Stop Gun Violence Against Youth organized by Stephanie Robinson a student at Hamline University, sponsored by the Center for Excellence in Urban Teaching and Twin Cities Save the Kids on April 30, 2012 was a great success with more than forty people attending from all over the Twin Cities. The event lasted an hour with more than ten speakers and a candle light vigil at the end.
Day: April 13, 2012
Time: 12 to 12:50
Normandale Community College, MN
This presentation, sponsored by the Institute for Critical Animal Studies, makes the argument that Western culture, still in the midst of the Occupy Wall Street Movement, needs to reassess its hierarchy of rights and freedoms in consideration of the nonhuman animals we eat, wear, hunt and with whom we share our homes and lives. In kind, the presenters will also introduce the audience to Critical Animal Studies, which looks at the ways in which speciesism underpins human oppression, capitalism and environmental destruction and how all of those elements intertwine to create a culture that is based upon the exploitation of other living beings. We will then share alternatives based in anarchist principles.
Room #: C1016 at Normandale Community College
Presenters:
Travis Erickson is an activist and organizer in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His work has mostly focused on animal rights, community and workplace organizing. A former Catholic Worker and an organizer with the Industrial Workers of the World, he is also currently pursuing his bachelor’s degree in philosophy.
Anthony Nocella II, Ph.D., Visiting Professor at Hamline University’s School of Education, is a scholar, community organizer, social justice activist, educator and co-founder of the Institute for Critical Animal Studies. He is an internationally respected speaker on issues of conflict resolution, LGBTQIA issues, prison abolition, anarchism, critical urban education, among many other topics. He has also published over ten books on issues ranging from anarchism to religion. His most recent works are Love and Liberation, co-authored with Sarat Colling (Piraeus Books, 2012) and The Accumulation of Freedom: Writings on Anarchist Economics (AK Press, 2012).
Kim Socha, Ph.D. is an English instructor at Normandale with scholarship on topics such as critical pedagogy, surrealism, critical animal studies and Latino/a literature. As her avocations, Kim has assisted survivors of domestic violence in their recoveries and works in the area of prison abolition social justice activism. Kim is also an animal liberation advocate and sits on the boards of the Institute for Critical Animal Studies and the Animal Rights Coalition. She is the author of Women, Destruction and the Avant-Garde: A Paradigm for Animal Liberation (Rodopi, 2011) and is co-editor of and contributor to the upcoming anthology New Voices From the Grass Roots: Animal Liberation Essays (McFarland, Fall 2012).
I will be presenting at 9am and noon with a number of Hamline students and community members at “The Normandale Writing Festival” on Thursday, April 19, 2012, between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. The panel, which I will be presenting is “Hip Hop: Culture, Poetry and Self-Expression,” which will be led by members of the Institute for Hip Hop Knowledge (based at Hamline University and formed by professors, students and community members). We wish to show the ways in which hip hop is not just a musical genre, but an historical and cultural phenomenon that can also be used as a positive avenue for self-expression through writing. Students will see that hip hop is an method of protest against cultural oppression as well as a way for people of all colors to express themselves through words, rhymes and beats. Our further hope is to show the ways in which hip hop can also be used as a writing tool for other classes that students take in higher education, as it can serve as the basis of free-writing that can lead to more refined work and self-expression. Students will have the opportunity to hear scholars and local artists speak on the issue as well as write (and maybe even spit) their own rhymes.
Deric Shannon, Anthony J. Nocella, II, and John Asimakopoulos, Editors. The Accumulation of Freedom: Writings on Anarchist Economics (Oakland: AK Press, 2012)
By: David S. D’Amato
Original site: http://c4ss.org/content/10071
The Accumulation of Freedom: Writings on Anarchist Economics, edited by anarchist scholars Deric Shannon, Anthony J. Nocella, II, and John Asimakopoulos, treats a controversial realm of radical thought, one that has led to divisions and mutual dubiety within the anarchist tradition. In their opening essay Anarchist Economics: A Holistic View, the editors acknowledge that, for many contemporary anarchists, captive to “the assumption that ‘economics’ is capitalism,” the notion of anarchist economics itself is an oxymoron, at variance with anarchism’s commitment to opposing capitalism and therefore destined to prove abortive from the start.
In a vital collection of essays from contemporary anarchists writing in a range of academic disciplines, The Accumulation of Freedom challenges the idea that anarchists should not be concerned with economics. Divided into six parts, the collection moves from history to vision, first sketching the diverse backstory of anarchist economic thought and then both suggesting critiques of contemporary, global capitalism and advancing promising ways of resisting and escaping it, replacing it with something better.
As it surveys the assorted landscape of anarchist economics, the book is at its most penetrative in the acknowledgement — which appears as a thread throughout the essays — that “economic life intersects with all other aspects of social life.” Having thus reasserted the importance of economics for anarchists, the book situates the anarchist approach as considering a broad scope of analyses that, in Caroline K. Kaltefleiter words, are “not simply focused on the rationalized and instrumental processes most often studied by economists.” The emphases of the authors included in the survey, while almost uniformly unsympathetic to markets, share a theme of decentralization, “of an economy based on popular participation rather than profit.” This is a juncture at which the individualist and social statements of anarchism can and do meet.
A week ago, Hamline University students with Twin Cities Save the Kids and the Institute for Hip Hop Knowledge participated in a huge rally at the University of Minnesota with more than 5,000 people.
In the recent issue of the Journal for Critical Animal Studies I published an article titled, “Challenging Whiteness in the Animal Advocacy Movement.” This Intervention is directed toward people who identify as white within the animal advocacy movement in the U.S. and Canada. While there are many People of Color involved in the animal rights movement, the animal rights movement remains dominated by people who identify as white, both theoretically and in practice. Alas, the issue of white hegemony within the movement has not been adequately addressed. Angela P. Harris forces us to think about race and animal rights when she asks, “Should People of Color Support Animal Rights?” Click here for the article.
In the Fall 2011 issue of Peace and Conflict Review I published an article on transformative justice. Peace and Conflict Review is a peer-reviewed academic journal in the field of peace and conflict studies housed at the University of Peace governed by the United Nations.
The article is dedicated to the historical overview, political development, and philosophy of transformative justice, with a primary focus on the United States. Core principles of transformative justice are synthesized from various theorists, activists, and institutions. The article begins with critical criminology, a sub-field of criminology, in order to discuss peacemaking criminology, compare restorative and transformative approaches to justice, and draw connections to the field of conflict transformation. The article states that transformative justice is recommended as the best pathway toward a new criminal justice system in the United States, and as an integral part of a wider social justice philosophy for peace. You can read the online version on Peace and Conflict website.
Finally, after a few months of telling people about “Love and Liberation: A Story of the Animal Liberation,” a short fiction book, it is out! You can get it at amazon.com.
About Love and Liberation: Gabrielle and Andre are an everyday couple working up the corporate ladder in Houston, Texas. With a brand new condo, plans for marriage and successful careers, their lives are set – or so they think. One night while taking out the trash, Gabrielle inadvertently gets a glimpse into the underground world of animal liberationists. Unsure what to make of it, she begins an investigation which leads to some shocking realizations. Soon the couple is delving deeper into a covert movement of radical animal liberationists labeled by the FBI as a top domestic threat. Armed with nonviolent tactics and love in their heart, the couple educates and trains to free those who are caged. With captivating black and white illustrations, this is an action-packed, fun and informative read.
“This is an excellent, and thought-provoking story that – as all beautiful people know – reaffirms how the true revolutionary is guided by love.”
- Dr. Richard White, Editor of Journal for Critical Animal Studies
