Category: Campaigns

Solidarity Must Be Defended: new book edited by Eszter Szakacs and Naeem Mohaiemen

This book weaves together gestures and alignments within the visual arts around transnational solidarity during the Cold War era. We survey both grand initiatives and tragic misfires from an entangled, decolonizing world. These events, alliances, and actions are in dialogue and conflict with, among others, the third-way proposal of non-alignment and the rebellious energy of liberation movements. Our starting point was an online issue of Mezosfera magazine (“Refractions of Socialist Solidarity”), in dialogue with the film Two Meetings and a Funeral (2017). The Hungarian premiere of both the magazine and the film was at the Metalworkers’ Union, correlating non-alignment with the trade union movement––two institutions with many inflection points in their complicated histories. Along with film screenings, a series of study groups looked at examples of cross-border solidarity work and the place of Eastern Europe within global histories. As we expanded the reading lists derived from the study group and magazine, a process of assemblage eventually metamorphosed into this anthology. The stories we found often proposed less sunny horizons––dark turns and missed connections came to the forefront. Nevertheless, through it all, many witnesses and participants of those events maintained optimism despite setbacks. Marking the end of a two-year research process, we present this anthology as a mid-journey pause and reflection:transnational solidarity is always worth celebrating and difficult to inhabit.

BUY THE BOOK

https://solidaritydefended.org/shop

The ISARN Recordings

The ISARN Recordings

On the International Solidarity Action Research Network podcast, hosts Tony Alessandrini, Jessica Stites Mor, and Anna Bernard take you through a series of stories on the ins and outs of solidarity, from the frontlines, the sidelines, behind the scenes and in the quiet after the lights go down, to figure out better ways we can all stay grounded in solidarity. Click here to view all the episodes with program notes on our guests and more information about each episode: https://isarn.org/category/podcast/

In this episode (recorded December 2024), we talk to public scholar and activist Molly Todd about the impact of civil war in Central America and conflicts on the US border on children.
  1. "We Don't Want Any More War": The Children of Border Conflict
  2. Faculty for Justice in Palestine
  3. Hope as a Discipline: Reflecting on the Lebanese Revolution
  4. Pictures of a Revolution: Lebanon 2019-2020
  5. Solidarity, Scholarship, and Struggle (Recorded March 2020)

Solidarity, Scholarship, and Struggle 

This is our second installment with Robyn Spencer, author of The Revolution Has Come: Black Power, Gender, and the Black Panther Party in Oakland (2016) and Angela Davis: Radical Icon (2023). In this episode, Spencer considers the question of solidarity from several angles, discussing her collaborative scholarship and activism, the Black Panthers’ ways of working together and with other movements, and the scholar-activist Angela Davis.

Anti-Racist Thought and Activism in History

The Public Humanities Hub Okanagan (PHH-O) is pleased to host a virtual speaker series, Anti-Racist Thought and Activism in History. This speaker series addresses how past experiences and historical models of anti-racist activism can continue to give guidance to ongoing thought and anti-racist work. 

Supported by the UBC Anti-Racism Initiatives Fund, Office of the Provost; CUNY Grad Center; Kingsborough Community College; King’s College London; Princeton University Advanced Studies Institute; Public Humanities Hub, UBC Okanagan; Historicities Cluster, UBC; UBC Graduate program in Power, Conflict and Ideas; and the International Solidarity Action and Research Network.

Amira Rose Davis (Pennsylvania State University) – Website

Rinaldo Walcott (University of Toronto) – Previous talk

Devyn Spence Benson (University of Kentucky) – View the talk

Sita Balani and Gargi Bhattacharyya (King’s College London/University of East London) – View the talk

Priya Gopal (Cambridge University) – View the talk

Erika Lee (University of Minnesota) – View the talk

Adom Getachew (University of Chicago) – View the talk

Najat el Hachmi (author) – View the talk

Co-moderators for the series are UBCO professors Jessica Stites Mor (History), Francisco Peña (World literatures), Tony Alessandrini from Princeton/CUNY and Anna Bernard from King’s College London.

Theme: Overlay by Kaira