Join us for a conversation about recovering from climate disaster and building community within the context of colonialism in Puerto Rico.
Celebrate the launch of Mi María: Surviving the Storm, a new book from Voice of Witness and Haymarket Books, with a roundtable conversation about the aftermath of Hurricane María in Puerto Rico.
Mi María: Surviving the Storm brings together 17 first-person stories that explore how government neglect and colonialism impact recovery, how communities come together in the wake of disaster, and how precarity and inequity are exacerbated on the frontlines of the climate crisis. Weaving together long-form oral histories and shorter testimonios, the book offers a multivocal history of the storm and its long aftermath as people waited for relief and aid that rarely arrived and communities collectively organized to support one another in recovery.
This event is cosponsored by Haymarket Books and Voice of Witness. While all of our events are freely available, we ask that those who are able please make a solidarity donation in support of our important educational and publishing work. Donations from this event will support our work with Voice of Witness.
You can also support by purchasing the book, Mi María: Surviving the Storm, online here: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1746-mi-maria-surviving-the-storm
Speakers:
Dr. Ricia Chansky is a professor in the English department at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez and the co-editor of Mi María: Surviving the Storm. She is the co-editor of the scholarly journal, a/b: Auto/Biography Studies and the editor of the Routledge Auto/Biography Studies book series. Ricia is also a Research Affiliate at the York University Centre for Research in Latin America and the Caribbean and a Global Fellow at the Brown University Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Studies. For her work directing the large-scale public humanities project, “Mi María: Puerto Rico after the Hurricane,” Ricia won the MLA Innovation in the Humanities Award and the Oral History Association’s Post-Secondary Teaching Award, and was selected as a partner in the Humanities Action Lab. She has been recognized by the Simon Wiesenthal Center/Museum of Tolerance as a Global Human Rights Leader in the Climate Crisis.
Zaira Arvelo Alicea is a narrator in Mi María: Surviving the Storm and the Curriculum Specialist for the project. Zaira is a writer, editor, and educator with a focus on English language learners (ELLs) and equity in the continental US and Puerto Rico. She was born in Lares, Puerto Rico, a mountainous town in the archipelago with a tradition of anticolonial insurgency. Zaira and her husband survived Hurricane María by floating on an air mattress for sixteen hours, trapped in their home. Her story highlights several failures in the federal disaster-response system, which led them to remain homeless for well over a year after the hurricane. She currently lives on Puerto Rico’s largest island where she spearheads a small business.
Lorel Cubano Santiago is a narrator in Mi María: Surviving the Storm and a community organizer with a background in tourism. She is the founder of the Old San Juan Heritage Foundation and the community arts center Colectivo PerlArte. After Hurricane María, Lorel mobilized mutual aid efforts with her community to feed hundreds of people despite not receiving any aid from the supply ships that docked just minutes away from their neighborhood of La Perla in San Juan.
Brenda Flores Santiago is a researcher, translator, and oral historian. Brenda was a student interviewer for the Mi María project at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez. She is currently a graduate student in the Master of Arts in Translation and Interpreting program at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/4J-e1ITH3ZQ
Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org
Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks
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Mar 4, 2021
Mama Phife Represents presented by BreakBeat Poets Live! (1-7-21)
Cheryl Boyce-Taylor in conversation with Hanif Abdurraqib to celebrate the release of Boyce-Taylor’s intimate collection Mama Phife Represents, a tribute to her departed son Malik ‘Phife Dawg’ Taylor of the legendary hip-hop trio A Tribe Called Quest.
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Speakers:
Cheryl Boyce-Taylor is a poet and teaching artist. She earned an MFA from Stonecoast at the University of Southern Maine and an MSW from Fordham University. Her collections of poetry include Raw Air (2000), Night When Moon Follows (2000), Convincing the Body (2005), and Arrival(2017), which was a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize.
The founder and curator of Calypso Muse and the Glitter Pomegranate Performance Series, Boyce-Taylor is also a poetry judge for the New York Foundation for the Arts and the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice. She has led workshops for Cave Canem, Poets & Writers, and the Caribbean Literary and Cultural Center. Her poetry has been commissioned by The Joyce Theater and the National Endowment for the Arts for Ronald K. Brown’s Evidence, A Dance Company.
Boyce-Taylor is the recipient of the 2015 Barnes & Noble Writers For Writers Award and a VONA fellow. Her life papers and portfolio are stored at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York City.
Hanif Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio. His poetry has been published in Muzzle, Vinyl, PEN American, and various other journals. His essays and music criticism have been published in The FADER, Pitchfork, The New Yorker, and The New York Times. His first full length poetry collection, The Crown Ain't Worth Much, was released in June 2016 from Button Poetry. It was named a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Book Prize, and was nominated for a Hurston-Wright Legacy Award. With Big Lucks, he released a limited edition chapbook, Vintage Sadness, in summer 2017 (you cannot get it anymore and he is very sorry.) His first collection of essays, They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us, was released in winter 2017 by Two Dollar Radio and was named a book of the year by Buzzfeed, Esquire, NPR, Oprah Magazine, Paste, CBC, The Los Angeles Review, Pitchfork, and The Chicago Tribune, among others. He released Go Ahead In The Rain: Notes To A Tribe Called Quest with University of Texas press in February 2019. The book became a New York Times Bestseller, was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize, and was longlisted for the National Book Award. His second collection of poems, A Fortune For Your Disaster, was released in 2019 by Tin House, and won the 2020 Lenore Marshall Prize. In 2021, he will release the book A Little Devil In America with Random House. He is a graduate of Beechcroft High School.
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Order a copy of Mama Phife Represents: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1551-mama-phife-represents
Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/EBSCuT-rM94
Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org
Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks
Mar 4, 2021
Black Mothering as Poetic Archive (1-12-21)
Join Cheryl Boyce-Taylor and Alexis Pauline Gumbs as they discuss mothering, parenting, loss, and Cheryl's new book Mama Phife Represents.
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Speakers:
Cheryl Boyce-Taylor is a poet and teaching artist. She earned an MFA from Stonecoast at the University of Southern Maine and an MSW from Fordham University. Her collections of poetry include Raw Air (2000), Night When Moon Follows (2000), Convincing the Body (2005), and Arrival (2017), which was a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize.
The founder and curator of Calypso Muse and the Glitter Pomegranate Performance Series, Boyce-Taylor is also a poetry judge for the New York Foundation for the Arts and the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice. She has led workshops for Cave Canem, Poets & Writers, and the Caribbean Literary and Cultural Center. Her poetry has been commissioned by The Joyce Theater and the National Endowment for the Arts for Ronald K. Brown’s Evidence, A Dance Company.
Boyce-Taylor is the recipient of the 2015 Barnes & Noble Writers For Writers Award and a VONA fellow. Her life papers and portfolio are stored at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York City.
Alexis Pauline Gumbs is a Queer Black Feminist Love Evangelist, a daughter-on-assignment and a cousin-in-the-making. She is the author of Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals, Dub: Finding Ceremony, M Archive: After the End of the World and Spill: Scenes of Black Feminist Fugitivity. She is also co-editor of Revolutionary Mothering Love on the Front Lines and co-founder of Mobile Homecoming Trust. This year Alexis is a National Humanities Fellow writing a new biography called The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde: Biography as Ceremony.
Order a copy of Mama Phife Represents: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1551-mama-phife-represents
Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/sr1_I0h4HZM
Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org
Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks
Mar 4, 2021
Blood Red Lines: Fighting Fascism and the Far Right (1-12-21)
Join Brendan O'Connor and Jay Caspian Kang for a conversation about fighting fascism in the context of recent far-right violence.
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Even as Donald Trump prepares to leave office, the forces that put him there have not yet dissipated, as the storming of Capitol Hill by a militant coalition of revanchist small business owners, street-fighting neo-fascists, and Qanon cultists made clear earlier this month.
Through on-the-ground reporting, archival research, and critical analysis, Brendan O'Connor's Blood Red Lines: How Nativism Fuels the Right unearths the history of this social formation, tracks its transformation during the Trump years, and charts its future.
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Brendan O' Connor is a journalist and writer in New York. He has written for The Baffler, The New Yorker, and The New York Times. His latest article on the recent far right violence in Washington, A Preview of What's to Come, was published at The Nation. He is a member of the Writers Guild of America, East, and the National Writers Union. His new book, Blood Red Lines: How Nativism Fuels the Right is now available from Haymarket Books.
Jay Caspian Kang is a correspondent on Vice News Tonight and a writer-at-large at the New York Times Magazine. He is the author of The Dead Do Not Improve: A Novel.
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Order a copy of Blood Red Lines: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1519-blood-red-lines
Order a copy of Jay Caspian Kang's book, The Dead Do Not Improve: https://bookshop.org/a/1039/9780307953896
Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/UtYrGZWCeCQ
Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org
Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks
Mar 4, 2021
Black Lives Matter at School Philadelphia Edition (1-13-21)
Join Black Lives Matter at School activists and educators for a conversation about the new uprising for educational justice, Philly-style.
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Education activists Tamara Anderson, Jesse Hagopian, Ismael Jimenez, Dana Morrison join Edwin Mayorga for a conversation about the struggle against systemic racism in schools, how we can win real educational justice and the lessons from Black Lives Matter at School organizing in Philadelphia and beyond.
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Speakers:
Tamara Anderson is an advocate for children and teens, an antiracist trainer, a professional artist, an editor, a freelance journalist, and a blogger with over twenty years of experience as an educator. She supervises middle and high school pre-service teachers at La Salle University and serves as an adjunct at West Chester University. Her work with juvenile justice led to her being the recipient of the Leeway Foundation Art and Change Grant.
Jesse Hagopian is a member of the national Black Lives Matter at School steering committee and teaches Ethnic Studies at Seattle’s Garfield High School. He is the co-editor of Black Lives Matter at School, an editor for Rethinking Schools magazine and is a co-editor of Teaching for Black Lives.
Ismael Jimenez is a dedicated educator, who for the last fifteen years has worked with students in Philadelphia from preschool age to high school. Ismael assisted in the development of the updated social studies curriculum for the School District of Philadelphia. Ismael is a core member of the Racial Justice Organizing Committee and Black Lives Matter Philly, a founding member of the Melnated Educators Collective and a co-founder of the Philadelphia Black History Collaborative.
Dana Morrison is an Assistant Professor in West Chester University’s Department of Educational Foundations and Policy Studies. She began working on higher education outreach for the week of action in Philadelphia in 2017 and has since organized Black Lives Matter events with students, faculty and staff throughout the PA State System of Higher Education.
Edwin Mayorga (moderator) is a parent, educator, scholar-activist. He is an Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Studies and the Program in Latin American and Latino Studies at Swarthmore College (PA). He is host of the podcast Encuentros Políticos/Political Encounters on USALAmedia.
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Order a copy of
Black Lives Matter at School: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1554-black-lives-matter-at-school
Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/zkN_kOrgjSg
Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org
Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks
Mar 4, 2021
African Politics Today: What Progressives Need to Know (1-15-21)
Join the International Committee of Democratic Socialists of America for this panel discussion with leading experts on African politics.
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What should progressives know about the political situation in Africa today?
Find out by joining the International Committee of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and Haymarket Books for this panel discussion with leading experts on African politics.
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Speakers:
Nisrin Elamin is Assistant Professor of International Studies at Bryn Mawr College. She is an anthropologist who researches land rights, extractive industries, foreign land grabs, and the militarization of borders in East Africa and the Sahel.
Zachariah Mampilly is Marxe Chair of International Affairs at the City University of New York (CUNY). He is the author of Rebel Rulers: Insurgent Governance and Civilian Life during War (2011) and co-author of Africa Uprising: Popular Protest and Political Change (2015).
Jason Stearns is Director of the Congo Research Group at NYU and Assistant Professor of International Studies at Simon Fraser University. He is the author of Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa (2011) and of The War that Doesn’t Say Its Name: Why Conflict Endures in the Congo (2021).
Josef Woldense is Assistant Professor in the department of African American & African Studies and Affiliated Faculty in Political Science at the University of Minnesota. He received my PhD from Indiana University in Political Science. His research interests are in the areas of elite politics, authoritarian regimes, political institutions and social network analysis with a geographical focus on Africa.
Lee Wengraf (moderator) is the author of Extracting Profit: Imperialism, Neoliberalism and the New Scramble for Africa (2018). She is a member of the International Committee of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and a Contributing Editor at the Review of African Political Economy.
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This event is sponsored by International Committee of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and Haymarket Books.
Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/wYi2JpPRFCk
Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org
Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks
Mar 4, 2021
The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop (1-21-21)
Join Felicia Rose Chavez and Kiese Laymon as they discuss The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop’s call to consciously work against traditions of dominance in the classroom and how to achieve authentically inclusive writing communities.
Get a copy of The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop here: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1552-the-anti-racist-writing-workshop
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Speakers:
Felicia Rose Chavez is an award-winning educator with an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the University of Iowa. She is the author of The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop: How to Decolonize the Creative Classroom and co-editor of The BreakBeat Poets Volume 4: LatiNEXT with Willie Perdomo and Jose Olivarez. Chavez served as Program Director to Young Chicago Authors and founded GirlSpeak, a literary webzine for young women. She went on to teach writing at the University of New Mexico, where she was distinguished as the Most Innovative Instructor of the Year, the University of Iowa, where she was distinguished as the Outstanding Instructor of the Year, and Colorado College, where she received the Theodore Roosevelt Collins Outstanding Faculty Award. Her creative scholarship earned her a Ronald E. McNair Fellowship, a University of Iowa Graduate Dean’s Fellowship, a Riley Scholar Fellowship, and a Hadley Creatives Fellowship. Originally from Albuquerque, New Mexico, Felicia currently serves as Scholar-in-Residence in Creativity and Innovation at Colorado College. Find her at www.antiracistworkshop.com.
Kiese Laymon is a Black southern writer, born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi. Laymon attended Millsaps College and Jackson State University before graduating from Oberlin College. He earned an MFA in Fiction from Indiana University. Laymon is currently the Ottilie Schillig Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Mississippi. He served as the Distinguished Visiting Professor of Nonfiction at the University of Iowa in Fall 201. Laymon is the author of the novel Long Division , the collection of essays How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America, and Heavy: An American Memoir. Heavy, winner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal, the LA Times Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose and Audible’s Audiobook of the Year, was named one of the Best Books of 2018 by the The Undefeated, New York Times, Publishers Weekly, NPR, Broadly, Library Journal, The Washington Post, Southern Living, Entertainment Weekly, San Francisco Chronicle and The New York Times Critics. Laymon is the recipient of the 2019 Austen Riggs Erikson Prize for Excellence in Mental Health Media. Laymon has written essays, stories and reviews for numerous publications including Esquire, McSweeneys, New York Times, Virginia Quarterly Review, ESPN the Magazine, Granta, Colorlines, NPR, LitHub, The Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, PEN Journal, Fader, Oxford American, Vanity Fair, The Best American Series, Ebony, Travel and Leisure, Paris Review, Guernica and more.
Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/6B1_pIVzPRU
Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org
Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks
