Kim Stanley Robinson: The Ministry for the Future (2020)

“Kim Stanley Robinson is one of contemporary science fiction’s most acclaimed writers, and with this new novel, he once again turns his eye to themes of climate change, technology, politics, and the human behaviors that drive these forces. But his setting is not a desolate, post-apocalyptic world – rather, he imagines a more hopeful future, one where humanity has managed to overcome our challenges and thrive.”

Publisher Orbit Books, New York and London, Oct 2020
ISBN 9780316300131, 0316300136
563 pages

Interviews with author.
Reviews: Derrick O’Keefe (Jacobin, 2020), Gerry Canavan (Los Angeles Review of Books, 2020), Bill McKibben (New York Review, 2020), Steven Poole (The Guardian, 2020), Mark Yon (SFF World, 2020), Kirkus Reviews (2020),Michael Svoboda (Yale Climate Connections, 2020), Nick Robins (LSE blog, 2021), Cory Doctorow (2020), Ian Maxton (Spectrum Culture, 2020), George Katsiaficas (PM Press, 2021), Martin Empson (Climate & Capitalism, 2021), Bob Frame and Patrick Flamm (Polar Record, 2021).
Commentary: Andreas Malm (Verso Blogs, 2021).
Book seminar: Crooked Timber (2021, Robinson’s response).

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Sylvia Wynter: Black Metamorphosis: New Natives in a New World [1970s]

“Black Metamorphosis: New Natives in a New World is an unpublished manuscript written by Sylvia Wynter. The work is a seminal piece in Black Studies and uses diverse fields to explain Black experiences and presence in the Americas.

Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, Wynter worked with the Center for Afro-American Studies (CAAS) at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) to complete the project which was to be published by the Institute of the Black World. The manuscript presents early iterations of Wynter’s Theory of the Human and explores how Black experiences are essential to understanding the history of the New World.”

The only part of this manuscript that has been published is Wynter’s 1979 essay “Sambos and Minstrels”, though excerpts of and allusions to many of the other texts she wrote in the 1970s can be found in the manuscript, particularly “Jonkonnu in Jamaica” (1970), “Novel and History” (1971), “Ethno or Socio Poetics” (1976), “The Politics of Black Culture” (1977), and “In Quest of Matthew Bondman” (1981). … In the final 935-page manuscript, the page numbers break at page 251 and resume with page 370. The 120 missing pages correspond exactly to the number of pages in a series of descriptions of revolts by enslaved persons in Jamaica, and it appears that they were meant to be inserted at this point in the text.” (Kamugisha 2016)

Manuscript, written throughout the 1970s
[935] pages (252-369 missing)

Commentary and analysis: Derrick White (C.L.R. James Journal, 2010), Aaron Kamugisha, Demetrius L. Eudell, Greg Thomas, Katherine McKittrick, Tonya Haynes, Nijah Cunningham (Small Axe, 2016).

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Kareem Estefan, Carin Kuoni, Laura Raicovich (eds.): Assuming Boycott: Resistance, Agency, and Cultural Production (2017)

“Boycott and divestment are essential tools for activists around the globe. Today’s organizers target museums, universities, corporations, and governments to curtail unethical sources of profit, discriminatory practices, or human rights violations. They leverage cultural production – and challenge its institutional supports – helping transform situations in the name of social justice.

The refusal to participate in an oppressive system has long been one of the most powerful weapons in the organizer’s arsenal. Since the days of the 19th century Irish land wars, when Irish tenant farmers defied the actions of Captain Charles Boycott and English landlords, “boycott” has been a method that’s shown its effectiveness time and again. In the 20th century, it notably played central roles in the liberation of India and South Africa and the struggle for civil rights in the U.S.: the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott is generally seen as a turning point in the movement against segregation.

Assuming Boycott is the essential reader for today’s creative leaders and cultural practitioners, including original contributions by artists, scholars, activists, critics, curators and writers who examine the historical precedent of South Africa; the current cultural boycott of Israel; freedom of speech and self-censorship; and long-distance activism. Far from withdrawal or cynicism, boycott emerges as a productive tool of creative and productive engagement.

Including essays by Nasser Abourahme, Ariella Azoulay, Tania Bruguera, Noura Erakat, Kareem Estefan, Mariam Ghani with Haig Aivazian, Nathan Gray and Ahmet Öğüt, Chelsea Haines, Sean Jacobs, Yazan Khalili, Carin Kuoni and Laura Raicovich, Svetlana Mintcheva, Naeem Mohaiemen, Hlonipha Mokoena, John Peffer, Joshua Simon, Ann Laura Stoler, Radhika Subramaniam, Eyal Weizman and Kareem Estefan, and Frank B. Wilderson III.”

Publisher OR Books, New York, 2017
ISBN 9781944869434, 1944869433
276 pages

Reviews: Rebecca Wolff (H-AMCA, 2018), Kim Jensen (Mondoweiss, 2017), Marguerite Dabaie (Electronic Intifada, 2017), Robert Bryan (Tribes, 2017).

Series of seminars (Vera List Center, 2015, with videos)
Book launch (New School, 2017, with video)

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