Over the course of the past year, The Work and Us has been conducting surveys of incarcerated people to find out what they're thinking about prison labor, extraction, and freedom. In this conversation scholar-activist Ruth Wilson Gilmore and currently incarcerated organizer Stevie Wilson discuss some of the results, and what they mean for the struggle. This event took place on October 12, 2023. Speakers Ruth Wilson Gilmore is Professor of Earth & Environmental Sciences and Director of the Center for Place, Culture, and Politics at the City University of New York Graduate Center. Co-founder of many grassroots organizations including the California Prison Moratorium Project, Critical Resistance, and the Central California Environmental Justice Network, Gilmore is author of the prize-winning Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California (UC Press) and the forthcoming book Change Everything (Haymarket) . Recent honors include the SUNY-Purchase College Eugene V. Grant Distinguished Scholar Prize for Social and Environmental Justice (2015-16); the American Studies Association Richard A Yarborough Mentorship Award (2017); The Association of American Geographers Lifetime Achievement Award (2020); and election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2021). Stephen Wilson is a currently incarcerated, Black, queer writer, activist and student. He is a founding member of Dreaming Freedom Practicing Abolition, a network of self-organized prisoner study groups building abolitionist community behind and across prison walls. Follow him on Twitter @AlwaysStevie. Minali Aggarwal is a graduate student worker, organizer, and artist. Her research focuses on race and politics, specifically the ways race is constructed and reified through cultural and political processes and institutions. She is a co-organizer of The Work and Us, an abolitionist participatory research project aimed at understanding and documenting the perspectives of imprisoned people on labor, prison, and the struggle for freedom. Special thanks to the Marguerite Casey Foundation for helping sponsor this talk. This event is co-sponsored by Haymarket Books and Study & Struggle. Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/_W2nyvQQ52U Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks

Join us for the live stream of a conversation with Syrian writer & former political prisoner Yassin al-Haj Saleh moderated by Wendy Pearlman & Danny Postel. Broadcasting from Haymarket House. This event took place on October 17, 2023. Join us for the livestream of a conversation with Yassin al-Haj Saleh, the leading intellectual voice of the Syrian uprising and one of the key thinkers in the Arab world today, during his first visit ever to the U.S. Among al-Haj Saleh’s nine books is The Impossible Revolution (Haymarket Books, 2017), which makes sense of both the nature of authoritarian domination in Syria and the historic popular struggle to topple it. Moderated by Wendy Pearlman, author of We Crossed a Bridge and it Trembled: Voices from Syria and Danny Postel, co-editor of The Syria Dilemma and The People Reloaded, this dialogue will explore the origins and trajectory of the Syrian uprising, the internal and external forces that thwarted it, what comes next in the quest of emancipatory change, what lessons the Syrian experience might have for other struggles, and what lessons other struggles might have for Syria. This public event is co-sponsored by Northwestern University’s Middle East and North African Studies Program, New Lines Magazine, and Haymarket Books. Speakers: Yassin al-Haj Saleh is the leading intellectual voice of the Syrian uprising and one of the key thinkers in the Arab world today. Born in the city of Raqqa in 1961, he was arrested in 1980 in Aleppo for his membership in a left-wing political organization and spent 16 years in prison. His wife, Samira al-Khalil, was abducted by an armed Islamist group in 2013. He is the author of nine books, including The Impossible Revolution: Making Sense of the Syrian Tragedy (2017) and The Atrocious and its Representation (English edition forthcoming). One of the founders of the bilingual Arabic-English platform Aljumhuriya.net, he writes for a variety of international publications and is a Contributing Writer for New Lines Magazine. He is now based in Berlin. Wendy Pearlman is Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University, where she also holds the Crown Professorship of Middle East Studies and is currently director of the Middle East and North Africa Studies program. She is the author of Occupied Voices: Stories of Everyday Life from the Second Intifada (2003); Violence, Nonviolence, and the Palestinian National Movement (2011); We Crossed A Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria (2017); Triadic Coercion: Israel’s Targeting of States that Host Nonstate Actors (with Boaz Atzili, 2018); and Muzoon: A Syrian Refugee Speaks Out (with Muzoon Almellehan, 2023). Her sixth book, The Home I Worked To Make: Voices from the New Syrian Diaspora, is forthcoming from Liveright Books in 2024. Danny Postel is Politics Editor of New Lines Magazine, an award-winning global affairs publication which the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard says has “built a home for long-form international reporting.” He is the author of Reading “Legitimation Crisis” in Tehran (2006) and co-editor of The People Reloaded: The Green Movement and the Struggle for Iran’s Future (2010), The Syria Dilemma (2013), and Sectarianization: Mapping the New Politics of the Middle East (2017). His current book-in-progress, “Critical Solidarity,” explores the legacies of the late international relations theorist, Middle East scholar and internationalist Fred Halliday. This event is co-sponsored by Northwestern University’s Middle East and North African Studies Program, New Lines Magazine, and Haymarket Books. Watch the live event recording: https://youtube.com/live/qfmjwRD_ho4 Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks

Join Barbara Smith,Tamika Middleton, Haley Pessin and Jaimee A. Swift as they discuss historical & contemporary issues Black feminists face. This event took place on October 18, 2023. To celebrate the fortieth anniversary of Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology Barbara Smith, Tamika Middleton, Haley Pessin, and Jaimee A. Swift will discuss the historical impact of Home Girls and contemporary issues that Black feminist activists face today. Home Girls, 40th Anniversary Edition published by Rutgers University Press, is available at Bookshop.org. Speakers: Tamika Middleton is Managing Director of Women's March. She is an organizer, doula, writer, and unschooling mama who is passionate about and active in struggles that affect Black women’s lives. Tamika has organized for abolition, reproductive justice, and for domestic workers’ rights. She is a consultant with Winds of Change Consulting, and a founding member of the Metro Atlanta Mutual Aid (MAMA) Fund and JustGeorgia. She serves as a Community Advisory Board member of Critical Resistance, a Leadership Team member of the Kindred Southern Healing Justice Collective and an advisory board member of Cypress Fund x The Grove. Haley Pessin is a socialist activist living in Queens, New York and is a member of the Tempest Collective. They co-edited the book Voices of a People’s History of the United States in the 21st Century: Documents of Hope published by Seven Stories Press. Jaimee A. Swift (she/her) is the executive director and founder of Black Women Radicals, a Black feminist advocacy organization dedicated to uplifting and centering Black women and gender expansive people's radical activism in Africa and in the African Diaspora. She is also the creator and founder of The School for Black Feminist Politics (SBFP), the Black feminist political education arm of Black Women Radicals. The mission of the SBFP is to empower Black feminisms in Black Politics by expanding the field from transnational, intersectional, and multidisciplinary perspectives. She is the co-author, with Joseph R. Fitzgerald, of the forthcoming biography of Black feminist icon, Barbara Smith. Barbara Smith is an independent scholar and was co-founder and publisher of Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press. She has been writer in residence and taught at numerous colleges and universities for over twenty-five years. The author of many books, articles, and essays, including The Truth That Never Hurts ———————————— This event is sponsored by Haymarket Books, and Rutgers University Press. Watch the live event recording: https://youtube.com/live/oAg8nCQV83A Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks

Join us for a livestream from Haymarket House: the first of a four-part public discussion series focused on Chicago’s left political landscape and movement! This event took place on October 25, 2023. We’re kicking off our Chicago Conversations series with a discussion about building & wielding left political power. Chicago’s robust left social movements have re-shaped what’s possible in our city – making way for big progressive wins like expanded housing protections, wage increases, expanding public mental health infrastructure, and taking racist surveillance tools away from the police department. At the same time as there are openings for real progressive change, the city is also facing many challenges, like the migrant crisis, continued police violence and housing shortages. Now with a mayor supported by Chicago’s labor and racial justice movements and a more progressive City Council than ever before, what does it look like for movements outside of City Hall to press for transformative change? How should social movements like the movement for Black lives, like the climate justice movement, like the labor movement, like the movement for migrant justice continue to engage in elections? How do we relate to leftists and progressives in government? How do we respond to the many immediate crises the city is facing now and also build more lasting change moving forward? And what does it mean to have “political power” in a system that has so systematically excluded those at the margins and upheld the status quo? We’ll be joined by Kennedy Bartley (United Working Families), Jung Yoon (Grassroots Collaborative & the People’s Unity Platform), and Jeanette Taylor (Alderwoman of Chicago’s 20th Ward). These conversations will be moderated by Asha Ransby-Sporn. There will be a roundtable discussion with the speakers followed by some time for audience Q and A. Watch the live event recording: https://youtube.com/live/c_PfbMvOma0 Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks

Join Mike Taber, David McNally, Anne McShane, & Tom Alter for a discussion about the Second International’s strengths, weaknesses, & legacy. This event took place on October 26, 2023. At its height, the Second (Socialist) International (1889-1914) represented the majority of organized workers in the world, with the stated revolutionary aim of overthrowing capitalism. Several of Its major campaigns and initiatives—such as the eight-hour day, May Day, and International Women’s Day—remain today as testaments to its lasting influence. To mark the release of Reform, Revolution, and Opportunism—a collection of debates at congresses of the Second International—join editor Mike Taber, along with David McNally, Anne McShane, and Tom Alter, for a discussion about the Second International’s strengths, weaknesses, contradictions, and legacy. The speakers will draw out the relevance of socialist debates from more than a century ago on topics that remain deeply contested: militarism and war, immigration, colonialism and imperialism, women’s rights, and socialist participation in government. ———————————— Get a copy of Reform, Revolution, Opportunism: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/... ———————————— Speakers: Mike Taber has edited and prepared a number of books related to the history of revolutionary and working-class movements—from collections of documents of the Communist International under Lenin to works by James P. Cannon, Leon Trotsky, Malcolm X, Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, Maurice Bishop, and Nelson Mandela. David McNally is the Cullen Distinguished Professor of History and Business at the University of Houston and director of the Center for the Study of Capitalism. McNally is the author of seven books and has won a number of awards, including the Paul Sweezy Award from the American Sociological Associaton for his book Global Slump and the Deutscher Memorial Award for Monsters of the Market. Anne McShane is a Marxist, a historian of the early Soviet women's movement and a human rights lawyer, specialising in representing asylum seekers. She has a long history of involvement in both the British and the Irish working class and leftwing movements. She contributes regular articles to the Weekly Worker, the journal of the British based CPGB and occasional pieces for Jacobin. She writes on Irish politics and the historical struggle to connect women's liberation with the socialist project. She is currently writing on the work of the Women's Department of the CPSU (Zhenotdel) in Soviet Central Asia, having completed a PhD on this subject in 2019 at Glasgow University. She is based in Cork, Ireland. Tom Alter is an assistant professor of history at Texas State University, where he specializes in labor and working-class history. He is the author of Toward a Cooperative Commonwealth: The Transplanted Roots of Farmer-Labor Radicalism in Texas and has been involved in labor and social justice movement activism for nearly 30 years. Watch the live event recording: https://youtube.com/live/4uhw8mFmKNk Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks

Join Haymarket Books and the Economic Hardship Reporting Project for a conversation celebrating the launch of the anthology Going for Broke. Join Alissa Quart in conversation with Alex Miller, Annabelle Gurwitch, Katha Pollitt and Ray Suarez, to celebrate the launch of the anthology Going for Broke, a collaboration between Haymarket Books and the Economic Hardship Reporting Project. Get a copy of Going For Broke: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/... Check out the podcast series “Going for Broke” hosted by Ray Suarez in partnership between EHRP, The Nation and NPR: https://www.npr.org/podcasts/11683107... You can read Alex’s latest article here: https://www.wired.com/story/tech-vide... Read this powerful op-ed from Annabelle: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outloo... Submit pitches to EHRP at [email protected] Donate to EHRP at: https://economichardship.org/donate-t... Speakers: Alissa Quart is the author of Bootstrapped: Liberating Ourselves from the American Dream and executive director of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project. She has written for many publications, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Time. Her honors include an Emmy Award, the SPJ Award, and a Nieman Fellowship. She is the author of four previous books of nonfiction, including Squeezed: Why Our Families Can’t Afford America and Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers, and two books of poetry, most recently Thoughts and Prayers. Alex Miller, a reporting journalism fellow for EHRP, is a navy veteran and native Chicagoan. He’s been published in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Esquire, and Wired. In addition, he has also been featured in the anthologies The Byline Bible and The Chicago Neighborhood Guidebook. He lives in New York and is writing a mid-grade memoir about his experience of going to school for the first time at eleven years old. Annabelle Gurwitch is a New York Times bestselling author of five books, a Thurber Prize for American Humor Writing finalist, and an actress. Her writing frequently appears in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and Los Angeles Magazine. This essay, which was awarded an Excellence in Journalism citation by the Los Angeles Press Corp, is included in a longer form in her most recent collection of essays, You’re Leaving When? Adventures in Downward Mobility, a New York Times Favorite Book for Healthy Living 2022. Ray Suarez (@RaySuarezNews) was a senior correspondent for PBS News- Hour and host of the public radio show America Abroad. He is host of EHRP’s podcast Going for Broke and co-hosts the program and podcast WorldAffairs for KQED-FM and the World Affairs Council. Katha Pollitt, the author of Virginity or Death!, is a poet, essayist, and columnist for The Nation. She has won many prizes and awards for her work, including the National Book Critics Circle Award for her first collection of poems, Antarctic Traveller, and two National Magazine Awards for essays and criticism. She lives in New York City. This event is co-sponsored by Haymarket Books and the Economic Hardship Reporting Project. Watch the live event recording: https://youtube.com/live/tFRHrFqF8ls Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks