On Wednesday 27th May 2026, from 7.30-9.30pm, Stroud Radical Reading Group will host a talk & discussion of the edited collection We Will Rise Again – speculative stories on protest, resistance and hope. The event will be held at Redz, 6 Threadneedle St, Stroud – and is free to attend.
We Will Rise Again mixes fiction and non-fiction and explores the value of speculation in informing movements on disability justice, environmentalism, community care and anticolonial resistance. Editors Karen Lord, Annalee Newitz, and Malka Older champion realistic, progressive social change using the speculative stories of writers across the world. Authors include NK Jemisin, Charlie Jane Anders, Alejandro Heredia, Sam J. Miller, Nisi Shawl, and Sabrina Vourvoulias.
Below in our resources section you can find a link to buy the book at a discount, and free text, audio and visual resources. There is also more information about the books and Stroud Radical Reading Group events.
We will meet at Redz Youth Hub, 6 Threadneedle St, GL5 1AF. Entry is free butplease bring some cash if you can afford to donate to cover venue costs.
Anyone interested in the books is welcome – we recommend reading one or other of the books but you don’t need to have read either to join us. You do not need to have attended any of our previous sessions. 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.
“Each story is grounded within a broader sociopolitical framework using essays and interviews from movement leaders, including adrienne maree brown and Walidah Imarisha, charting the future history of protest, revolutions, and resistance with the same zeal for accuracy that speculative writers normally bring to science and technology. Using the vehicle of ambitious storytelling, We Will Rise Again offers effective tools for organizing, an unflinching interrogation of the status quo, and a blueprint for prefiguring a different world.”
Resources
Buy “We Will Rise Again” – £15.29 with discount (RRP £17.99, saving £2.70).To get the discount from The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop: Look at your “basket”, and enter the “couponcode” 26stroudradical. Pick up your book from their Nailsworth, Tetbury or Chalford shops, or get books delivered to your door for £3.50 postage.
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.
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.
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 where we will meet. There is a toilet, and some comfortable seating as well as basic folding chairs. 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.
There is an opportunity for more informal discussion after the session in the Ale House pub (around the corner) for anyone who wants to continue chatting after 9.30pm.
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:
60 minute audio interview with the author from The Poor Prole’s Almanac podcast – exploring the concept of community-building, the power of utopia, and what kind of tools are at our disposal to find ways to gum up the system destroying the ecosystem
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.
On Monday August 29th 2022, from 7.30-9.30pm at The Exchange, Brick Row, Stroud (GL5 1DF), Stroud Radical Reading Group will discuss Alicia Garza’s book The Purpose of Power: How to build movements for the 21st Century (discounted copies are available from a local bookshop – click the previous link/see below).
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.
“Black Lives Matter began as a hashtag when Alicia Garza wrote what she calls ‘a love letter to Black people’ on Facebook. But hashtags don’t build movements, she tells us. People do.
Interwoven with Garza’s experience of life as a Black woman, The Purpose of Power is the story of how she responded to the persistent message that Black lives are of less value than white lives by galvanizing people to create change. It’s an insight into grass roots organizing to deliver basic needs – affordable housing, workplace protections, access to good education – to those locked out of the economy by racism.
It is an attempt not only to make sense of where Black Lives Matter came from but also to understand the possibilities that Black Lives Matter and movements like it hold for our collective futures. Ultimately, it’s an appeal to hearts and minds, demanding that we think about our privileges and prejudices and ask how we might contribute to the change we want to see in the world”
– Publisher information about the book
We will focus our discussion on Chapter 1 – which is available free. We encourage people to buy a copy of the book and read as much as possible, but appreciate not everyone can afford this in terms of either money or time – or may prefer audio/visual content. Below we provide links to another excerpt from the book, and two interview with Alicia Garza (one a video, the other text), which are all freely available.
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.
Resources
Click to buy The Purpose of Power from The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop – add the book to your basked, click to ‘view your basked’, where you’ll see a ‘coupon code’ option – enter code “StroudRadical”, then proceed to the checkout where £1.20 will be taken off the RRP of £9.99 to make the price to pay £8.79 (before any delivery costs – you can pick up for free from Nailsworth, Chalford or Tetbury).
‘The black people killed by police are just one piece of a larger structural problem’ – a 2015 piece published by The Guardian featuring comment by Alicia Garza, as well as Patrisse Cullors and Darnell L Moore, all involved with Black Lives Matter.
Our monthly events in spring 2020 will form a series on “Debates around social ecology”. Each of these three events will be held on the last Wednesday of the month, 7.30-9.30pm – online via Zoom. See poster and text below it for more details.
29th April: Ecological Marxism and environmental neo-Malthusianism
While we will focus on the Introductory section, I recommending reading more of the text if you are able to. You down the 10,000 word closing section of the book as an ODT file. This is made up of two essays from Bookchin and Foreman on their reflections on the debate, written one year later (10,000 words). This might be of particular interest.
Our monthly events in early 2020 will form a series on “Praxis: activism, social movements, and revolution”. Each of these three events will be held on Wednesdays, 7.30-9.30pm at The Exchange Stroud (GL5 1DF). Dates and links to full information below
Poster for Stroud Radical Reading Group first series of 2020
We will focus our discussion on Chapter 4: “Practice-Oriented Thinking: ‘The Philosophers Have Only Interpreted the World’ (you will need to email us for the text, but are encouraged to read the full book, which can be ordered for next day delivery from Stroud Bookshop, £19.95). Why Social Movements Matter explains social movements for a general educated readership, shows how much social movements are part of our everyday lives, and how in many ways they have shaped the world we live in over centuries.
We will focus our discussion on Chapter 5 “A Women’s Revolution” (pages 82-102) of Revolution in Rojava – Democratic Autonomy and Women’s Liberation in Syrian Kurdistan (pdf, 4.7Mb) by Michael Knapp, Anja Flach, and Ercan Ayboga (translated by Janet Biehl). Since a 2012 revolution, and following the wider civil uprising in Syria beginning in 2011, Rojava is an autonomous region in northeastern Syria with direct democratic ambitions based on an anarchistic and libertarian socialist ideology – promoting decentralization, gender equality, environmental sustainability and pluralistic tolerance for religious, cultural and political diversity. We recommend you also read the Foreword (by David Graeber) and Introduction if you are unfamiliar with Rojava (pages 12-25). Copies of the book are available from Pluto press priced at £17.99 paperback, £3.99 ebook.
We will discuss “What’s Fat Activism?” (pdf) by Charlotte Cooper, exploring what we can learn from the history of fat activism, as well as touching on how we can unpick the ways we’ve been shaped by harmful, moralising discourses around food and weight that surround us. The article covers similar ground to Cooper’s book Fat Activism: A Radical Social Movement (HammerOn press, paperback £16, ebook £10), a rare insider’s view of fat people speaking about their lives and politics on their own terms. As ever, we have selected a shorter text to focus our discussion but recommend readers read the full book if they are able.
Due to the necessary social distancing measures and our desire to support the effort to stop the spread of the new coronavirus COVID-19, we will be holding our next sessions online.
We will explore what we can learn from the history of fat activism, as well as touching on how we can unpick the ways we’ve been shaped by harmful, moralising discourses around food and weight that surround us.
To accompany the text, we encourage readers to read this short Instagram post by Sofie Hagen, a response to the question ‘but what about health?‘, and watch this short video featuring author Charlotte Cooper on ‘A Walk Around Fat Activist London’ as part of promotion for her book Fat Activism: A Radical Social Movement (HammerOn press, paperback £16, ebook £10), a rare insider’s view of fat people speaking about their lives and politics on their own terms. As ever, we have selected a shorter text to focus our discussion but recommend readers read the full book if they are able.
Charlotte Cooper is a psychotherapist, cultural worker and para-academic living and working in London. She is a founding proponent of Fat Studies. By lifting the lid on a previously unexplored social movement and offering a fresh perspective on one of the major problems of our times, Cooper’s expansive grassroots study:
Reveals details of fat activist methods and approaches and explodes myths
Charts extensive accounts of international fat activist historical roots going back over four decades
Explores controversies and tensions in the movement
Shows that fat activism is an undeniably feminist and queer phenomenon
Explains why fat activism presents exciting possibilities for anyone interested in social justice.
To kick off our 2020 series on “Praxis: activism, social movements and revolution” We will focus on Chapter 4 of Why Social Movements Matter by Laurence Cox, one of Europe’s leading social movement researchers: “Practice-Oriented Thinking: ‘The Philosophers Have Only Interpreted the World’” (email us for the text). We encourage you to read the full book, which can be ordered for next day delivery from Stroud Bookshop, £19.95, though we will focus our discussion on the chapter, and welcome people who have not done the reading to listen to the discussion.
About the book: Social movements and popular struggle are a central part of today’s world, but often neglected or misunderstood by media commentary as well as experts in other fields. Why Social Movements Matter explains social movements for a general educated readership, shows how much social movements are part of our everyday lives, and how in many ways they have shaped the world we live in over centuries. It explores the relationship between social movements and the left, how movements develop and change, the complex relationship between movements and intellectual life, and delivers a powerful argument for rethinking how the social world is constructed. Drawing on three decades of experience, Why Social Movements Matter shows the real space for hope in a contested world.
Author Laurence Cox is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the National University of Ireland Maynooth and Associate Researcher at the Collège d’Etudes Mondiales, Paris. He has published widely on different aspects of social movements, including We Make Our Own History: Marxism and Social Movements in the Twilight of Neoliberalism, Voices of 1968: Documents from the Global North, Understanding European Movements, Marxism and Social Movements and Silence Would Be Treason: Last Writings of Ken Saro-Wiwa.
He has been involved in many different kinds of movement since the 1980s, including ecological, international solidarity, human rights and organising against repression, antiwar, community activism, radical media, self-organised spaces, alternative education and the alter-globalisation ‘movement of movements’.
If you’re not able to read the text, or prefer an audio-visual source, you may be interested in a 36minute podcast from the New Books Network, or the short videos with Laurence Cox produced by the publisher of the book.
Stroud Radical Reading Group 