Category Archives: Events

Events

Wednesday 27th September 2023: Disaster Anarchy by Rhiannon Firth

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On Wednesday 27th September 2023, from 7.30-9.30pm, Stroud Radical Reading Group will discuss Disaster Anarchy: Mutual Aid and Radical Action by Rhiannon Firth. The book looks at the disasters of Hurricane Sandy, Covid-19, and the social movements that mobilised relief in their wake – often on anarchist principles, contrasting these with the “Disaster Capitalism” and ensuring that collective solidarity in a dangerous world isn’t missed in academic “Disaster Studies”.

As usual we’ll discuss what we made of the book and how it might be relevant to us in our own lives. We enourage people to read the book but you are also welcome even if you haven’t read the book – to listen to the discussion and ask questions. This book is the first in a 3-part series on Crisis, Mutual Aid, and Radical Action, which will also cover work by Mike Davis and the Care Collective (full details to follow). You don’t have to attend all the events in the series, but you are invited to!

On this webpage you can find details to buy the book at a discount, free resources, and information about the author, the book, how our sessions work, and the venue. We’re planning to once again be at the SISTER Summer School – but as this is a building Stroud in Internationalist Solidarity Together for Earth Repairs (SISTER) have reclaimed on Lansdown Road.

Till the end of August, you can get a 50% discount on Disaster Anarchy from publishers Pluto Press – making it £9.99 instead of £19.99.

After August, the book is available from Yellow Lighted Bookshop for £19.99, and you should be able to get a 12% discount: after adding the book to your ‘basket’, view your basket where there is an option to enter a ‘Coupon code’. Add the code “StroudRadical23” and click/tap “Apply coupon” (final cost should then be £17.59).

Freely available resources related to the book are available below. We like to ensure everyone can attendee our sessions and get something out of them even if they can’t afford to buy a copy of the book or the time to read it. We would encourage people to read/listen to as much as possible, but you are welcome to attend and listen along even if you are unable to engage with any of the below.

Free resources

About the author and the book

Rhiannon Firth is currently a lecturer in Sociology at UCL. She is the author of two books: Utopian Politics: Citizenship and Practice and Coronavirus, Class and Mutual Aid in the UK. She is active in social movements and popular education projects in London.

Publishers Pluto Press say:

“Anarchists have been central in helping communities ravaged by disasters, stepping in when governments wash their hands of the victims. Looking at Hurricane Sandy, Covid-19, and the social movements that mobilised relief in their wake, Disaster Anarchy is an inspiring and alarming book about collective solidarity in an increasingly dangerous world.

As climate change and neoliberalism converge, mutual aid networks, grassroots direct action, occupations and brigades have sprung up in response to this crisis with considerable success. Occupy Sandy was widely acknowledged to have organised relief more effectively than federal agencies or NGOs, and following Covid-19 the term ‘mutual aid’ entered common parlance.

However, anarchist-inspired relief has not gone unnoticed by government agencies. Their responses include surveillance, co-option, extending at times to violent repression involving police brutality. Arguing that disaster anarchy is one of the most important political phenomena to emerge in the twenty-first century, Rhiannon Firth shows through her research on and within these movements that anarchist theory and practice is needed to protect ourselves from the disasters of our unequal and destructive economic system.”

Endorsements:

‘Commendable – a book that prepares us to think about and react to system failures’ – Peter Gelderloos

‘Firth bridges the theories and methodologies in the continuing development of anarchist and liberatory frameworks of decentralised disaster responses, first articulated after Hurricane Katrina. They demonstrate through personal histories and analysis deeper paths forward in anarchist processes and practices that allow our liberatory imaginations to resist the collapse while creating viable alternatives without state coercion or interference’ – scott crow, author of ‘Black Flags and Windmills: Hope , Anarchy and the Common Ground Collective’

‘A clear, timely and rigorous account of anarchist responses to catastrophes. It avoids romanticisation, as Rhiannon Firth incisively unpicks state and corporate strategies of co-option’ – Benjamin Franks, Senior Lecturer in Social and Political Philosophy, University of Glasgow

Events

Wednesday 30th August 2023: Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman

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On Wednesday 30th August 2023, from 7.30-9.30pm, Stroud Radical Reading Group will discuss Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman. Noughts and Crosses is described as Young Adult fiction – this is the first time we’ve read such a book. It’s fitting to link to the BBC Bitesize intro page, which summarises the book as “a novel set in a dystopian Britain in which society is divided by racism. Dark-skinned Crosses are privileged in society over the light-skinned noughts. Against the odds, the main characters, Sephy and Callum, fall in love across the divide which leads them into danger. Malorie Blackman was inspired by real events from history and her own life when she wrote this novel.”

As usual we’ll discuss what we made of the book and how it might be relevant to us in our own lives. SRRG regular Asha will introduce the book for us. At this session, we’ll also provide a quick introduction to Stroud Radical Reading Group – mentioning the books we’ll be reading later in the year and providing a quick history of books we’ve read in the past. We enourage people to read the book but you are also welcome even if you haven’t read the book – to listen to the discussion and ask questions.

On this webpage you can find details to buy the book at a discount, free resources, and information about the author, the book, how our sessions work, and the venue. We’ll be in a new venue this month – the SISTER Summer School – an empty building Stroud in Internationalist Solidarity Together for Earth Repairs (SISTER) have reclaimed on Lansdown Road.

The book is available from Yellow Lighted Bookshop for £8.99, and you should be able to get a 12% discount: after adding the book to your ‘basket’, view your basket where there is an option to enter a ‘Coupon code’. Add the code “StroudRadical23” and click/tap “Apply coupon”.

Freely available resources related to the book are available below. We like to ensure everyone can attendee our sessions and get something out of them even if they can’t afford to buy a copy of the book or the time to read it. We would encourage people to read/listen to as much as possible, but you are welcome to attend and listen along even if you are unable to engage with any of the below.

Free resources

About the author and the book

Malorie Blackman has written over seventy books for children and young adults, including the Noughts & Crosses series. Many of her books have also been adapted for stage and television, including a BAFTA-award-winning BBC production of Pig-Heart Boy and a Pilot Theatre stage adaptation by Sabrina Mahfouz of Noughts & Crosses. In 2005 Malorie was honoured with the Eleanor Farjeon Award in recognition of her distinguished contribution to the world of children’s books. In 2008 she received an OBE for her services to children’s literature, and between 2013 and 2015 she was the Children’s Laureate. Most recently Malorie wrote for the Doctor Who series on BBC One, and the fifth novel in her Noughts & Crosses series, Crossfire, was published by Penguin Random House Children’s in summer 2019.

Published twenty years ago last year, Malorie Blackman’s ‘Noughts & Crosses’ broke the hearts of a generation of teenage readers, and its influence on Young Adult fiction can be felt across the genre with the themes of racism, diversity and conflict still as pertinent in this era of Black Lives Matter as they were when the series was first published.

Endorsements:

‘The Noughts & Crosses series are still my favourite books of all time and showed me just how amazing story-telling could be’ – Stormzy

‘The most original book I’ve ever read’ Benjamin Zephaniah

‘Unforgettable’ Guardian

Events

Sunday 30th July 2023: After Geoengineering by Holly Jean Buck

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On Sunday 30th July 2023, from 7.30-9.30pm at The RYSE, 2 Bath St, Stroud Radical Reading Group will discuss After Geoengineering: Climate Trajedy, Repair, and Restoration, by Holly Jean Buck. The book explores how “We are right to fear that geoengineering will be used to maintain the status quo” but asks “is there another possible future after geoengineering?”. On this webpage you can find a link to buy the book at a discount, free resources, and information about the author, the book, how our sessions work, and the venue.

At the time of writing, you can buy a copy of the book from publishers Verso for £11.89 (hardback) or £7 (ebook). Both prices represent a 30% discount on the RRP.

This discussion is part our series on climate change, but you are welcome to join the discussion even if you cannot make the other events. You are also welcome even if you haven’t read the book or the free section of it available below – to listen to the discussion and ask questions.

Freely available resources related to the book are available below. We like to ensure everyone can attendee our sessions and get something out of them even if they can’t afford to buy a copy of the book or the time to read it. We would encourage people to read/listen to as much as possible, but you are welcome to attend and listen along even if you are unable to engage with any of the below.

Free resources

Freely available resources related to the book are available below. We like to ensure everyone can attendee our sessions and get something out of them even if they can’t afford to buy a copy of the book or the time to read it. We would encourage people to read/listen to as much as possible, but you are welcome to attend and listen along even if you are unable to engage with any of the below:

About the author and the book

Holly Jean Buck is a geographer and environmental social scientist studying rural futures, the politics of platforms, and how emerging technologies can address environmental challenges. She works as an Assistant Professor of Environment and Sustainability at the University at Buffalo in Buffalo, New York. She is also the author of Ending Fossil Fuels: Why Net Zero Is Not Enough.

“Climate engineering is a dystopian project. But as the human species hurtles ever faster towards its own extinction, geoengineering as a temporary fix, to buy time for carbon removal, is a seductive idea. We are right to fear that geoengineering will be used to maintain the status quo, but is there another possible future after geoengineering? Can these technologies and practices be used to bring carbon levels back down to pre-industrial levels? Are there possibilities for massive intentional intervention in the climate that are democratic, decentralised, or participatory?

These questions are provocative, because they go against a binary that has become common sense: geoengineering is assumed to be on the side of industrial agriculture, inequality and ecomodernism, in opposition to degrowth, renewable energy, sustainable agriculture and climate justice. After Geoengineering rejects this binary, to ask: what if the people seized the means of climate production? Both critical and utopian, the book examines the possible futures after geoengineering. Rejecting the idea that geoengineering is some kind of easy work-around, Holly Buck outlines the kind of social transformation that would be necessary to enact a programme of geoengineering in the first place.”

Endorsements:

“In the face of rapid climate change, how should we think about geoengineering? In this timely and bold book, Holly Jean Buck lays out a case for approaching geoengineering from the Left. Blending journalistic insight with scientific speculation, After Geoenginneeringinspires much-needed thought experiments about the changes coming to our warmer and weirder world.

Joel Wainwright, author of Decolonizing Development, Geopiracy, and Climate Leviathan (with Geoff Mann)

This is the guide to the future. There’s hardly anything scarier than geoengineering, but it is coming towards us, closer for every day of CO2 spewed into the air. It can no longer be wished away – and thankfully, we have Holly Jean Buck to explain what it might look like and how it could be survived, perhaps even used for the good of the planet. Written in graceful prose, combining the latest science with the crystal ball of a sci-fi author, this book shines. Anyone worried about what comes next should read it.

Andreas Malm, author of The Progress of This Storm and Fossil Capital

About Stroud Radical Reading Group events and the venue

Our events are free to attend, though we will collect donations to cover the costs of venue hire on a donate-what-you-can-afford basis. We try to ensure the discussions are welcoming to new people, including people who have never been to a reading group before – and you don’t have to have been to university. You don’t even have to have read any of the book – you can just come along and listen to the discussion. Some free resources including a sample chapter we’ll focus our discussion on are included above, and we’d encourage people to read/listen to as much as they can ahead of the session.

James facilitates the sessions, which we start and finish with everyone having a short time to introduce themselves, and mention something that struck them about the reading or which they’d like to discuss. The conversation then flows, with people using hands to indicate they’d like to speak – and we try to make sure everyone gets a chance. Sometimes we identify particular questions to think about during a session or even before it.

The RYSE is a new venue for us – it is accessed by a staircase. Please contact us if you have any accessibility requirements, or other questions about how the events work.

We will keep windows open for ventilation, hand sanitiser is provided, and we ask people who are ill to stay away (whether they are ill with covid or something else). Attendees do not generally wear masks but we will be respectful to anyone who chooses to and other members may wear masks at request of other attendees – let us know your preferences in advance.

aftergeoengineeringch1Download
Events

Saturday 24th June 2023: The Solutions Are Already Here by Peter Gelderloos

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On Saturday 24th June 2023, from 7.30-9.30pm at The RYSE, 2 Bath St, Stroud Radical Reading Group will discuss The Solutions Are Already Here: Strategies for Ecological Revolution From Below, by Peter Gelderloos. The book looks at how “grassroots networks of local communities are working to realise their visions of an alternative revolutionary response to planetary destruction”. On this webpage you can find a link to buy the book at a discount, free resources, and information about the author, the book, how our sessions work, and the venue.

You can buy a copy of the book from the Yellow-Lighted Bookshop with a 12% discount by using this link. After adding the book to your ‘basket’, view your basket where there is an option to enter a ‘Coupon code’. Add the code “StroudRadical23” and click/tap “Apply coupon”. The book will then cost £14.95, saving you £2.04 or 12%. You can collect the book from shops in Nailsworth, Tetbury or at the Chalford Village shop, or delivered for an additional cost of £3.50.

This discussion is part our series on climate change, but you are welcome to join the discussion even if you cannot make the other events. You are also welcome even if you haven’t read the book or the free section of it available below – to listen to the discussion and ask questions.

Freely available resources related to the book are available below. We like to ensure everyone can attendee our sessions and get something out of them even if they can’t afford to buy a copy of the book or the time to read it. We would encourage people to read/listen to as much as possible, but you are welcome to attend and listen along even if you are unable to engage with any of the below.

Free resources

Freely available resources related to the book are available below. We like to ensure everyone can attendee our sessions and get something out of them even if they can’t afford to buy a copy of the book or the time to read it. We would encourage people to read/listen to as much as possible, but you are welcome to attend and listen along even if you are unable to engage with any of the below:

solutionsalreadyhereintro7-17Download

About the author and the book

Peter Gelderloos is an anarchist writer and movement participant. He is the author of Worshiping Power: An Anarchist View of Early State Formation.

In The Solutions Are Already Here, “Gelderloos argues that international governmental responses to the climate emergency are structurally incapable of solving the crisis. But there is hope.

Across the world, grassroots networks of local communities are working to realise their visions of an alternative revolutionary response to planetary destruction, often pitted against the new megaprojects promoted by greenwashed alternative energy infrastructures and the neocolonialist, technocratic policies that are the forerunners of the Green New Deal.

Gelderloos interviews food sovereignty activists in Venezuela, Indigenous communities reforesting their lands in Brazil and anarchists fighting biofuel plantations in Indonesia, looking at the battles that have cancelled airports, stopped pipelines, and helped the most marginalised to fight borders and environmental racism, to transform their cities, to win a dignified survival.”

‘Few books are as honest, inclusive and based on so much experience of committed social and ecological struggle. The Solutions Are Already Here opens doorways to a world so many young activists want to know and understand, and reminds so many more that now is the time to act’ – Dr. Alexander Dunlap, Centre for Development & the Environment, University of Oslo

About Stroud Radical Reading Group events and the venue

Our events are free to attend, though we will collect donations to cover the costs of venue hire on a donate-what-you-can-afford basis. We try to ensure the discussions are welcoming to new people, including people who have never been to a reading group before – and you don’t have to have been to university. You don’t even have to have read any of the book – you can just come along and listen to the discussion. Some free resources including a sample chapter we’ll focus our discussion on are included above, and we’d encourage people to read/listen to as much as they can ahead of the session.

James facilitates the sessions, which we start and finish with everyone having a short time to introduce themselves, and mention something that struck them about the reading or which they’d like to discuss. The conversation then flows, with people using hands to indicate they’d like to speak – and we try to make sure everyone gets a chance. Sometimes we identify particular questions to think about during a session or even before it.

The RYSE is a new venue for us – it is accessed by a staircase. Please contact us if you have any accessibility requirements, or other questions about how the events work.

We will keep windows open for ventilation, hand sanitiser is provided, and we ask people who are ill to stay away (whether they are ill with covid or something else). Attendees do not generally wear masks but we will be respectful to anyone who chooses to and other members may wear masks at request of other attendees – let us know your preferences in advance.

Events

Climate Change – our May to July 2023 series

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We’ll host three events exploring issues related to climate change between May and July – all 7.30-9.30pm but on different nights of the week and at a couple of different venues. All events are free and everyone is welcome, as ever – you don’t need to have read the book to come along and listen. Full information and free resources are available via the links below.

White Skin, Black Fuel: On the Danger of Fossil Fascism by Andreas Malm and the Zetkin Collective – Wednesday May 31st at The Exchange, Brick Row

The Solutions Are Already Here: Strategies for Ecological Revolution from Below by Peter Gelderloos – Saturday 24th June at The RYSE – 2 Bath St

After Geoengineering: Climate Tragedy, Repair and Restoration by Holly Jean Buck – Sunday 30th July at The RYSE – 2 Bath St

See poster below. Download a copy as a pdf (131kb) and help us publicise the events.

srrgclimate2023 (131kb)Download
Events

Antifascism – our January to May 2023 series

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For the first half of 2023, we will host a series looking at fascism and antifascism, both historically and in the present. You do not need to attend all the sessions in the series to come to or get something out of this session, though of course we recommend coming along to as many as you can!

Each of the events has it’s own page on the website, where you can find full informaiton, free sample chapters and audiovisual materials, and links to buy discounted copies of the books.

Our events are free to attend, though we will collect donations to cover the costs of venue hire on a donate-what-you-can-afford basis. We try to ensure the discussions are welcoming to new people, including people who have never been to a reading group before – and you don’t have to have been to university (contact us if there is something we can do to help welcome you). You don’t even have to have read any of the book – you can just come along and listen to the discussion (we of course encourage people to read/listen to as much as they can ahead of the session, but what’s important is learning together). And if you can’t get there for 7.30pm, don’t worry – turn up when you can and join in.

Please bear in mind that these books include, as a necessary part of their content, quotations of or descriptions of vile antisemitism and other racism, bigotry and violence.

All the sessions are held on Wednesdays, once a month, from 7.30-9.30pm – full dates below. We will discuss:

* January 25th: “We Fight Fascists: The 43 Group and Their Forgotten Battle for Post-war Britain”, by Daniel Sonabend

* February 22nd: “No Pasaran! Antifascist dispatches from a World in crisis”, edited by Shane Burley

* March 29th: “Fractured: Race, Class, Gender and the Hatred of Identity Politics” by Michael Richmond and Alex Charnley

* April 26th: “Post-Internet Far-Right” and “The Rise of Ecofascism“, both by Sam Moore and Alex Roberts

* May 31st: “White Skin, Black Fuel: On the Danger of Fossil Fascism”, by Andreas Malm and The Zetkin Collective

About the venue, illness, and accessibility

The Exchange has step-free access. We will keep windows open for ventilation, hand sanitiser is provided, and we ask people who are ill to stay away (whether they are ill with covid or something else). Attendees do not generally wear masks but we will be respectful to anyone who chooses to and other members may wear masks at request of other attendees – let us know your preferences in advance. Please contact us if you have any accessibility requirements, or other questions about how the events work.

Publicity

Help us publicise the event by downloading a poster, printing it out and sticking it up somewhere!

srrgfaf2023Download

Events

May 31st 2023: The Danger of Fossil Fascism

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On Wednesday 31st May, from 7.30-9.30pm at The Exchange, Brick Row, Stroud (GL5 1DF), Stroud Radical Reading Group will discuss “White Skin, Black Fuel: On The Danger of Fossil Fascism” by Andreas Malm and the Zetkin Collective.

This discussion will be the fifth and final of a monthly series looking at antifascism. You do not need to attend previous sessions in the series to come to or get something out of this session, though of course we recommend coming along to the other sessions too (if you’ve heard about them in time).

We will focus our discussion on Chapter 8: “Mythical Energies of the Far Right” (pdf 352kb). The 9 page introduction is also available to download (pdf 161kb) or read on a laptop/desktop online (scroll to the bottom of this page).

The full book is currently available from publishers Verso at a 15% discount: White Skin, Black Fuel – £17.00 with a free-ebook instead of the RRP of £20, or £6 for the e-book alone.

Freely available resources related to the book are available below. We like to ensure everyone can attendee our sessions and get something out of them even if they can’t afford to buy a copy of the book or the time to read it. We would encourage people to read/listen to as much as possible, but you are welcome to attend and listen along even if you are unable to engage with any of the below.

Information about White Skin, Black Fuel from the publishers Verso:

“What does the rise of the far right mean for the battle against climate change? In the first study of the far right’s role in the climate crisis, White Skin, Black Fuel presents an eye-opening sweep of a novel political constellation, revealing its deep historical roots. Fossil-fuelled technologies were born steeped in racism. No one loved them more passionately than the classical fascists. Now right-wing forces have risen to the surface, some professing to have the solution—closing borders to save the nation as the climate breaks down. Epic and riveting, White Skin, Black Fuel traces a future of political fronts that can only heat up.”

About the Zetkin Collective

The Zetkin Collective is a group of scholars and activists working on the political ecology of the far right. It was formed around the Human Ecology division at Lund University in the summer of 2018. Conducting research in their native languages, the contributing authors to the book White Skin, Black Fuel are: Irma Allen, Anna Bartfai, Bernadette Barth, Lise Benoist, Julia Bittencourt Costa Moreira, Dounia Boukaouit, Clàudia Custodio, Philipa Olivia Dige, Ilaria di Meo, George Edwards, Morten Hesselbjerg, Ståle Holgersen, Claire Lagier, Andreas Malm, Sonja Pietiläinen, Daria Rivin, Line Skovlund Larsen, Luzia Strasser, Laudy van den Heuvel, Meike Vedder and Anoushka Eloise Zoob Carter.

Learn more about Zetkin Collective and its members on their website.”

About Stroud Radical Reading Group events and the venue

Our events are free to attend, though we will collect donations to cover the costs of venue hire on a donate-what-you-can-afford basis. We try to ensure the discussions are welcoming to new people, including people who have never been to a reading group before – and you don’t have to have been to university. You don’t even have to have read any of the book – you can just come along and listen to the discussion. Some free resources including a sample chapter we’ll focus our discussion on are included below though, and we’d encourage people to read/listen to as much as they can ahead of the session.

The Exchange has step-free access. We will keep windows open for ventilation, hand sanitiser is provided, and we ask people who are ill to stay away (whether they are ill with covid or something else). Attendees do not generally wear masks but we will be respectful to anyone who chooses to and other members may wear masks at request of other attendees – let us know your preferences in advance. Please contact us if you have any accessibility requirements, or other questions about how the events work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pspu3GuoFbY

whiteskinblackfuel-intro11-20Download
whiteskinblackfuel-ch8-204-245Download
Events

April 26th 2023: The Post-Internet Far-Right and Ecofascism

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On Wednesday 26th April, from 7.30-9.30pm at The Exchange, Brick Row, Stroud (GL5 1DF), Stroud Radical Reading Group will discuss “Post-Internet Far Right” and “The Rise of Ecofascism” by Sam Moore and Alex Roberts (also known as the “12 Rules for What collective” after their podcast). Our events tend to be attended by between 6-18 people. The books will both be briefly introduced by an attendee, before we go round the room to hear a little from each person – which could just include a question or topic they’d like to hear discussed.

This discussion will be the fourth of a monthly series looking at antifascism. You do not need to attend previous sessions in the series to come to or get something out of this session, though of course we recommend coming along to the other sessions too.

This session is slightly different to our others in general, as we will be discussing two books – though they are both by the same authors. We have decided to do this partly because the books are shorter (similar in length combined to many single books). Readers may prefer to read one or other book ahead of the session, we believe the conversation about the two books will still be productive.

We recommend you read two chapters from Post-Internet Far Right: Chapter 4 – Conspiracy Theory (pdf, pages 63-80) , and Chapter 10 – Ecofascism (pdf, pages 183-191). These are available via the links or preview below. Scroll down for more free resources: links to two short excerpts, a podcast, and two videos featuring the authors.

You can buy copies of either or both books from the Yellow Lighted Bookshop using the links below. When viewing your basket, enter the coupon code “StroudRadical23” to get a 12% discount (pre- and post- discount prices listed below:

chapter4conspiracytheoryDownload
chapter10ecofascismDownload

Freely available resources related to the book

We like to ensure everyone can attendee our sessions and get something out of them even if they can’t afford to buy a copy of the book or the time to read it. We would encourage people to read/listen to as much as possible, but you are welcome to attend and listen along even if you are unable to engage with any of the below.

Information about Post-Internet Far Right from the publishers Dog Section Press:

“The far right has changed. Since the rise of the internet, it has scattered, diversified, and stuck itself back together. The internet has facilitated these tendencies, filtering and contorting familiar forms of activity and ideology, and pushed far-right groups to adapt, causing the decline of some formations and the break-up of others. But the far right has not gone away – far from it – it is more powerful now than it has been for a generation. It has produced new configurations of tactics, priorities, and goals. Those who have survived the arrival of the internet have found a greater capacity to exert power than at any point since the Second World War.

The far right is in a state of productive diversification. It has yet to cohere around a new stable formulation; however, it almost certainly will, and we must be ready for it.

“In this short, timely book the 12 Rules for What collective provide a bestiary of the far-right – explaining its cranks and its obsessives, how they think, and the social processes that drive them. Accessible, well-informed, and full of compelling detail – every anti-fascist should read this.”

Information about Post-Internet Far Right from the publishers Dog Section Press:

“The world faces a climate crisis and an ascendant far right. Are these trends related? How does the far right think about the environment, and what openings does the coming crisis present for them? This incisive new book traces the long history of far-right environmentalism and explores how it is adapting to the contemporary world. It argues that the extreme right, after years of denying the reality of climate change, are now showing serious signs of reversing their strategy. A new generation of far-right activists has realized that impending environmental catastrophe represents their best chance yet for a return to relevance. In reality, however, their noxious blend of conspiracy, hatred and violence is no solution at all: it is the ‘eco-socialism of fools’. Only a real commitment to climate justice can save us and stop the far right in its tracks. No-one interested in the struggle against right-wing extremism and the crusade for climate justice can afford to miss this trenchant critique of burgeoning ecofascism.”

About Stroud Radical Reading Group events and the venue

Our events are free to attend, though we will collect donations to cover the costs of venue hire on a donate-what-you-can-afford basis. We try to ensure the discussions are welcoming to new people, including people who have never been to a reading group before – and you don’t have to have been to university. You don’t even have to have read any of the book – you can just come along and listen to the discussion. Some free resources including a sample chapter we’ll focus our discussion on are included below though, and we’d encourage people to read/listen to as much as they can ahead of the session.

The Exchange has step-free access. We will keep windows open for ventilation, hand sanitiser is provided, and we ask people who are ill to stay away (whether they are ill with covid or something else). Attendees do not generally wear masks but we will be respectful to anyone who chooses to and other members may wear masks at request of other attendees – let us know your preferences in advance. Please contact us if you have any accessibility requirements, or other questions about how the events work.

Events

March 29th 2023: Fractured – Race, Class, Gender and the Hatred of Identity Politics

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On Wednesday 29th March, from 7.30-9.30pm at The Exchange, Brick Row, Stroud (GL5 1DF), Stroud Radical Reading Group will discuss “Fractured, Race, Class, Gender and the Hatred of Identity Politics” by Michael Richmond and Alex Charnley”. This discussion will be the third of a series looking at antifascism, both historically and in the present.

You don’t have to read the other books in the series or attend all the events to come along to this one (though of course we recommend you do!). And you don’t have to even read this book to come along. We like to ensure everyone can attendee our sessions and get something out of them even if they can’t afford to buy a copy of the book or the time to read it. We would encourage people to read/listen to as much as possible, but you are welcome to attend and listen along even if you are unable to engage with any of the free resources below.

You can buy copies of the book from the Yellow Lighted Bookshop using this link (use the code “StroudRadical23” to reduce the price from the RRP of £16.99 to £14.95 – saving £2.04 or 12%).

Freely available resources related to the book are available below. We particularly recomment reading the section of Chapter 4 – which we use as a focus for our discussion during part of the session (this means everyone has the opportunity to share thoughts on a common text).

Our events are free to attend, though we will collect donations to cover the costs of venue hire on a donate-what-you-can-afford basis. We try to ensure the discussions are welcoming to new people, including people who have never been to a reading group before – and you don’t have to have been to university.

The Exchange has step-free access. We will keep windows open for ventilation, hand sanitiser is provided, and we ask people who are ill to stay away (whether they are ill with covid or something else). Attendees do not generally wear masks but we will be respectful to anyone who chooses to and other members may wear masks at request of other attendees – let us know your preferences in advance. Please contact us if you have any accessibility requirements, or other questions about how the events work.

“Identity politics has been a smear for decades. The right use it to lament the loss of free speech, while many on the left bemoan it as the end of class politics. It has been used to dismiss movements such as Black Lives Matter and brought seemingly progressive people into the path of fascism. It has emboldened the march of the transphobes.

In Fractured, the authors move away from the ahistorical temper of the identity politics debate. Instead of crudely categorising race, gender and sexuality as fixed and immutable identities, or forcing them under the banner of ‘diversity’, they argue that these categories are inseparable from the history of class struggle under British and US capitalism.

Through an appraisal of pivotal historical moments in Britain and the US, including Black feminist and anticolonial traditions on both sides of the Atlantic, the authors question the assumptions of the culture war, offering a refreshing and reasoned way to understand how historical class struggles were formed and continue to determine the possibilities for new forms of solidarity in an increasingly dangerous world.”


– information from the publishers Pluto Press

Events

February 22nd 2023: No Pasaran! Antifascist dispatches from a world in crisis

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On Wednesday 22nd February, from 7.30-9.30pm at The Exchange, Brick Row, Stroud (GL5 1DF), Stroud Radical Reading Group will discuss “¡No Pasarán! Antifascist Dispatches from a World in Crisis”, a book of essays edited by Shane Burley. This discussion will be the second of a series looking at antifascism, both historically and in the present. You are welcome to attend this session alone, though we of course recommend reading all the books in the series and coming to all the events for the full experience!

We suggest reading the Foreword, Introduction and Afterword (pdf) if you can (which we attach as a free download below) You can buy a full e-book for $12.50 from US-based publishers AK Press. If you have bought a copy of the book/ebook, you may like to pick one further chapter to read carefully and be prepared to tell the rest of the group about at the session. Alternatively, additional freely available resources related to the book are available below. We like to ensure everyone can attendee our sessions and get something out of them even if they can’t afford to buy a copy of the book or the time to read it. We would encourage people to read/listen to as much as possible, but you are welcome to attend and listen along even if you are unable to engage with any of the below.

nopasaranintrooutroDownload

Our events are free to attend, though we will collect donations to cover the costs of venue hire on a donate-what-you-can-afford basis. We try to ensure the discussions are welcoming to new people, including people who have never been to a reading group before – and you don’t have to have been to university. You don’t even have to have read any of the book – you can just come along and listen to the discussion. Some free resources including a sample chapter we’ll focus our discussion on are included below though, and we’d encourage people to read/listen to as much as they can ahead of the session.

The Exchange has step-free access. We will keep windows open for ventilation, hand sanitiser is provided, and we ask people who are ill to stay away (whether they are ill with covid or something else). Attendees do not generally wear masks but we will be respectful to anyone who chooses to and other members may wear masks at request of other attendees – let us know your preferences in advance. Please contact us if you have any accessibility requirements, or other questions about how the events work.

“¡No Pasarán! is an anthology of antifascist writing that takes up the fight against white supremacy and the far-right from multiple angles. From the history of antifascism to today’s movement to identify, deplatform, and confront the right, and the ways an insurgent fascism is growing within capitalist democracies, a myriad of voices come together to shape the new face of antifascism in a moment of social and political flux.”

Contributors include: Kim Kelly, Geo Maher, Hilary A. Moore, Daryle Lamont Jenkins, Emily Gorcenski, Maia Ramnath, Alexander Reid Ross, Matthew N. Lyons, Abner Häuge, Margaret Killjoy, Michael Novick, Jeanelle K. Hope, Maxililian Alvarez, Emmi Bevensee, Frank Miroslav, Ryan Smith, Leila al-Shami, Shon Meckfessel, Patrick Strickland, Mike Bento, Mirna Wabi-Sabi, Benjamin S. Case, Joan Braune, and Margaret Rex. Editor Shane Burley is an author based in Portland, Oregon. He is the author of Why We Fight: Essays on Fascism, Resistance, and Surviving the Apocalypse (AK Press, 2021) and Fascism Today: What It Is and How to End It (AK Press, 2017). Author of the afterword David Renton is a barrister, historian, and antifascist activist. His previous books include The New Authoritarians  and Fascism: History and Theory. Author of the foreword Tal Lavin, is also author of Culture Warlords.”
– information from the publishers AK Press