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anarchistbookfair.net
2009 NYC Anarchist Film Festival
The 3rd Annual NYC Anarchist Film Festival in Honor of Brad Will, our comrade and colleague murdered by police, takes place Friday, April 10, 2009 on the Lower East Side.
The Third Annual NYC Anarchist Film Festival will showcase contemporary documentaries and videos on current events and social movements from Palestinian resistance to Israeli terror in Gaza to the popular uprising and recent riots that swept Greece like wildfire.
Big Noise Films will screen a selection of short films from Iraq. Filmmakers will present videos on radical environmentalism, radical feminism, and movements for justice such as the ongoing struggle for human rights in Oaxaca, Mexico. See videos of courageous resistance from India to Europe, to Latin America, to the U.S.A. where dissent is being criminalized as terrorism. See videos that challenge the State’s unconstitutional "anti-terrorist" mandate from protests against the 2008 Republican National Convention. We also proudly present footage from the fight for free speech, in the Lower East Side's famous "Donut Riot" that ended with spontaneous combustion in Tompkins Square Park last summer.
Carlos Castaneda wrote in "Tales of Power" that the "true art of a warrior is to balance terror and wonder."" The NYC Anarchist Film Festival does not shy away from either the terror we are forced to confront in our world or from the wondrous inspiration that graces the human spirit...
Our hunger for liberation will never allow us to surrender to tyranny in any form. As the saying goes, "Give me liberty or die…!"
1-7pm: Films at the Sixth Street Community Center (638 E. 6th St, between Aves B and C)
8-10pm: Films at the Millennium Theater (66 E. 4th St, between 2nd Ave and the Bowery)
10pm-1am: Open Mic and Party at the Yippie Museum (9 Bleecker St, between the Bowery and Elizabeth St)
The NYC Anarchist Film Festival honors the life and work of Brad Will, a beloved friend and comrade, murdered by a government sniper in Oaxaca, Mexico on October 27, 2006, as he was filming.
In past years, talented and courageous independent and anarchist filmmakers from around the world have traveled to NYC to screen their brilliant films. The NYC AFF is a community forum to share and experience and discuss politically controversial, artistic, creative and socially diverse media.
The New York Anarchist Film Festival will consider radical films submissions. Have passionate, inspiring, rebellious and subversive content to share? (The shorter the better!) Please contact AFF Coordinator at: priya.warcry[at]yahoo[dot]com.
Priya Reddy
Organizer - Filmmaker/NYC Anarchist Film Festival in Honor of Brad Will
_________________________________________________________________
3rd Annual NYC Anarchist Book Fair!
Saturday April 11, 2009
11am-8pm at Judson Memorial
New York City, a center of anarchist life, culture, struggle, and ideas for 150 years, will host its 3rd annual NYC Anarchist Book Fair, a one-day exposition of books, zines, pamphlets, art, film/video, and other cultural and very political productions of the anarchist scene worldwide, on April 11, 2009 at Judson Memorial Church in Manhattan. In addition, there will be two days of panels, presentations, workshops, and skillshares on April 11 and 12 to provide further opportunities to learn more and share your own experience and creativity.
The goal of the book fair is to enable people to connect with one another as well as to provide broader access to the rich and varied field of anarchist ideas and practices. We're living in interesting times; as they say, crisis equals both risk and opportunity. Now is the perfect time to be exploring those ideas and practices and bringing them into play in our communities and the world.
We are calling for all anarchist publishers, zinesters, film/videographers, artists and all members of the worldwide anarchist community. Come meet local anarchists and others from all over the globe looking to connect with other anarchists. Whether you are an old anarchist with deep ties and knowledge or anarcho-curious and looking to find out more about anarchy, the book fair is for you. The 3rd Annual Anarchist Book Fair is a place where the ideas, activism, ethics, creativity and history of the contemporary anarchist movement come together in an exciting weekend of community and collaboration.
Judson Memorial Church, 55 Washington Square South The offfice and many events are at the 239 Thompson Street entrance around the corner.
For location information, public transportation information, and a map of the area visit our 'About Us' page.
Food will be available ($), plus childcare (free). For questions about childcare or to RSVP, call Dan at (917) 842-2985. Wheelchair accessible. Smoke-free environment. The Book Fair has adopted a policy of zero-tolerance for racist, sexist, queer-phobic, and other disrespectful behavior that works against an environment of tolerance and inclusiveness for a truly diverse range of communities.
Visit us on MySpace and Facebook
To contact the NYC Anarchist Book Fair Organizing Collective to volunteer, make a donation, or get more information, email us at info [at] anarchistbookfair [dot] net.
___________________________________________________________________
PRESENTATIONS, PANELS, WORKSHOPS, and SKILLSHARES SCHEDULE
Biographical information about speakers will be printed in the program.
Saturday, April 11
11:15am-7:45pm
11:15-12:45
"Culture Jamming & Subversive Media"
ClarkClarke and Lauren Larken
We will be giving a short presentation about our public works. These include Bail Us Out MTA Service Specialists, HollaBack, and other projects that don't have websites, as well as some graffiti.
"Radical Reference Presents: Do It Yourself Archives"
Jillian Cuellar and Nicole Martin
Facilitated by Jenna Freedman
Archivists Jillian Cuellar and Nicole Martin will give instruction on archiving principles and techniques for physical and digital materials. This skillshare will be appropriate for individuals and groups interested in preserving their documents and media.
"Songs of the Anarchist Movement"
Anne Price and Steve Suffet
Songs of the anarchist movement in the U.S. and other countries, including labor and other struggles.
"Decolonizing Our Diets"
Anixtla, Nai Fowler-Timir, Marcelitte Failla, Liza Hernandez, Nicole Acosta, Melissa Gibson, Yuri Rojas, and Lida Shao
This workshop is in connection with a zine project conceived and executed by the women and trans folk of NYC APOC (Anarchist People of Color). It grew out of an attempt to address through praxis the many points of intersection between our politics and our personal experiences. So much of our connections to origin, culture and tradition take place through the making and sharing of food; so much of our relationships to one another are entwined with our relationships to food and to our own racialized, gendered bodies; so much of our politics on global power, social and economic structures are manifested in our choices about the most basic, intimate necessities of our existence. We want to approach these issues in critical, decolonizing ways, while at the same time challenging the notion of a gendered division of labor.
"Prison/State: Anarchist Perspectives on Incarceration, Resistance, and Abolition"
Danielle, Victoria Law, Kyung Ji Kate Rhee, Viviane Saleh-Hanna, and Brendan Story
This panel will explore a variety of anarchist perspectives on the origins and impacts of incarceration, strategies and opportunities for resistance and prisoner support, and prison abolition. Dr. Viviane Saleh-Hanna will begin our discussion with a focus on the racialized militarization of justice, linking contemporary mass incarceration to a long-standing, white-supremacist confinement and genocide of Africans. Victoria Law and Kyung Ji Kate Rhee will go on to examine the particular challenges facing incarcerated women and youth, discussing current strategies of resistance carried out by those behind bars, opportunities for solidarity and support from people on the outside, and ways abolitionists can support reform without inadvertently strengthening the prison system. Finally, Brendan Story of the NY Anarchist Black Cross will discuss the importance of supporting political prisoners and how those efforts contribute to prison abolition more broadly. There will be time for questions and discussions following brief presentations by the speakers as well as opportunities to get involved in anti-prison work.
1-2:30
"Oakland Rebellion"
Ali, Billy and Matt
During the first hours of 2009, Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) police shot and killed 22-year-old Oscar Grant while he was laying face-down with his hands behind his back on the platform. In the following days, videos emerged on the Internet that clearly depicted this execution. A week after Grant's death, downtown Oakland erupted in an all-out rebellion with hundreds of youth attacking police cars and stores and leaving vehicles and dumpsters in flames as they went on a rampage that lasted hours. The riots that took place put the state on the defensive and led to the arrest of the police officer, Johannes Mehserle, who shot Oscar Grant. The uprising of January 7th was a warning to the authorities, and the anger brewing in Oakland is still ever-present. This presentation will sketch out the events around Oscar Grant's death including the demonstrations, the participation by anarchists and the attempt by liberal elements in the Bay Area to try to quell the spontaneous rebellions. It will include video and photographs as well as a time for Q & A and discussion.
"Against Tolerance"
Matt Hern
Building on some of my recent experiences working in the Arctic and in Turkey I'll argue against tolerance and multiculturalism and for hospitality and self-determination. I want to argue for a way of working and collaborating with very different people in way that doesn't collapse values into a false liberal consensus that looks a lot like colonialism. I'll suggest some specific approaches that have worked well, and poorly, for us.
"Transforming Education: Developing Radical Space within NYC Public Schools"
Nicholas Tishuk
This presentation is focused on the practical issues facing radical educators working in public schools. It will engage the limits and possibilities of this topic by including the voices of current and former NYC public school students.
"Anarchism's Principles and Prefigurative Practices"
Cindy Milstein
There are nearly as many definitions of anarchism as there are anarchists, and yet perhaps the best introduction can be found in exploring its basic principles and how those play out in its prefigurative praxis. This talk/discussion will look at some of the key ethical orientations that distinguish anarchism, followed by a diverse sampler of how anarchists try to struggle for, organize toward, and especially (re)construct a free society along these lines.
"Sex Work and the Media"
Sarah Jenny, Will Rockwell, Ruthie
Panelists will discuss their experiences creating sex worker-made media, being allies to sex workers utilizing new and print media, and handling the mainstream media such as in the cases of Spitzergate and the NYC Pro-Dommes stings in 2008. Panelists produce an array of media by, for, and/or about sex work and will answer questions such as: What is sex worker made media? What safety precautions can be taken when creating media about/for/by sex workers, legal and otherwise? Panelists will also discuss the intersections of social justice and independent media as specifically relevant to sex workers and their rights, oppressive constructs in/by media and how to challenge them, and the critique of sex worker representations in the mainstream media as well as tactics for culture jamming.
2:45-4:15
"The Crisis in Anarchist Publishing and Distribution"
Ramsey Kanaan, Kate Khatib, Joe Biel, Microscosm, and Alexander Dwinell
These are hardly auspicious times for media, publishing, and the dissemination of words and ideas. Since the rise of the movement -- radical publishers, bookstores, magazines et al in the 60s -- publishing has taken a beating. The growth of the chain-stores and then the rise of the Internet have hardly been kind, long before the current recession sparked a further hemorrhaging of staff, sales, and profitability across the mainstream and Left publishing houses and media institutions, and the closure of numerous stores, infoshops, magazines, and publishers. The panel, chaired by Ramsey Kanaan, will attempt to further illuminate this sad state of affairs, examine whether the wounds are somewhat self-inflicted, and probe the eternal what is to be done?
"An Anarchist in Cuba"
Peter Werbe
I propose to present ideas and observations taken from my two trips to the island. I will examine the anarchist, leftist, and mainstream views of Cuba and what each tendency advocates for change. I think several of the points I would present are fairly unique and go beyond what one anticipates from an anarchist. There is always great fascination with Cuba and often either uncritical support on the left or total condemnation from the right. I would also mention briefly the history of the vibrant anarcho-syndicalist movement and its fate under Castro.
"Organizing a Really Really Free Market (RRFM): Challenges and Consequences"
Arun Aguiar
I will present the history and evolution of Really Really Free Markets (RRFMs) from the first one that was held on the occasion of the G-8 Summit in Georgia four years ago. In New York City, RRFMs have been conducted by the In Our Hearts Anarchist Network over the last four years. After drawing steady audiences of 100-200 persons while the market was held at St. Mark's Church in the East Village, the turnout has grown from 200 in January at St Mark's to 600 in February at Judson Memorial Church to an estimated 800 (subject to verification), in rainy weather, on Sunday, March 29.
"The Economic Crisis and Anarchist Ways Forward"
Eric Laursen and Wayne Price
The panel will examine the nature of the current crisis in comparison with past economic disruptions and discuss what opportunities the crisis offers anarchists to move toward a new, cooperative, and liberated society.
4:30-6
"Street Combat: Basics"
J. "G"." J. and Ariel
This workshop / skillshare will provide a forum where different martial artists / streetfighters will share techniques and principles for self-defense / combat that are easily-learned, effectively executed and adaptable to any body-type, age, fitness-level, etc. Krav Maga, Wing Chun and Muy Thai will be explored. Any anarchist (even pacifists) could benefit from some hands-on, hand-to-hand combat training. Self-defense is essential to the exercise of autonomy, as one never knows when abusive partners, would-be attackers and recalcitrant police need be subdued / eluded. If it was good enough for the BPP...
"Intellectual Property Is Theft"
Margaret Killjoy
Creative Commons, anti-copyright, copyleft, all of that nonsense explained. Copyright, and intellectual property, are capitalist tools, and anarchist book publishers and media creators would do well to be informed of how to avoid capitalist co-option while opening the space for free culture. Free zine provided.
"'Reading' Struggles from Athens to Oakland"
Silvia Federici and George Caffentzis
Midnight Notes will engage in a discussion of the current capitalist crisis and some of its most potent responses by reading the variety of struggles that have cropped up in recent months, such as in Greece, Oakland, and the Italian anomalous wave. How does organized refusal of capitalist command provoke crisis? How are movements able to circulate across the globe, short-circuit international divisions and hierarchies, and gain power? Through a reading of current struggles, we will revisit key concepts in relation to self-activity such as the meaning of autonomy; how struggles connect themes of refusal, exodus and revolution; what working class composition means; how circulation and cycles of struggles operate; and how one "reads" struggles politically and strategically.
"DIY New Media: Creating and Maintaining a Viable Internet Presence"
Sarah Jenny and Damien Luxe of the Hart Collective
In this presentation, veteran self-taught new media producers and designers Damien Luxe and Sarah Jenny will provide a brief and relevant history of the nature of new media. The focus of this workshop will be an in-depth, skill-building demonstration of how social justice movements and underrepresented voices can inexpensively utilize this democratic medium for change. In this presentation, we will inform participants on specific technologies such as site building, marketing, music production and podcasting, blogging, mailing lists, forums, freeware and open source software, and Web 2.0 social networking capacities in order to overview many modes of expression and distribution available. We will take it a step further, providing resources and a step-by-step practicum to engage in capacity building, networking, and information dissemination tailored for individuals and organizations on a low and no-cost budget.
6:15-7:45
"Direct Action Labor Struggle and Rank n' File Social Change
Mykke Holcomb and David Jimenez
The panel will combine shop-floor practitioners and theorists to examine the possibilities of returning to a labor and social movement based on direct action and rank n' file control. The panelists will assess prospects amid the economic crisis for moving toward anti-authoritarian organizing around transformative workplace demands.
"Insurrectionary Mutual Aid"
Aftershock Alliance
Part 1: Beyond Shock - How disasters/crises can be used to push for radical change. Part 2: Community rescue (a skillshare).
Sunday, April 12
10am-6pm
10-11:45
"From Mutual Aid to Collective Reproduction in the Capitalist Crisis"
Silvia Federici and George Caffentzis
The theme of mutual aid is important to the anarchist tradition, but how do we imagine cooperation in the time of capitalist crisis? Building collective forms of reproduction and understanding how we can overcome the divisions between us is a crucial task if we are to resist exploitation and oppression and create an equitable society. These divisions are continuously recreated and are our fundamental weakness. Thus we need to develop the tools to overcome them. Sivlia Federici, author, scholar, and feminist, will draw out the significance of collective reproduction in our struggles against capitalism. We will discuss how our anti-capitalist struggles can foster forms of support and develop our ability to collectively organize our own reproduction.
12-1:45
"Anarchism and Anti-Colonialism"
Nicole Acosta, Javier Genao, Elliott Liu, and Maia Ramnath
This panel proposes to look at the history and politics of anarchism and anti-colonialism, from a uniquely APOC (Anarchist People of Color) perspective. We'll give an overview of resistance movements in various parts of the Global South and the role anarchists and anarchist ideas have played in them. We'll also introduce and discuss the ways in which anarchist and postcolonial theory complement each other. Finally, we'll address key issues of activist praxis today: how do anarchists relate to anti-imperialist, national liberation struggles? What's the way to practice responsible solidarity with communities undergoing colonization in any form, whether foreign occupation or gentrification? How do anarchistic ideas manifest differently in different locations within global structures of power? How do we engage actively with race, gender, and postcolonial theory in our daily lives and struggles?
2-3:45
APOC Caucus
New York City Intentional Communities
Moderators: Viveka Zhang, John Smigel
Co-organizer: Jean Pockrus
A panel of organizers from Rubulad, John Bosch, Surreal Estate, Anuyan Worker's Commune, Brooklyn Cohousing, Radical Living, Grand Space, Emmaus House, Mud and Roses, and NewTown Vision, discussing the alternative economics and government of communal living.
"The Audacity of Hopelessness"
Aragorn!
The history of ideas that has led to many anarchist ideas follow along lines of classic Enlightenment thought. Ideas like progress, rationality, and humanism are part of many, if not most, understandings of anarchist political thought. These ideas have led to much of the rationale for anarchist organizing, publishing, and activism in the past 100 years and the time has come for an audit. What form would such an audit take? What presuppositions are useful, clouded, or necessary? At the end of this process, we are not going to argue against all activity, or to argue for a new kind of puritanical activity that includes a dark room filled with books and no social life, but we have a stark assessment of anarchist activity. Are we primarily a group of active wishful thinkers, high-minded rhetoriticians, far left harried activists, disillusioned revolutionaries, or all of the above and more? Perhaps our project is an identity crisis. What if everything you are doing is wrong?
Walking the Walk: Beyond Self-Management, but Not Without it.
Kiki Tropea and Joshua Stephens
Within the anarchist tradition, worker self-management has functioned as a sort of conventional reconstructive economic vision. The history of experiments therein is both rich and well-worn. But as a container for social transformation, especially while so many destructive forces shape and speak through us -- often well outside the sphere of production relations -- is this model, and the conversation it often produces, adequate? What other questions might our chosen flavor of workplace organization pose? What is its relationship to the communities in which it is carried out? What is its role in movement building? What does it communicate to the social body outside the proverbial shop floor? Perhaps most importantly, what the hell do a bunch of dogwalkers know about any of this? Two members of the Brighter Days Collective (a worker-run petcare firm in Washington, DC) will explore these questions, based on their day-to-day work.
4-5:45
"The Rock Dove Collective Presents: Budgeting for Well Being"
Rock Dove Collective
This workshop will include a presentation on how to budget for well being. We will be focusing on topics such as: self care, community support and dealing with money. Within these topics, different doves will discuss the importance of each and ways within which to manage these topics/issues in our daily lives. This will include internal body mapping and herbal medicine/at-home remedies for nourishing the nervous system; thoughts on how to access, create and call on community, discussing mutual aid practices as promotion of community wellness and healthy interdependence; and keeping a journal to track how, when and why we spend money, alternatives to using money as a means of access, and figuring out concrete ways to put money towards well being. We believe that if we ourselves are not healthy, than we cannot fully create the world we wish to live in. However, if we spend more time budgeting for our well being, perhaps this goal isn't too far from reach.
"Anarchism in Ireland"
Ashanti Alston
A discussion of historical and contemporary issues, including former members of the IRA. Topics include consensus decision making within the IRA, corporate globalization, political prisoners,solidarity movements, the Palestine and Irish peace process, the economic recession, the Republican movement, capitalism and liberation struggles, the civil rights movement, the Black Panthers, Obama, neo-colonial strategies, racism and discrimination in the US and Ireland, self-determination, the Zapatistas, counter-revolutionaries, crossover between black and Irish culture, and other things...
"Experiences of the Global Sex Industrial Complex"
Cady Vishniac and Amos Suguitan
Most anarchists either don't know any sex workers at all, or do know a couple of the most privileged sex workers on earth. While great concern exists within anarchist communities about the needs, wants, choices, and agency of sex workers, anti-capitalist movements have been remarkably bad at contacting the majority of less-privileged sex workers in order to form realistic ideas about the sex industry as a whole. Survivors in Revolt is a group of activists who have been in the sex industry in various capacities and are dedicated to educating all people, especially their anarchist peers, about the realities of being an undocumented worker in the richest industry in the world. Presentation will be followed by questions.
"Let Freedom Ring"
Paulette D'Auteuil, Ana M. Lopez, Matt Meyer, and Ashanti Alston
Drawing from panelists' experiences on both sides of the wall, this workshop will detail key campaigns of the past two decades regarding prisoner rights and political prisoners. Lifelong Puerto Rican independentista Prof. Ana Lopez of CUNY/Hostos will discuss the principles of non-collaboration, especially as they relate to her current work as coordinator of the Hostos Grand Jury Resistance Campaign. D'Auteuil, a leader of the New York Jericho Movement who has worked for decades to free imprisoned American Indian Movement leader Leonard Peltier, will report on current cases of vital importance to the movement. And Meyer, editor of the recently published Let Freedom Ring: A Collection of Documents from the Movements to Free US Political Prisoners, will kick off a participatory discussion on the significance of political prisoners to the overall justice and peace movement.
2009 NYC Anarchist Film Festival
The 3rd Annual NYC Anarchist Film Festival in Honor of Brad Will, our comrade and colleague murdered by police, takes place Friday, April 10, 2009 on the Lower East Side.
The Third Annual NYC Anarchist Film Festival will showcase contemporary documentaries and videos on current events and social movements from Palestinian resistance to Israeli terror in Gaza to the popular uprising and recent riots that swept Greece like wildfire.
Big Noise Films will screen a selection of short films from Iraq. Filmmakers will present videos on radical environmentalism, radical feminism, and movements for justice such as the ongoing struggle for human rights in Oaxaca, Mexico. See videos of courageous resistance from India to Europe, to Latin America, to the U.S.A. where dissent is being criminalized as terrorism. See videos that challenge the State’s unconstitutional "anti-terrorist" mandate from protests against the 2008 Republican National Convention. We also proudly present footage from the fight for free speech, in the Lower East Side's famous "Donut Riot" that ended with spontaneous combustion in Tompkins Square Park last summer.
Carlos Castaneda wrote in "Tales of Power" that the "true art of a warrior is to balance terror and wonder."" The NYC Anarchist Film Festival does not shy away from either the terror we are forced to confront in our world or from the wondrous inspiration that graces the human spirit...
Our hunger for liberation will never allow us to surrender to tyranny in any form. As the saying goes, "Give me liberty or die…!"
1-7pm: Films at the Sixth Street Community Center (638 E. 6th St, between Aves B and C)
8-10pm: Films at the Millennium Theater (66 E. 4th St, between 2nd Ave and the Bowery)
10pm-1am: Open Mic and Party at the Yippie Museum (9 Bleecker St, between the Bowery and Elizabeth St)
The NYC Anarchist Film Festival honors the life and work of Brad Will, a beloved friend and comrade, murdered by a government sniper in Oaxaca, Mexico on October 27, 2006, as he was filming.
In past years, talented and courageous independent and anarchist filmmakers from around the world have traveled to NYC to screen their brilliant films. The NYC AFF is a community forum to share and experience and discuss politically controversial, artistic, creative and socially diverse media.
The New York Anarchist Film Festival will consider radical films submissions. Have passionate, inspiring, rebellious and subversive content to share? (The shorter the better!) Please contact AFF Coordinator at: priya.warcry[at]yahoo[dot]com.
Priya Reddy
Organizer - Filmmaker/NYC Anarchist Film Festival in Honor of Brad Will
_________________________________________________________________
3rd Annual NYC Anarchist Book Fair!
Saturday April 11, 2009
11am-8pm at Judson Memorial
New York City, a center of anarchist life, culture, struggle, and ideas for 150 years, will host its 3rd annual NYC Anarchist Book Fair, a one-day exposition of books, zines, pamphlets, art, film/video, and other cultural and very political productions of the anarchist scene worldwide, on April 11, 2009 at Judson Memorial Church in Manhattan. In addition, there will be two days of panels, presentations, workshops, and skillshares on April 11 and 12 to provide further opportunities to learn more and share your own experience and creativity.
The goal of the book fair is to enable people to connect with one another as well as to provide broader access to the rich and varied field of anarchist ideas and practices. We're living in interesting times; as they say, crisis equals both risk and opportunity. Now is the perfect time to be exploring those ideas and practices and bringing them into play in our communities and the world.
We are calling for all anarchist publishers, zinesters, film/videographers, artists and all members of the worldwide anarchist community. Come meet local anarchists and others from all over the globe looking to connect with other anarchists. Whether you are an old anarchist with deep ties and knowledge or anarcho-curious and looking to find out more about anarchy, the book fair is for you. The 3rd Annual Anarchist Book Fair is a place where the ideas, activism, ethics, creativity and history of the contemporary anarchist movement come together in an exciting weekend of community and collaboration.
Judson Memorial Church, 55 Washington Square South The offfice and many events are at the 239 Thompson Street entrance around the corner.
For location information, public transportation information, and a map of the area visit our 'About Us' page.
Food will be available ($), plus childcare (free). For questions about childcare or to RSVP, call Dan at (917) 842-2985. Wheelchair accessible. Smoke-free environment. The Book Fair has adopted a policy of zero-tolerance for racist, sexist, queer-phobic, and other disrespectful behavior that works against an environment of tolerance and inclusiveness for a truly diverse range of communities.
Visit us on MySpace and Facebook
To contact the NYC Anarchist Book Fair Organizing Collective to volunteer, make a donation, or get more information, email us at info [at] anarchistbookfair [dot] net.
___________________________________________________________________
PRESENTATIONS, PANELS, WORKSHOPS, and SKILLSHARES SCHEDULE
Biographical information about speakers will be printed in the program.
Saturday, April 11
11:15am-7:45pm
11:15-12:45
"Culture Jamming & Subversive Media"
ClarkClarke and Lauren Larken
We will be giving a short presentation about our public works. These include Bail Us Out MTA Service Specialists, HollaBack, and other projects that don't have websites, as well as some graffiti.
"Radical Reference Presents: Do It Yourself Archives"
Jillian Cuellar and Nicole Martin
Facilitated by Jenna Freedman
Archivists Jillian Cuellar and Nicole Martin will give instruction on archiving principles and techniques for physical and digital materials. This skillshare will be appropriate for individuals and groups interested in preserving their documents and media.
"Songs of the Anarchist Movement"
Anne Price and Steve Suffet
Songs of the anarchist movement in the U.S. and other countries, including labor and other struggles.
"Decolonizing Our Diets"
Anixtla, Nai Fowler-Timir, Marcelitte Failla, Liza Hernandez, Nicole Acosta, Melissa Gibson, Yuri Rojas, and Lida Shao
This workshop is in connection with a zine project conceived and executed by the women and trans folk of NYC APOC (Anarchist People of Color). It grew out of an attempt to address through praxis the many points of intersection between our politics and our personal experiences. So much of our connections to origin, culture and tradition take place through the making and sharing of food; so much of our relationships to one another are entwined with our relationships to food and to our own racialized, gendered bodies; so much of our politics on global power, social and economic structures are manifested in our choices about the most basic, intimate necessities of our existence. We want to approach these issues in critical, decolonizing ways, while at the same time challenging the notion of a gendered division of labor.
"Prison/State: Anarchist Perspectives on Incarceration, Resistance, and Abolition"
Danielle, Victoria Law, Kyung Ji Kate Rhee, Viviane Saleh-Hanna, and Brendan Story
This panel will explore a variety of anarchist perspectives on the origins and impacts of incarceration, strategies and opportunities for resistance and prisoner support, and prison abolition. Dr. Viviane Saleh-Hanna will begin our discussion with a focus on the racialized militarization of justice, linking contemporary mass incarceration to a long-standing, white-supremacist confinement and genocide of Africans. Victoria Law and Kyung Ji Kate Rhee will go on to examine the particular challenges facing incarcerated women and youth, discussing current strategies of resistance carried out by those behind bars, opportunities for solidarity and support from people on the outside, and ways abolitionists can support reform without inadvertently strengthening the prison system. Finally, Brendan Story of the NY Anarchist Black Cross will discuss the importance of supporting political prisoners and how those efforts contribute to prison abolition more broadly. There will be time for questions and discussions following brief presentations by the speakers as well as opportunities to get involved in anti-prison work.
1-2:30
"Oakland Rebellion"
Ali, Billy and Matt
During the first hours of 2009, Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) police shot and killed 22-year-old Oscar Grant while he was laying face-down with his hands behind his back on the platform. In the following days, videos emerged on the Internet that clearly depicted this execution. A week after Grant's death, downtown Oakland erupted in an all-out rebellion with hundreds of youth attacking police cars and stores and leaving vehicles and dumpsters in flames as they went on a rampage that lasted hours. The riots that took place put the state on the defensive and led to the arrest of the police officer, Johannes Mehserle, who shot Oscar Grant. The uprising of January 7th was a warning to the authorities, and the anger brewing in Oakland is still ever-present. This presentation will sketch out the events around Oscar Grant's death including the demonstrations, the participation by anarchists and the attempt by liberal elements in the Bay Area to try to quell the spontaneous rebellions. It will include video and photographs as well as a time for Q & A and discussion.
"Against Tolerance"
Matt Hern
Building on some of my recent experiences working in the Arctic and in Turkey I'll argue against tolerance and multiculturalism and for hospitality and self-determination. I want to argue for a way of working and collaborating with very different people in way that doesn't collapse values into a false liberal consensus that looks a lot like colonialism. I'll suggest some specific approaches that have worked well, and poorly, for us.
"Transforming Education: Developing Radical Space within NYC Public Schools"
Nicholas Tishuk
This presentation is focused on the practical issues facing radical educators working in public schools. It will engage the limits and possibilities of this topic by including the voices of current and former NYC public school students.
"Anarchism's Principles and Prefigurative Practices"
Cindy Milstein
There are nearly as many definitions of anarchism as there are anarchists, and yet perhaps the best introduction can be found in exploring its basic principles and how those play out in its prefigurative praxis. This talk/discussion will look at some of the key ethical orientations that distinguish anarchism, followed by a diverse sampler of how anarchists try to struggle for, organize toward, and especially (re)construct a free society along these lines.
"Sex Work and the Media"
Sarah Jenny, Will Rockwell, Ruthie
Panelists will discuss their experiences creating sex worker-made media, being allies to sex workers utilizing new and print media, and handling the mainstream media such as in the cases of Spitzergate and the NYC Pro-Dommes stings in 2008. Panelists produce an array of media by, for, and/or about sex work and will answer questions such as: What is sex worker made media? What safety precautions can be taken when creating media about/for/by sex workers, legal and otherwise? Panelists will also discuss the intersections of social justice and independent media as specifically relevant to sex workers and their rights, oppressive constructs in/by media and how to challenge them, and the critique of sex worker representations in the mainstream media as well as tactics for culture jamming.
2:45-4:15
"The Crisis in Anarchist Publishing and Distribution"
Ramsey Kanaan, Kate Khatib, Joe Biel, Microscosm, and Alexander Dwinell
These are hardly auspicious times for media, publishing, and the dissemination of words and ideas. Since the rise of the movement -- radical publishers, bookstores, magazines et al in the 60s -- publishing has taken a beating. The growth of the chain-stores and then the rise of the Internet have hardly been kind, long before the current recession sparked a further hemorrhaging of staff, sales, and profitability across the mainstream and Left publishing houses and media institutions, and the closure of numerous stores, infoshops, magazines, and publishers. The panel, chaired by Ramsey Kanaan, will attempt to further illuminate this sad state of affairs, examine whether the wounds are somewhat self-inflicted, and probe the eternal what is to be done?
"An Anarchist in Cuba"
Peter Werbe
I propose to present ideas and observations taken from my two trips to the island. I will examine the anarchist, leftist, and mainstream views of Cuba and what each tendency advocates for change. I think several of the points I would present are fairly unique and go beyond what one anticipates from an anarchist. There is always great fascination with Cuba and often either uncritical support on the left or total condemnation from the right. I would also mention briefly the history of the vibrant anarcho-syndicalist movement and its fate under Castro.
"Organizing a Really Really Free Market (RRFM): Challenges and Consequences"
Arun Aguiar
I will present the history and evolution of Really Really Free Markets (RRFMs) from the first one that was held on the occasion of the G-8 Summit in Georgia four years ago. In New York City, RRFMs have been conducted by the In Our Hearts Anarchist Network over the last four years. After drawing steady audiences of 100-200 persons while the market was held at St. Mark's Church in the East Village, the turnout has grown from 200 in January at St Mark's to 600 in February at Judson Memorial Church to an estimated 800 (subject to verification), in rainy weather, on Sunday, March 29.
"The Economic Crisis and Anarchist Ways Forward"
Eric Laursen and Wayne Price
The panel will examine the nature of the current crisis in comparison with past economic disruptions and discuss what opportunities the crisis offers anarchists to move toward a new, cooperative, and liberated society.
4:30-6
"Street Combat: Basics"
J. "G"." J. and Ariel
This workshop / skillshare will provide a forum where different martial artists / streetfighters will share techniques and principles for self-defense / combat that are easily-learned, effectively executed and adaptable to any body-type, age, fitness-level, etc. Krav Maga, Wing Chun and Muy Thai will be explored. Any anarchist (even pacifists) could benefit from some hands-on, hand-to-hand combat training. Self-defense is essential to the exercise of autonomy, as one never knows when abusive partners, would-be attackers and recalcitrant police need be subdued / eluded. If it was good enough for the BPP...
"Intellectual Property Is Theft"
Margaret Killjoy
Creative Commons, anti-copyright, copyleft, all of that nonsense explained. Copyright, and intellectual property, are capitalist tools, and anarchist book publishers and media creators would do well to be informed of how to avoid capitalist co-option while opening the space for free culture. Free zine provided.
"'Reading' Struggles from Athens to Oakland"
Silvia Federici and George Caffentzis
Midnight Notes will engage in a discussion of the current capitalist crisis and some of its most potent responses by reading the variety of struggles that have cropped up in recent months, such as in Greece, Oakland, and the Italian anomalous wave. How does organized refusal of capitalist command provoke crisis? How are movements able to circulate across the globe, short-circuit international divisions and hierarchies, and gain power? Through a reading of current struggles, we will revisit key concepts in relation to self-activity such as the meaning of autonomy; how struggles connect themes of refusal, exodus and revolution; what working class composition means; how circulation and cycles of struggles operate; and how one "reads" struggles politically and strategically.
"DIY New Media: Creating and Maintaining a Viable Internet Presence"
Sarah Jenny and Damien Luxe of the Hart Collective
In this presentation, veteran self-taught new media producers and designers Damien Luxe and Sarah Jenny will provide a brief and relevant history of the nature of new media. The focus of this workshop will be an in-depth, skill-building demonstration of how social justice movements and underrepresented voices can inexpensively utilize this democratic medium for change. In this presentation, we will inform participants on specific technologies such as site building, marketing, music production and podcasting, blogging, mailing lists, forums, freeware and open source software, and Web 2.0 social networking capacities in order to overview many modes of expression and distribution available. We will take it a step further, providing resources and a step-by-step practicum to engage in capacity building, networking, and information dissemination tailored for individuals and organizations on a low and no-cost budget.
6:15-7:45
"Direct Action Labor Struggle and Rank n' File Social Change
Mykke Holcomb and David Jimenez
The panel will combine shop-floor practitioners and theorists to examine the possibilities of returning to a labor and social movement based on direct action and rank n' file control. The panelists will assess prospects amid the economic crisis for moving toward anti-authoritarian organizing around transformative workplace demands.
"Insurrectionary Mutual Aid"
Aftershock Alliance
Part 1: Beyond Shock - How disasters/crises can be used to push for radical change. Part 2: Community rescue (a skillshare).
Sunday, April 12
10am-6pm
10-11:45
"From Mutual Aid to Collective Reproduction in the Capitalist Crisis"
Silvia Federici and George Caffentzis
The theme of mutual aid is important to the anarchist tradition, but how do we imagine cooperation in the time of capitalist crisis? Building collective forms of reproduction and understanding how we can overcome the divisions between us is a crucial task if we are to resist exploitation and oppression and create an equitable society. These divisions are continuously recreated and are our fundamental weakness. Thus we need to develop the tools to overcome them. Sivlia Federici, author, scholar, and feminist, will draw out the significance of collective reproduction in our struggles against capitalism. We will discuss how our anti-capitalist struggles can foster forms of support and develop our ability to collectively organize our own reproduction.
12-1:45
"Anarchism and Anti-Colonialism"
Nicole Acosta, Javier Genao, Elliott Liu, and Maia Ramnath
This panel proposes to look at the history and politics of anarchism and anti-colonialism, from a uniquely APOC (Anarchist People of Color) perspective. We'll give an overview of resistance movements in various parts of the Global South and the role anarchists and anarchist ideas have played in them. We'll also introduce and discuss the ways in which anarchist and postcolonial theory complement each other. Finally, we'll address key issues of activist praxis today: how do anarchists relate to anti-imperialist, national liberation struggles? What's the way to practice responsible solidarity with communities undergoing colonization in any form, whether foreign occupation or gentrification? How do anarchistic ideas manifest differently in different locations within global structures of power? How do we engage actively with race, gender, and postcolonial theory in our daily lives and struggles?
2-3:45
APOC Caucus
New York City Intentional Communities
Moderators: Viveka Zhang, John Smigel
Co-organizer: Jean Pockrus
A panel of organizers from Rubulad, John Bosch, Surreal Estate, Anuyan Worker's Commune, Brooklyn Cohousing, Radical Living, Grand Space, Emmaus House, Mud and Roses, and NewTown Vision, discussing the alternative economics and government of communal living.
"The Audacity of Hopelessness"
Aragorn!
The history of ideas that has led to many anarchist ideas follow along lines of classic Enlightenment thought. Ideas like progress, rationality, and humanism are part of many, if not most, understandings of anarchist political thought. These ideas have led to much of the rationale for anarchist organizing, publishing, and activism in the past 100 years and the time has come for an audit. What form would such an audit take? What presuppositions are useful, clouded, or necessary? At the end of this process, we are not going to argue against all activity, or to argue for a new kind of puritanical activity that includes a dark room filled with books and no social life, but we have a stark assessment of anarchist activity. Are we primarily a group of active wishful thinkers, high-minded rhetoriticians, far left harried activists, disillusioned revolutionaries, or all of the above and more? Perhaps our project is an identity crisis. What if everything you are doing is wrong?
Walking the Walk: Beyond Self-Management, but Not Without it.
Kiki Tropea and Joshua Stephens
Within the anarchist tradition, worker self-management has functioned as a sort of conventional reconstructive economic vision. The history of experiments therein is both rich and well-worn. But as a container for social transformation, especially while so many destructive forces shape and speak through us -- often well outside the sphere of production relations -- is this model, and the conversation it often produces, adequate? What other questions might our chosen flavor of workplace organization pose? What is its relationship to the communities in which it is carried out? What is its role in movement building? What does it communicate to the social body outside the proverbial shop floor? Perhaps most importantly, what the hell do a bunch of dogwalkers know about any of this? Two members of the Brighter Days Collective (a worker-run petcare firm in Washington, DC) will explore these questions, based on their day-to-day work.
4-5:45
"The Rock Dove Collective Presents: Budgeting for Well Being"
Rock Dove Collective
This workshop will include a presentation on how to budget for well being. We will be focusing on topics such as: self care, community support and dealing with money. Within these topics, different doves will discuss the importance of each and ways within which to manage these topics/issues in our daily lives. This will include internal body mapping and herbal medicine/at-home remedies for nourishing the nervous system; thoughts on how to access, create and call on community, discussing mutual aid practices as promotion of community wellness and healthy interdependence; and keeping a journal to track how, when and why we spend money, alternatives to using money as a means of access, and figuring out concrete ways to put money towards well being. We believe that if we ourselves are not healthy, than we cannot fully create the world we wish to live in. However, if we spend more time budgeting for our well being, perhaps this goal isn't too far from reach.
"Anarchism in Ireland"
Ashanti Alston
A discussion of historical and contemporary issues, including former members of the IRA. Topics include consensus decision making within the IRA, corporate globalization, political prisoners,solidarity movements, the Palestine and Irish peace process, the economic recession, the Republican movement, capitalism and liberation struggles, the civil rights movement, the Black Panthers, Obama, neo-colonial strategies, racism and discrimination in the US and Ireland, self-determination, the Zapatistas, counter-revolutionaries, crossover between black and Irish culture, and other things...
"Experiences of the Global Sex Industrial Complex"
Cady Vishniac and Amos Suguitan
Most anarchists either don't know any sex workers at all, or do know a couple of the most privileged sex workers on earth. While great concern exists within anarchist communities about the needs, wants, choices, and agency of sex workers, anti-capitalist movements have been remarkably bad at contacting the majority of less-privileged sex workers in order to form realistic ideas about the sex industry as a whole. Survivors in Revolt is a group of activists who have been in the sex industry in various capacities and are dedicated to educating all people, especially their anarchist peers, about the realities of being an undocumented worker in the richest industry in the world. Presentation will be followed by questions.
"Let Freedom Ring"
Paulette D'Auteuil, Ana M. Lopez, Matt Meyer, and Ashanti Alston
Drawing from panelists' experiences on both sides of the wall, this workshop will detail key campaigns of the past two decades regarding prisoner rights and political prisoners. Lifelong Puerto Rican independentista Prof. Ana Lopez of CUNY/Hostos will discuss the principles of non-collaboration, especially as they relate to her current work as coordinator of the Hostos Grand Jury Resistance Campaign. D'Auteuil, a leader of the New York Jericho Movement who has worked for decades to free imprisoned American Indian Movement leader Leonard Peltier, will report on current cases of vital importance to the movement. And Meyer, editor of the recently published Let Freedom Ring: A Collection of Documents from the Movements to Free US Political Prisoners, will kick off a participatory discussion on the significance of political prisoners to the overall justice and peace movement.
