA (a short distance from the town centre train or bus station, with parking available nearby at Church St).

Entry is free and everyone is welcome – you do not need to have attended previous sessions, and we do our best to make the sessions welcoming to people who have not been to reading groups or similar settings like university seminars before.

We’re reading Black on Both Sides at the recommendation of a participant in the reading group. Our discussion comes at a time of increasing hostility (in legislation, media, and public) to trans people in the UK – and elsewhere around the world, for example the USA and Hungary, and rising racism.

Our discussion is on a Saturday – unlike usual. This is because it will take place the night after Stroud Pride’s annual event. This year this will begin with a Parade at 11am, followed by entertainment, information stands, and stalls selling goods from 12noon at Bank Gardens (GL5 1BB, mapcarta map, Accessible Gloucestershire’s images and description of access). It would be great to see Radical Reading Group members at these events earlier in the day too!

Content notes:

This is an academic book and can be hard to read. As with all SRRG sessions, the idea is that collective discussion will help us to explore and improve our understanding of the difficult content.

This is a book that deals with many difficult topics, including in graphic ways. Obviously, Transphobia, Racism and Sexism are covered extensively. The following is a summary of additional content notes for the whole book from StoryGraph:
Ableism, Bullying, Deadnaming, domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gun violence hate crime, Homophobia, Injury detail, Torture, Slavery, Discussion of mental illness, Medical trauma, Misogyny, Murder, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Rape, Sexual assault/violence.

The chapter “DeVine’s Cut” which we will focus on, specifically references 3 murders.

More information about the books, venue and how sessions work is below.

About the book:

“In Black on Both Sides, C. Riley Snorton identifies multiple intersections between blackness and transness from the mid-nineteenth century to present-day anti-black and anti-trans legislation and violence.

Drawing on a deep and varied archive of materials—early sexological texts, fugitive slave narratives, Afro-modernist literature, sensationalist journalism, Hollywood films—Snorton attends to how slavery and the production of racialized gender provided the foundations for an understanding of gender as mutable.

In tracing the twinned genealogies of blackness and transness, Snorton follows multiple trajectories, from the medical experiments conducted on enslaved black women by J. Marion Sims, the “father of American gynecology,” to the negation of blackness that makes transnormativity possible.

Revealing instances of personal sovereignty among blacks living in the antebellum North that were mapped in terms of “cross dressing” and canonical black literary works that express black men’s access to the “female within,” Black on Both Sides concludes with a reading of the fate of Phillip DeVine, who was murdered alongside Brandon Teena in 1993, a fact omitted from the film Boys Don’t Cry out of narrative convenience.”

About the author:

C. Riley Snorton is Visiting Associate Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California and Associate Professor of Africana Studies at Cornell University. He earned his PhD in Communication and Culture, with graduate certificates in Africana Studies and Gender and Sexuality Studies from the University of Pennsylvania in 2010. Snorton’s research and teaching expertise include cultural theory, queer and transgender theory and history, Africana studies, performance studies, and popular culture.

Snorton’s first book, Nobody Is Supposed to Know: Black Sexuality on the Down Low (University of Minnesota Press, 2014), traces the emergence and circulation of the down low in news and popular culture.

Resources

DeVinesCut-BlackOnBothSidesDownload

About our events and the venue

Stroud Radical Reading Group events are free to attend, though we will make a collection to cover venue hire costs – please bring some cash.

We try to create a comfortable discussion space for everyone, including people who have not been part of a reading group or been to university. We do not want the sessions to feel like school – the idea is that everyone has something to contribute, even if primarily through finding the discussion texts difficult and having questions with other attendees can attempt to answer.

To ensure marginalised people feel welcome, we encourage care and thoughtful contributions that respect people’s identities and lives. We are an LGBTQ+ inclusive and anti-racist space.

Anyone is welcome to listen to the discussion, though we encourage contributions only from those who have read at least some of the book we are discussing.

There is an opportunity for more informal discussion after the session in the Ale House pub for anyone who wants to continue their evening.

About the venue

We will meet at the Creative Sustainability shopfront space at 10 John St, GL5 2HA (round the corner from Iceland and next to the Ale House pub). This is close to the train station and not far from the bus station. There are stands to lock bikes to outside, and parking for cars nearby at Church St car park. There are no toilets at the venue. There is a small step to access the building, which is then step free). The room is well lit. Please get in touch if you’d like to get more of an idea of what the sessions are like or if you have any accessibility needs.

Get in touch
Facebook event – invite friends/receive reminders
Join the Stroud Radical Reading Facebook Group for online discussion with others who attend the discussions
Events

Wednesday 28th May 2025 – Radicalism and Resistance in Palestine

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On Wednesday 28th May 2025, from 7.30-9.30pm, Stroud Radical Reading Group will host a discussion of two books looking at Radicalism and Resistance in Palestine. We suggest people pick one or other of the books to read in full, or read excerpts from both – see below for links to buy the books at a discount from the local Yellow Lighted Bookshop and a variety of free text, audio, and visual resources relevant to the books.

We’re reading books about Palestine in May, because of the ongoing genocide, occupation and apartheid, but also specifically because May is the month in which Palestinians mark Nakba day – held annually on 15th May. The Nakba, which translates as ‘the catastrophe’, is the term Palestinians use to describe the ethnic cleansing and expulsion of most of the Indigenous people of Palestine through displacement and dispossession specifically of the 1948 Palestine War – and the ongoing suppression of their culture, identity, political rights, and national aspirations by Israel. This year will be the 77th anniversary of the Nakba, and various organisations are calling for action on/around the date, with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement calling for mass global mobilizations and civil disobedience on 15 May and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign organising a national demonstration in London on 17th May, for example.

Our session will take place after that date, but look at the context – a long history of various forms of resistance – and the calls to act ourselves, lessons, and inspiration we can take from these.

We will meet at Creative Sustainability’s shopfront space at 10 John St, GL5 2HA (a short distance from the town centre train or bus station, with parking available nearby at Church St).

Entry is free and everyone is welcome – you do not need to have attended previous sessions, and we do our best to make the sessions welcoming to people who have not been to reading groups or similar settings like university seminars before.

More information about the books, venue and how sessions work is below.

About the books:

Popular Resistance in Palestine, A History of Hope and Empowerment, Mazin B. Qumsiyeh: “Armed resistance, suicide bombings, and rocket attacks populate the Western media’s depiction of Palestinian resistance. Synthesising data from hundreds of original sources, Dr Mazin Qumsiyeh provides the most comprehensive study of the always creative, often peaceful, civil resistance in Palestine. Successes, failures, missed opportunities and challenges are chronicled through hundreds of stories from over 100 years of Palestinian resistance.”

“The book critically and comparatively surveys uprisings under Ottoman rule, against the Balfour Declaration and the Oslo Accords, all the way up to the Boycotts, Divestments and Sanctions movement. The compelling human stories told in this book will inspire people of all faiths and political backgrounds to chart a better and more informed direction for a future of peace with justice.”

Professor Qumsiyeh is founder and director of the Palestine Museum of Natural History (PMNH) and the Palestine Institute for Biodiversity and Sustainability (PIBS) at Bethlehem University where he teaches.

Interviews with Radical Palestinian Women: the interviews compiled by Shoal Collective cover “their struggles on all fronts – against colonialism, white supremacy, conservatism, patriarchy, state control – and occupation.”

“The idea for this book came out of a concern that solidarity movements have a tendency only to engage with Palestinians about their fight against the Israeli occupation. Sometimes this can be a barrier to seeing them as comrades in our intersecting struggles.”

“10 radical Palestinian women spoke to the authors between 2018-2021. Listening to their voices will help people outside of Palestine better understand them as allies in our global struggles for freedom.”

Shoal is a radical research and writers’ collective which produces news articles, investigative research, opinion, analysis and theoretical writing in support of social movements that aim to bring about social change.

Buy the books

When looking at your “basket” enter the “couponcode” 25stroudradical for a 15% discount. Pick up book from Nailsworth, Tetbury or Chalford shops, or get books delivered to your door for £3.50 postage. If posting books, you may wish to buy other books we are reading this year

Free Resources

About our events and the venue

Stroud Radical Reading Group events are free to attend, though we will make a collection to cover venue hire costs – please bring some cash.

We try to create a comfortable discussion space for everyone, including people who have not been part of a reading group or been to university. We do not want the sessions to feel like school – the idea is that everyone has something to contribute, even if primarily through finding the discussion texts difficult and having questions with other attendees can attempt to answer.

To ensure marginalised people feel welcome, we encourage care and thoughtful contributions that respect people’s identities and lives. We are an LGBTQ+ inclusive and anti-racist space.

Anyone is welcome to listen to the discussion, though we encourage contributions only from those who have read at least some of the book we are discussing.

There is an opportunity for more informal discussion after the session in the Ale House pub for anyone who wants to continue their evening.

About the venue

We will meet at the Creative Sustainability shopfront space at 10 John St, GL5 2HA (round the corner from Iceland and next to the Ale House pub). This is close to the train station and not far from the bus station. There are stands to lock bikes to outside, and parking for cars nearby at Church St car park. There are no toilets at the venue. There is a small step to access the building, which is then step free). The room is well lit. Please get in touch if you’d like to get more of an idea of what the sessions are like or if you have any accessibility needs.

Get in touch
Facebook event – invite friends/receive reminders
Join the Stroud Radical Reading Facebook Group for online discussion with others who attend the discussions
Events

Wednesday 30th April 2025- Climate in Parable of The Sower and It’s Not That Radical

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On Wednesday 30th April 2025, from 7.30-9.30pm, Stroud Radical Reading Group will host a discussion of two books looking at climate, one fiction and one non-fiction. We suggest people pick one or other of the books to read in full, or read excerpts from both – see below for links to buy the books at a discount from the local Yellow Lighted Bookshop and a variety of free text, audio, and visual resources relevant to the books.

We’ve combined a fiction and non-fiction book looking at climate change. Parable of the Sower was published in 1993 and set from 2024 and onwards. It explores a number of prescient “speculative” ideas around a future of climate and societal breakdown, displacement, violence, authoritarian nationalism and inequality, also incorporating space exploration [Content Notes: rape, murder, torture, substance abuse, violence against adults, children (including torture and death), and animalsdeath of family members, cannibalism, slavery, body horror.]

It’s Not that Radical was published in 2023 with the subtitle “climate action to transform our world”. Its a book that argues that tackling the climate crisis requires looking at poverty, capitalism, police brutality, and legal injustice – at the roots.

We will meet at Creative Sustainability’s shopfront space at 10 John St, GL5 2HA (a short distance from the town centre train or bus station, with parking available nearby at Church St).

Entry is free and everyone is welcome – you do not need to have attended previous sessions, and we do our best to make the sessions welcoming to people who have not been to reading groups or similar settings like university seminars before.

More information about the books, venue and how sessions work is below.

About the books:

Parable of the Sower: “Set in a California where civilisation has all but broken down and poverty and unspeakable violence are the norm, this is a horrifying vision of what might be. Teenage Lauren knows there must be a better way to live and invents a new religion.” It’s a work of dystopian “speculative fiction” often hailed for its eerie prescience – for example around the recent California wildfires, or the (re)election of Donald Trump through a slogan used in the book: Make America Great Again.

Octavia E. Butler was a renowned African American author acclaimed for her lean prose, strong protagonists, and social observations in stories that range from the distant past to the far future. Learn more about her on the website maintained by her family and literary agent: octaviabutler.com

It’s Not That Radical: “For too long, representations of climate action in the mainstream media have been white-washed, green-washed and diluted to be made compatible with capitalism. We are living in an economic system which pursues profit above all else; harmful, oppressive systems that heavily contribute to the climate crisis, and environmental consequences that have been toned down to the masses.”

“Tackling the climate crisis requires us to visit the roots of poverty, capitalist exploitation, police brutality and legal injustice. Climate justice offers the real possibility of huge leaps towards racial equality and collective liberation as it aims to dismantle the very foundations of these issues. In this book, Mikaela Loach offers a fresh and radical perspective for real climate action that could drastically change the world as we know it for the benefit of us all.”

Mikaela Loach is an acclaimed author, climate justice organiser, and speaker, recognised as one of the most influential women in the climate movement. Learn more about her on her website: mikaelaloach.com

Buy the books

When looking at your “basket” enter the “couponcode” 25stroudradical for a 15% discount. Pick up book from Nailsworth, Tetbury or Chalford shops, or get books delivered to your door for £3.50 postage. If posting books, you may wish to buy other books we are reading this year.

  • Buy Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler in paperback – RRP £10.99, £9.34 with discount (saving £1.65)
  • But It’s Not That Radical: climate action to transform our world by Mikaela Loach in paperback – RRP £9.99, £8.49 with discount (saving £1.50)

Free Resources

Text Resources

Audio/visual resources

About our events and the venue

Stroud Radical Reading Group events are free to attend, though we will make a collection to cover venue hire costs – please bring some cash.

We try to create a comfortable discussion space for everyone, including people who have not been part of a reading group or been to university. We do not want the sessions to feel like school – the idea is that everyone has something to contribute, even if primarily through finding the discussion texts difficult and having questions with other attendees can attempt to answer.

To ensure marginalised people feel welcome, we encourage care and thoughtful contributions that respect people’s identities and lives. We are an LGBTQ+ inclusive and anti-racist space.

Anyone is welcome to listen to the discussion, though we encourage contributions only from those who have read at least some of the book we are discussing.

There is an opportunity for more informal discussion after the session in the Ale House pub for anyone who wants to continue their evening.

About the venue

We will meet at the Creative Sustainability shopfront space at 10 John St, GL5 2HA (round the corner from Iceland and next to the Ale House pub). This is close to the train station and not far from the bus station. There are stands to lock bikes to outside, and parking for cars nearby at Church St car park. There are no toilets at the venue. There is a small step to access the building, which is then step free). The room is well lit. Please get in touch if you’d like to get more of an idea of what the sessions are like or if you have any accessibility needs.

Get in touch
Facebook event – invite friends/receive reminders
Join the Stroud Radical Reading Facebook Group for online discussion with others who attend the discussions
Events

Wednesday 26th March 2025- Revolutionary and Enemy Feminisms

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On Wednesday 26th March 2025, from 7.30-9.30pm, Stroud Radical Reading Group will host a discussion of two books looking at feminisms. The discussion will follow International Women’s Day, which is held annually on the 8th March. We suggest people pick one or other of the books to read in full, or read excerpts from both – see below for links to buy the books at a discount from the local Yellow Lighted Bookshop and a variety of free text, audio, and visual resources relevant to the books.

  • Revolutionary Feminisms: Conversations on Collective Action and Radical Thought, Edited by Brenna Bhandar and Rafeef Ziadah
  • Enemy Feminisms: TERFs, Policewomen, and Girlbosses Against Liberation, by Sophie Lewis

We will meet at Creative Sustainability’s shopfront space at 10 John St, GL5 2HA (a short distance from the town centre train or bus station, with parking available nearby at Church St).

Entry is free and everyone is welcome – you do not need to have attended previous sessions, and we do our best to make the sessions welcoming to people who have not been to reading groups or similar settings like university seminars before.

More information about the books, venue and how sessions work is below.

About the books:

Revolutionary Feminisms – “Black, anti-colonial, anti-racist feminist thought is often sidelined in mainstream discourses that transform feminism into simplistic calculations of how many women are in positions of power.

This book sets the record straight. Through interviews with key scholars, including Angela Y. Davis and Silvia Federici, [Editors of Revolutionary Feminisms, Brenna] Bhandar and [Rafeef] Ziadah present a serious and thorough discussion of race, class, gender, and sexuality not merely as intersections to be noted or additives to be mixed in, but as co-constitutive factors that must be reckoned with if we are to build effective coalitions.”

Enemy Feminisms – “In a time of rising fascism, ceaseless attacks on reproductive justice, and violent transphobia, we need to reckon with what Western feminism has wrought if we have any hope of building the feminist world we need. Sophie Lewis offers an unflinching tour of enemy feminisms, from 19th century imperial feminists and police officers to 20th century KKK feminists and pornophobes to today’s anti-abortion and TERF feminists.

Enemy feminisms exist. Feminism is not an inherent political good. Only when we acknowledge that can we finally reckon with the ways these feminisms have pushed us toward counterproductive and even violent ends. And only then can we finally engage in feminist strategizing that is truly antifascist.

At once a left transfeminist battlecry against cisness, a decolonial takedown of nationalist womanhoods, and a sex-radical retort to femmephobia in all its guises, Enemy Feminisms is above all a fierce, brilliant love letter to feminism.”

Buy the books

When looking at your “basket” enter the “couponcode” 25stroudradical for a 15% discount. Pick up book from Nailsworth, Tetbury or Chalford shops, or get books delivered to your door for £3.50 postage. If posting books, you may wish to buy other books we are reading this year.

Free Resources

Text Resources

  1. TERF Island – There Have Always Been Enemies Inside the Feminist Camp | lux-magazine.com [5,000 words]
  2. How the Girlboss Lost: Sophie Lewis on the Rise and Fall of a Feminist Moment – Leaning Into the Death of Lean-In Feminism and Its Many Resurrections in Our Conflicted Zeitgeist | lithub.com [3,150 words]
  3. Lipstick on the Pigs​ | Kamala Harris and the Lineage of the Female Cop | thedriftmag.com [4,600 words]
EnemyFeminismsExcerptsDownload

Audio/visual resources

About our events and the venue

Stroud Radical Reading Group events are free to attend, though we will make a collection to cover venue hire costs – please bring some cash. We try to create a comfortable discussion space for everyone, including people who have not been part of a reading group or been to university. Anyone is welcome to listen to the discussion, though we encourage contributions only from those who have read at least some of the book we are discussing. There is an opportunity for more informal discussion after the session in the Ale House pub for anyone who wants to continue their evening.

About the venue

We will meet at the Creative Sustainability shopfront space at 10 John St, GL5 2HA (round the corner from Iceland and next to the Ale House pub). This is close to the train station and not far from the bus station. There are stands to lock bikes to outside, and parking for cars nearby at Church St car park. There are no toilets at the venue. There is a small step to access the building, which is then step free). The room is well lit. Please get in touch if you’d like to get more of an idea of what the sessions are like or if you have any accessibility needs.

Get in touch
Facebook event – invite friends/receive reminders
Join the Stroud Radical Reading Facebook Group for online discussion with others who attend the discussions

Stroud Radical Reading Group meets once a month. Here you can find details of sessions, links, and further information