READING LIST

From: Guy

Subject: I'll add a book every time we have sex
Date: 2 February, 2014 9:23:02 AM EST
To: Her

I have a gift for you. It's a reading list I made of books that are important to me that you may enjoy.

Guy

--  “The Possibility of Naturalism” by Roy Bhaskar; or for an easier first read “Realism and Social Science” by Andrew Sayer (Bhaskar is the founder of the critical realist school of the philosophy of science which lays the grounds for breaking down the demarcation between how we study the natural and the social in terms of science. It is inherently a radical and, in many ways, a revolutionary position that critiques positivism as much as postmodernism). (Sayer, following in the critical realist school, writes in a more accessible manner, but makes a particularly interesting extension in this work by critically examining the fetishization of space....super interesting when read in combination of David Harvey)

-- Really anything by David Harvey... ‘’A Brief History of Neoliberalism’’ is neat but so is his work ‘‘Limits to Capital’’

--  “Change the World without Taking Power” by John Holloway (autonomous Marxists that runs very counter to orthodox Marxists readings of revolution and of how workers and people build conscious)

--  “Political Activist as Ethnographer’’ by George Smith. This is a great piece on the strategies and challenges faced by AIDS activists in Toronto fought against bathhouse raids and the police, as well as public opinion during the early 1980s. This is a journal article.

-- “The Strate bjkgy of Refusal” by Sergio Bolgna  (I’m questioning both the title of the article and the spelling of the last name). But this is one of the main pieces that came from the early 1970s workers movement in Italy that focused on eliminating forms of power and control over others in the workplace.

--  “Rules for Radicals’’ by Saul Alinski ...super neat book about ways of organizing people, and what to watch for from the state.

--  “Steal this book” by Abbie Hoffman. Written in the 1970s, it’s pretty much a handbook for how to rip off the capitalist system. How to steal food, squat land, etc. 

-- “Direct Action: An Ethnography” by David Graeber. Amazing account of all the organizing events around the ‘Battle of Seattle’ and the Summit of Quebec. Such a rich detailed account that shows just how much effort and diversity exists within protest movements.

-- “Diversity of Tactics’’ by Chris Hurl in Upping the Anti. I don’t fully agree with his position, but I think it offers a good overview into some of the discussions that occur within activists circles.