Haymarket Books Live

Join independent artists Narcy and Lowkey for a wide-ranging conversation celebrating the release of Narcy’s debut book Text Messages. ---------------------------------------------------- Independent hip-hop artists Narcy and Lowkey on art, technology, empire, and the struggle to survive the end of consumer capitalism. ---------------------------------------------------- Text Messages is the first multi-genre collection by Montreal-based Iraqi hip-hop artist, activist, and professor Yassin “Narcy” Alsalman. Composed entirely on a smartphone during air travel and married to artwork from comrades, Narcy’s writing speaks of the existential crises experienced by diasporic children of war before and during imperialism in the age of the Internet. Narcy 's verses span the space between hip-hop and manifesto, portraying a crumbling, end-stage capitalist society, visions for a new reality, and exposes the myth of multiculturalism in post-9/11 North America. The wordsmith hollows and transmogrifies the grotesque excess of the West by juxtaposing McLife with images of death, destruction, and trauma in the East. From the depths of apathetic consumerism arises a voice of spiritual self-realization that explodes the misrepresented, mythical monolith of Islam in the West and with the rubble builds healing through intelligent resistance and radical love. ---------------------------------------------------------- Real name Yassin Alsalman, Narcy is a musician, director, professor, writer, and actor. He teaches a hip-hop production class and a cultural study of rap and politics at Concordia University. He is the cofounder of WeAreTheMedium, a culture point for publishing, media, and the arts. He currently resides in Montreal, has his heart in the Arab world, and is grounded on planet Earth. Most importantly, he is a father of two. Lowkey is a hip hop artist and political campaigner. He has worked with Immortal Technique , Wretch 32, Akala, Dead Prez and Outlawz. He is part of the super group Mongrel alongside members of the Arctic Monkeys, Babyshambles and Reverend And The Makers. The band released their album Better than Heavy in tandem with the Independent newspaper. In Canada order the book from Fernwood Publishers: https://fernwoodpublishing.ca/book/text-messages In the US and World: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1474-text-messages Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/1vo8CNFu2w0 Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks

The second in a series of Critical Conversations organized by Study and Struggle discussing prison abolition and immigrant justice. ————————————————————— The Study and Struggle program is the first phase of an ongoing project to organize against incarceration and criminalization in Mississippi through four months of political education and community building. Our Critical Conversations webinar series, hosted by Haymarket Books, will cover the themes for the upcoming month. Haymarket Books is an independent, radical, non-profit publisher. The third webinar theme is Deconstructing Settler Colonialism and Borders and will be a conversation about how settler colonialism and border imperialism are foundational pillars of the US prison industrial complex. It will include reflections on how the fight for abolition can better integrate a decolonial politics into our organizing against policing, prisons, and borders of all kinds. ————————————————————— Speakers: Kelly Lytle Hernández is a professor of History, African American Studies, and Urban Planning at UCLA where she holds The Thomas E. Lifka Endowed Chair in History. She is also the Director of the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA. One of the nation’s leading experts on race, immigration, and mass incarceration, she is the author of the award-winning books, Migra! A History of the U.S. Border Patrol and City of Inmates: Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles. Nick Estes is Kul Wicasa, a citizen of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe born and raised in Chamberlain, SD next to our relative, Mni Sose, the Missouri River. His nation is the Oceti Sakowin Oyate (the Great Sioux Nation or the Nation of the Seven Council Fires). Nick is an Assistant Professor of American Studies at the University of New Mexico and a member of the Oak Lake Writers Society, a group of Dakota, Nakota, and Lakota writers. In 2014 he co-founded The Red Nation in Albuquerque, NM, an organization dedicated to the liberation of Native people from capitalism and colonialism. Harsha Walia is the award-winning author of Undoing Border Imperialism. Trained in the law, she is a community organizer and campaigner in migrant justice, anti-capitalist, feminist, and anti-imperialist movements, including No One Is Illegal and Women's Memorial March Committee. Lorena Quiroz is a 22-year Mississippi resident. Born in Ecuador, by way of New York, she’s an organizer and mother of three amazing girls; first generation Afro Latinas born in the beautiful Delta flatlands. She is the founder of the Immigrant Alliance for Justice and Equity, an organization whose purpose is to amplify the voices of marginalized, multi-racial, and immigrant communities by active participation in civic engagement in deconstructing barriers that perpetuate racial, xenophobic, socio-economical, and gender identity and sexuality disparities and oppression. Christine Castro (moderator) is a former migrant student and current postdoctoral fellow, researching the intersections of industrial agriculture and police militarization. Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/LlzPsVthhSo Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks

Authors Richard Seymour and Wendy Liu discuss how our social-media generated addiction to writing is ruining our lives, and what we can do to escape its vicious cycles. ---------------------------------------------------- What is the Twittering Machine? An addiction-machine organized around the first ever mass, open-air, collective writing experiment. A microcelebrity-farm, where the only incentive to be there is to cultivate, and destroy, a personal idol. A furnace of meaning, wherein the mass of information stands in inverse proportion to truth. A volatile combination of the stock market, 24 hour news and Neighborhood Watch. This is the social industry. It thrives as it occupies every corner of our lives with compulsive, wage-free writing. It programs our social lives by algorithm and code, subordinating us to mercurial hierarchies of status and visibility, and to the grammar of capitalism. With each new tweetstorm, it brings us ever closer to the edge. Faced with such a novel, unprecedented power, we are entitled to ask the minimum utopian question: what else could we be doing, if not this? ---------------------------------------------------- Speakers: Richard Seymour is a writer and editor based in London. He is the author of The Twittering Machine and is a founding editor of Salvage. Wendy Liu is a tech commentator, software engineer and former startup founder who left the tech industry to pursue a masters degree in inequality from the London School of Economics. She is the author of Abolish Silicon Valley (Repeater Books) and has written for Logic Magazine, Tribune, and New Internationalist. Her articles on tech worker union organizing have been featured in The Atlantic and CNBC.- --------------------------------------------------- Order a copy of Richard Seymour's "The Twittering Machine": https://www.versobooks.com/books/3229-the-twittering-machine Order a copy of Wendy Liu's "Abolish Silicon Valley": https://bookshop.org/a/1039/9781912248704 ---------------------------------------------------------- This event is co-sponsored by Haymarket Books and Verso Books. While all of our events are freely available, we ask that those who are able make a solidarity donation in support of our important publishing and programming work. https://www.haymarketbooks.org https://www.versobooks.com Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/k4zu8Wvoepc Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks

Join Chicago education justice organizers for a conversation about winning Black liberation in our classrooms, our communities and beyond. ———————————————— In recent years, Chicago-area parents, teachers, and youth have built successful grassroots campaigns to win reforms, challenge the priorities of city officials, and capture local elected offices. Educational justice and Black Liberation cannot be made in the classroom alone, at the ballot box alone, or even in the streets alone. Join this conversation with Chicago-area activists to learn more about how their recent work has unfolded, what they’ve learned, and what’s next. ———————————————— Speakers: Kaleb Autman is a Chicago-based creative director and producer, educator, writer, scholar, community organizer, and political strategist. His work focuses on (youth) incarceration, police violence, conscience media making, and social inequities. At the age of 18, this nationally published and internationally traveled social justice scholar has contributed to over 25 political campaigns, ranging from unseating a corrupt states attorney to delivering personal goods and community to people in developing countries. His work is built upon the necessity of relationships and accountability. He has been published by many outlets like Apple, BET, ABC, Truthout, and many more to come in the future. Stacy Davis Gates is the Vice President of the Chicago Teachers Union. In 2019, she helped to lead a 15-day strike and to negotiate an historic contract that provides for smaller class sizes, ensures a nurse and social worker in every Chicago public school, secures sanctuary protections for immigrant families, and supports students and families experiencing homelessness. David O. Stovall is Professor in the Department of Black Studies and in the Department of Criminology, Law & Justice at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His scholarship uses Critical Race Theory to interrogate the relationship between race, place and school. In addition to his duties and responsibilities as a university professor, he works with students, teachers, parents and community stakeholders to abolish the school/prison nexus. Hosted by Bettina Love and Brian Jones ————————————————————— Produced by Haymarket Books, co-sponsored by the Abolitionist Teaching Network & the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. While all of our events are freely available, we ask that those who are able make a solidarity donation in support of our important work. Haymarket Books: https://www.haymarketbooks.org Abolitionist Teaching Network: https://abolitionistteachingnetwork.org/ Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture: https://www.nypl.org/locations/schomburg Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/A2o0Fwbmu5g Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks

Join Critical Resistance and the AbolitionNOW coalition for the fourth in their series of virtual teach-in's. ———————————————— During this session, we’ll take a deeper dive into the US imperialist project and its impacts. We’ll discuss resistance movements, transformative solidarity, and the fight for abolition————————————————————— Speakers: Lara Kiswani - Arab Resource and Organizing Center Nicolas Cruz - The Red Nation William Depoo - Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM) Deborah - Black LGBTQIA+ Migrant Project Moderated by Woods Ervin - Critical Resistance ————————————————————— This event is presented by the AbolitionNOW Network and cosponsored by Haymarket Books, an independent, radical, non-profit publisher. While all of our events are freely available, we ask that those who are able make a solidarity donation in support of our continuing to do this important work. Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/h3hwMJLO7tg Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks

Join grassroots advocates for a conversation on ending the crisis of violence against Indigenous women and girls. In the United States, more than 4 in 5 Indigenous women have experienced violence, and more than 1 in 2 have experienced sexual violence. On some US reservations, Indigenous women are murdered at ten times the national rate. In Canada, Indigenous women are six times more likely to be murdered than non-Indigenous women and girls. In How We Go Home: Voices from Indigenous North America, a new book from Haymarket and Voice of Witness, narrator Gladys Radek shares her own story of becoming an advocate for the countless missing and murdered First Nations women in Canada. In this roundtable conversation, Gladys will be joined by the book’s editor, Sara Sinclair, and other advocates based in the US and Canada to discuss the grassroots efforts currently led by Indigenous communities to find justice, truth, and healing for Indigenous women and their families. ---------------------------------------------------- Speakers: Gladys Radek (Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en First Nations) is a tireless grassroots advocate fighting for justice for missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls (MMIWG) in Canada. Gladys' niece Tamara went missing in 2005 at age 22 along the notorious Highway of Tears. This inspired Gladys to become a community activist and eventually a Family Advocate for the National Inquiry into MMIWG in Canada. Gladys is a co-founder of Walk4Justice, an organization created to fight for the families and all women who went missing or were found murdered, as well as to get all of the answers they deserve. With Walk4Justice, Gladys has crossed the country 7 times and has spoked to thousands of families whose lives have been impacted by violence perpetrated against Native women and girls. Sara Sinclair is an oral historian, writer, and educator of Cree-Ojibwe and settler descent. Sara teaches in the Oral History Masters Program at Columbia University. She has contributed to the Columbia Center for Oral History Research’s Covid-19 Oral History, Narrative and Memory Archive, Obama Presidency Oral History, and Robert Rauschenberg Oral History Project. She has conducted oral histories for the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City Department of Environmental Protection, and the International Labor Organization, among others. Sara is co-editor of Robert Rauschenberg: An Oral History, published with Columbia University Press in 2019. Find more information about Sara here and learn more about her Spring 2021 teaching at OHMA. Paula Julian is the Senior Policy Specialist for the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center (NIWRC). In her role, Paula assists with policy analysis and development, technical assistance and training, and the development of partnerships to strengthen laws, policies and responses addressing violence against American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian women. Her work has involved supporting Alaska Native advocates to establish the Alaska Native Women’s Resource Center and with Native Hawaiian advocates to form the Pouhana O Na Wahine (Pillars of Women) – both organizations dedicated to addressing domestic and gender-based violence in the Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian community. Prior to NIWRC, Paula worked with Sacred Circle. Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/8mUaKdX-Ynw Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks

Key worker organizers from the videogames industry draw lessons from their struggle, all while collectively playing through Fall Guys. ———————————————— Since the beginning of 2018 there has been a wave of worker organizing in the videogames industry. While there is a longer history of resistance and struggle among game workers, the last two years have been the most visible and connected examples so far, with active campaigns stretched across several contingents. This interactive discussion will bring together key participants from the US and UK and ask them to reflect on the experience of organizing through worker networks, assess the efforts of their new trade union formations, and generalize the lessons of these important workplace struggles—all while collectively playing through Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout. The chaos, vibrancy, and frenetic antics of this multiplayer battle royale should provide an excellent backdrop for the conversation, and may even offer unexpected insights into the work that goes into the videogames industry. If nothing else it will make for a more entertaining than usual panel discussion. The event will close with plenty of time for questions for the speakers about the organizing and/or gameplay advise from the online audience. ———————————————— Dr Jamie Woodcock is a senior lecturer at the Open University and a researcher based in London. He is the author of The Gig Economy (Polity, 2019), Marx at the Arcade (Haymarket, 2019), and Working The Phones (Pluto, 2017). His research is inspired by the workers' inquiry and focuses on labour, work, the gig economy, platforms, resistance, organizing, and videogames. He is on the editorial board of Notes from Below and Historical Materialism. Emma Kinema is an organizer with the Communication Workers of America (CWA). Austin Kelmore is the former chair of Game Workers Unite UK, a game programmer, tech lead, DEI advocate, and tea drinker. ————————————————————— Order a copy of Marx at the Arcade: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1319-marx-at-the-arcade The Gig Economy: https://bookshop.org/a/1039/9781509536368 Working the Phones: https://bookshop.org/a/1039/9780745399065 Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/46ArCqpxS20 Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks

Join Critical Resistance and the AbolitionNOW coalition for the third in their series of virtual teach-in's. ———————————————— A panel of experts will connect the dots between imprisonment and jail expansion in the movement to defund policing and how all of these pieces tie into the larger movement towards abolition. ————————————————————— Speakers: Marlene Ramos - Critical Resistance Member William Palmer - Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, All of Us or None Kelly Savage - Survived and Punished Jonathan Butler - BYP100, National No New Jails Network. Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/2-DZpxYPdUA Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks

A virtual teach-in featuring movements leaders who came together to launch the short film, Message from the Future II: The Years of Repair. Watch the film here: https://theintercept.com/2020/10/01/naomi-klein-message-from-future-covid/ ---------------------------------------------------- What if 2020 was an historic turning point, where the lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic and global uprisings against racism drove us to build back a better society in which no one is sacrificed, and everyone is essential? This virtual teach-in used the animated short film Message from the Future II: The Years of Repair to help envision this kind of a transition, and will features representatives from incredible organizations engaged in the kind of work that could make it a reality. Join Haymarket Books, The Leap, writer & producer Avi Lewis, and others for a conversation on the role of radical utopianism in a time of crisis Speakers: David Boys is PSI Deputy General Secretary and coordinates PSI’s work on privatisation, climate and emergency workers and water, waste and energy utilities. David joined the PSI team in 1999. Public Services International is a Global Union Federation of more than 700 trade unions representing 30 million workers in 154 countries. It brings their voices to the UN, ILO, WHO and other regional and global organisations. It defends trade union and workers' rights and fight for universal access to quality public services. Cathy Kennedy is President of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC), and Vice President of National Nurses United (NNU), the largest U.S. union and professional association of registered nurses. NNU is a founding affiliate of Global Nurses United. Annie Leonard is the Executive Director of Greenpeace US, the US office of the global Greenpeace network which is includes more than 50 countries. Greenpeace uses research, creative communication, people power and non violent direct action to create a green and peaceful future for all. Prior to Greenpeace, Annie created the Story of Stuff internet film and book. Avi Lewis is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, journalist, and lecturer in Journalism and Media Studies at Rutgers University. In 2017, he co-founded and is now Strategic Director of The Leap – an organization launched to upend our collective response to the crises of climate, inequality and racism. He produced, and co-wrote with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Emmy nominated short film, Message from the Future and is producer and co-writer with Opal Tometi of the new short film, Message from the Future II: The Years of Repair Leila Salazar-López has served as the Executive Director of Amazon Watch since 2015. She is a mother, proud Chicana-Latina woman, and passionate defender of Mother Earth, the Amazon, Indigenous rights and climate justice. Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/UjIcTHioAVU Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks

The BreakBeat Poets Live! is a virtual, multi-generational showcase of some of the illest writers on the planet rock. Each chapter features writers and performers who are part of the Haymarket Books family. While all of our events are freely available, we ask that those who are able make a solidarity donation in support of our continuing to do this important work. Penelope Alegria is the 2019 Chicago Youth Poet Laureate and a two-time member of Young Chicago Authors’ artistic apprenticeship, Louder Than a Bomb Squad. Her work has been featured or is forthcoming in La Nueva Semana, El Beisman, Muse/A Journal, The Breakbeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNext, as well as BBC Radio 4 and WBEZ Radio Archives. She is a Brain Mill Press Editor’s Pick, and she was awarded the 2018 Literary Award by Julian Randall and both the 2019 and 2020 Poetry Award by the Niles West English Department. She has performed spoken word at the Obama Foundation Summit, Pitchfork Music Festival, and other venues in the Chicagoland area. She started at Harvard College in the fall of 2020. Nilah Foster is considered a part of the queer black youth that comes from the far south side of Chicago and represents it all with her pen. She was a Louder Than A Bomb Indy finalist of 2019 and Indy winner of 2020 which also allowed her to be a part of the bombsquad 2019 and 2020 cohort. But nothing serves a better medium of learning about her than from her writing where she interrogates her own truths and where she and the audience learn together. E’Mon Lauren is from the South Side of Chicago. She is a Scorpio enthusiast and a firm believer in Dorthy Dandridge reincarnation. E’mon uses poetry and playwriting to explore a philosophy of hood womanism. She was named Chicago’s first Youth Poet Laureate. A former Kuumba Lynx Performance Ensemble slam team member and Louder Than a Bomb champion, E’mon has performed in many venues including The Brave New Voices International Youth Poetry Festival and The Chicago Hip Hop Theatre Fest. She was a 2016 finalist for The Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Award. E’mon has been published in The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop, The Down Dirty Word, and elsewhere. She has been featured in Chicago Magazine, The Chicago Tribune, and on WGN Radio. She is a member of Young Chicago Authors Teaching Artist Corps. José Olivarez is the son of Mexican immigrants. His book, Citizen Illegal, won of the 2018 Chicago Review of Books Poetry Prize and was named a top book of 2018 by NPR. ​He holds fellowships from CantoMundo, Poets House, and the Bronx Council on the Arts. Olivarez was awarded the Author and Artist in Justice award from the Phillips Brooks House Association and named a Debut Poet of 2018 by Poets & Writers. He is a recipient of the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation. Jamila Woods is an activist, award-winning poet, and singer/songwriter whose inspirations include Gwendolyn Brooks and Toni Morrison, as well as Erykah Badu and Kendrick Lamar. As a solo artist, she specializes in an accessible yet non-commercial form of R&B that is rooted in soul and wholly modern, which can be heard on her albums HEAVN (2016) and LEGACY! LEGACY! (2019). She is also the co-editor of The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 2: Black Girl Magic. Kevin Coval is a poet and author of A People’s History of Chicago and over ten other collections, anthologies, and chapbooks. ​He is the founder and editor of the BreakBeat Poets series for Haymarket Books, artistic director for Young Chicago Authors, and the founder of Louder than a Bomb: The Chicago Youth Poetry Festival. Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/NPvZi_3U_ZE Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks