Sketchy Thoughts: [Baltimore] 2007 Mid-Atlantic Radical Bookfair

This weekend in Baltimore: the 2007 Mid-Atlantic Radical Bookfair at 2640 Saint Paul!

Room Key:
SR=Sunday Room, main floor of 2640 Saint Paul Street
HPS=Heart's Place Shelter, bottom floor of 2640 Saint Paul Street
VLP=Village Learning Place, located at 2521 Saint Paul Street)

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 20

11AM: Mechthild Nagel and Drew Leder present Prisons & Punishment: Reconsidering Global Penality (SR): Focusing on cross-national perspectives about penal theories and empirical studies, this book brings together African, European, and North American social philosophers, sociologists, political scientists, legal practitioners, prisoners, and abolitionist activists to reflect not only on the carceral society, notably the United States, but also on the reconceptualization of punishment.




11AM: Defy gender at the Girls Not Chicks Coloring Book Workshop! (HPS): Have you ever wanted the chance to turn Sleeping Beauty into a national football hero? Hercules into a world-class jazzerciser? Make Bert and Ernie their very own queen-size bed that they actually get to sleep in together? Now's your chance! Let the synthesis of your feminist sensibilities and all the fairy tales that have hurt your feelings bring your radical imagination and creativity to a whole new level. Come hang out with other boys who always wanted to be the Little Mermaid, women who engineer dare-devil roller coasters, and a manifestation of genders in between. Join girlsnotchicks.org founder Jacinta Bunnell for a morning of D.I.Y. coloring books - and remember, this is an all-ages workshop!




11AM: Radical Information For All: Radical Public, Academic, and Independent Libraries and Services. (VLP): A dialog on radical services provided by librarians and information advocates. Come talk about your favorite radical sources for information and hear about the exciting things that we're doing to get radical information out into the world. Conducted by: Chuck D'Adamo of Baltimore's Alternative Press Center collective, zine librarian Miriam DesHarnais from Baltimore County's Cockeysville Branch, and Lia Friedman from Radical Reference. The panel will be moderated by Jenna Freedman.




12PM: David Solnit on counter-recruitment and Army of None (VLP): Bay-area activist and Seattle 1999 organizer David Solnit returns to Baltimore to discuss the Army of None project, an ongoing counter-recruitment effort based on the notion that the military recruitment complex insinuates itself into the daily lives of children and youth in ways most people are not aware of. Millions of dollars are poured into advanced marketing strategies; recruiters walk freely into classrooms with false promises of a way out of poverty. The Army of None Project argues that childhood should be free of military influence and the constant pressure to enlist. This is not just a way to protect our most valuable national resource -- children -- it is an effective way to take local action to provide equal opportunity and youth leadership training for those who bear the burden of fighting in Iraq and beyond.




1PM: Muhammad Ahmad (Max Stanford) presents We Will Return in the Whirlwind: Black Radical Organizations 1960-1975 (SR): Former Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM) chairman Muhammad Ahmad (born Max Stanford) comes to Baltimore to present his new book We Will Return In the Whirlwind, an incredible first-hand account of the wave of Black resistance that swept the U.S. in the wake of the Civil Rights movement. From Malcolm X's last days to the radicalization of SNCC to the founding of the Black Panther Party and the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, Ahmad's new work tells the story of a consistently radical black organizing tradition whose goal was nothing less than a revolution in the U.S.




1PM: Anarchism and Marxism (HPS): A discussion facilitated by the Open City Collective, part of the Northeastern Federation of Anarchist-Communists (NEFAC), a cross-border network for anti-authoritarian class struggle.




1:30PM: Stephen Duncombe on "Dreampolitik" (VLP): What practical political lessons can we learn from corporate theme parks, ad campaigns, video games like Grand Theft Auto, celebrity culture, and Las Vegas? Stephen Duncombe, professor of the history and politics of media and culture at New York University, discusses his new book Dream: Re-Imagining Progressive Politics In An Age of Fantasy, and proposes that such examples of popular fantasy can help us define and make possible a new political future. Duncombe is the author of Notes From the Underground: Zines and the Politics of Alternative Culture and the editor of The Cultural Resistance Reader.




2PM: Unconventional Action (HPS): Unconventional Action is an emerging network aiming to complement the work of local organizers in Denver and the Twin Cities with regional organizing throughout the rest of the country. Our goal is to build a horizontal, inclusive framework for protests that will disrupt the upcoming Democratic and Republican National Conventions. We are currently organizing meetings, propaganda, and consultas in our communities and encourage those in other regions to do the same.




3PM: Sylvia Federici & George Caffentzis on Rethinking War and the Struggle Against It In the Neoliberal Era (SR): Sylvia Federici and George Caffentzis, both members of the radical academic Midnight Notes Collective, join together for a presentation in three parts that examines the purpose of war in modern society and the ways in which war affects the commons and current markets, and deals with the question on everyone's mind: "How can the anti-war movement escape its stalemate with the Bush Administration?"




3PM: Radical Reference: Community Librarianship and Free/Open Source Technology (HPS): Gabriel Farrell and Jenna Freedman will discuss the public and technical sides of Radical Reference, a project that has librarians serving the information needs of activists and independent journalists online, in the street, and in the classroom. Radical Reference, hosted by InterActivist Network , uses open source software tools and publishes all of its materials on a Creative Commons license.




3PM: $pread Magazine on how activists can support sex workers (VLP): $pread is a quarterly, glossy magazine by and for sex workers and those who support their rights. The magazine has a focus on personal experiences and political insights, and contains practical information like news, features, health columns, and resources related to the sex industry. $pread builds community in the sex trade by featuring the honest and diverse perspectives of those who know it best: the women and men who work within this sensationalized, highly stereotyped industry. Founded in the summer of 2004 by three women, the magazine has already garnered lots of press attention as well as winning the coveted Utne Independent Press Award for Best New Title of 2005 after only three issues. $pread actively confronts various stigmas surrounding sex work, raises awareness of legal and political issues affecting sex workers, and encourages support for the rights of all people working in the sex industries.




4PM: Update on Afghanistan from the Afghan Women's Fund (VLP): Amena Shams is an activist of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) and has represented RAWA as a spokesperson on different speech tours to Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. Amena Shams has been a student of RAWA's school at an Afghan refugee camp in Pakistan and has a degree in Information Technology. She has taught literacy courses for Afghan women and remained as an administrator of RAWA schools in Islamabad for two years. Beside other political and social activities, she is now the Coordinator of RAWA orphanages that work closely with CharityHelp International on a "Child Sponsorship Program" (http://wwwcharityhelp.org/rawa). She also writes for different RAWA publications; please read her latest article at (http://www.rawa.org/lafraie.htm).





4PM: (We may be able, handful that we are) To End the Racial Nightmare (HPS): (A workshop based on: A Problem of Memory: stories to end the racial nightmare, led by Taylor Sparrow) Rooted in coversations with students, educators, organizers and historians, A Problem of Memory connects the "transportation" of Irish people to the New World with the Haitian revolution, John Brown's resistance against slavery, and present day struggles to end racial disparities. By sharing some of these stories, I hope to open up a dialogue about work that we are each involved in to tear down our racialized society, and to develop autonomous, peer relationships. What are the dead-ends? What are the starting points?




5PM: Ashanti Alston on international organizing (SR): Ashanti Alston Omowali is an anarchist activist, speaker, and writer, and former member of the Black Panther Party. He was also a member of the Black Liberation Army, and spent more than a decade in prison after government forces captured him (and the official court system convicted him) for armed robbery. A former northeast coordinator for Critical Resistance, Ashanti is currently co-chair of the National Jericho Movement (to free U.S. political prisoners), a member of pro-Zapatista people-of-color U.S.-based Estación Libre, and is on the board of the Institute for Anarchist Studies.




5PM: Subverting the Service Industry with the IEF (HPS): Description forthcoming!




5PM: The Real Battle In Seattle (VLP): A panel discussion looking back at Seattle 1999, especially in light of the new Hollywood film due out this year (entertainingly titled, "Battle in Seattle").

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 21

10AM: Tools for Anti-racist Activists (HPS): Through activities and discussion, this workshop will provide tools for identifying white supremacy and racism in individuals and organizations. Participants will explore white privilege in their own lives, and learn strategies to confront racism and work towards becoming an anti-racist ally.




12PM: Realizing the Impossible: Art Against Authority, with Erik Ruin (SR): Red Emma's is thrilled to welcome Erik Ruin (street artist, puppeteer, and editor of the art/politics zine Trouble in Mind) back to Baltimore for a more in-depth presentation of his new anthology (co-edited with Josh MacPhee of the Justseeds project), Realizing the Impossible: Art Against Authority. The book is filled to the gills with articles and essays on the development and significance of anarchist art and artistic anarchism (including an article featuring Camp Baltimore's social justice trailer project).




12PM: Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts of Women in SNCC (VLP): Baltimore organizer, Betty Robinson, and young organizers from the Baltimore Algebra Project, will read selections from the forthcoming book (or soon to be published book), Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) -- an anthology of 52 stories by women from SNCC.




1PM: Joy James presents Warfare in the American Homeland: Policing and Prisons in a Penal Democracy, with a special phone-in by former Black Panther and political prisoner Marshall "Eddie" Conway (SR): The United States has more than two million people locked away in federal, state, and local prisons. Although most of the U.S. population is non-Hispanic and white, the vast majority of the incarcerated - and policed - is not. Contributors consider the interning or policing of citizens of color, the activism of radicals, structural racism, destruction and death in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, and the FBI Counterintelligence Program designed to quash domestic dissent. Editor Joy James is John B. and John T. McCoy Presidential Professor of Humanities and College Professor in Political Science at Williams College. She is the author of Shadowboxing: Representations of Black Feminist Politics and Resisting State Violence: Radicalism, Gender, and Race in U.S. Culture and the editor of The New Abolitionists: (Neo)Slave Narratives and Contemporary Prison Writings and Imprisoned Intellectuals: America's Political Prisoners Write on Life, Liberation, and Rebellion. Baltimore Black Panther Marshall "Eddie" Conway has been wrongfully incarcerated in the state of Maryland for more than 35 years, one of the many victims of the FBIs infamous COINTELPRO program.




1PM: China Martens presents The Future Generation (VLP): A pioneer of the genre, especially when it comes to mamazines, China Martens started her zine The Future Generation in 1990. She was a young anarchist punk rock mother who didn't feel that the mamas in her community had enough support, so she began delivering articles on radical parenting to her compañeras in an age before the Internet made such a thing easy. Now, for the first time, 16 years of her zine and parenting writing life come together. This zine-book uses individual issues as chapters, focuses on personal writing, and retains the character of a zine that changed over the years-growing from her daughters birth to teenagehood and beyond. Personal and political; ideas and actions; the intimacy of a zine meets the arching reach of a book.




2PM: Bike Repair Workshop with Velocipede Bike Collective (HPS): Join members of Baltimore's Velocipede Bike Project for an introduction to DIY bike repair and maintenance.




2PM: Models for Radical Publishing (VLP): Details soon!




3PM: The Baltimore Algebra Project reports on their October 17 March for Jobs and Education (SR): The Baltimore Algebra Project seeks to foster an environment where students can possess the mathematics skills necessary to desire, demand, and successfully complete a college preparatory curriculum in high school, opening the gateway to opportunities and choices of careers in mathematics and technical fields. One of the longest-running and most highly effective activist groups in the Baltimore area, the Algebra Project continues to inspire and intrigue us on a daily basis. Join students as they report back on their October 17 March for Jobs and Education.




3PM: M.K. Asante, Jr. presents It's Bigger than Hip-Hop (VLP): M.K. Asante, Jr., 24, is a college professor and award-winning author and filmmaker who the Philadelphia Inquirer calls "a rare, remarkable talent that brings to mind the great artists of the Harlem Renaissance." Asante's first book, Like Water Running Off My Back, won the Academy of American Poets Jean Corrie Prize for its title piece. His second book, Beautiful. And Ugly Too was hailed by the Los Angeles Times as "a thought-provoking journey down the lonely road of wisdom and whiplash." His latest book, It's Bigger than Hip-Hop, is forthcoming from St. Martin's Press. Praised by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Charles Fuller as "one of the most important writers of his generation," Asante has written for USA Today, Tampa Tribune, Black Arts Quarterly, and the San Francisco Chronicle, among others. He is also a contributing author to the books Encyclopedia of Black Studies and the best-selling series 1000 Key Moments: Books. Asante wrote and produced the internationally-acclaimed film 500 Years Later, winner of Best Documentary at the Pan African Film Festival; Best Documentary at the Bridgetown Film Festival; Best Film at the Black Berlin Film Festival; Best International Documentary at the Harlem International Film Festival; and the Breaking the Chains award from UNESCO. Asante recently wrapped-up production on "The Black Candle," a film which he co-wrote with renown poet Maya Angelou, who also narrates the film. Other films are in-production through Asante Filmworx, an award-winning film production company founded by Asante in 2002.




3PM: Consent: Communication & Sex (HPS): Do you view consent differently for people of different genders, sexual preferences, sizes? How does power and privilege factor into consent? Is non-consent always assault? Can consent be erotic? This workshop, featuring a puppet show, will work to create space for an open, non-judgmental and healthy conversation around sexual consent. As we discuss how to create a society based on consent and not coercion, we'll talk about the questions above, discuss dynamics that play into how we might give or understand consent, and come up with ideas on how to figure out what we want sexually and how to make communication about consent comfortable and hot! Based on room size we'll limit the number of participants. No latecomers! This workshop is facilitated by The Down There Health Collective, a group working to better understand our bodies and care for ourselves and each other in a holistic way. Down There strives to create safe, comfortable and supportive environments to learn and share information, particularly around health, sexuality and gender and bring up body and mental health issues that too often go unaddressed. Down There is based in DC and facilitates various workshops, is making speculums more widely available and affordable or free, distros health-related zines for free and is excited to hear about similar work other folx are doing.




4PM: Independent journalist Dahr Jamail on the Iraq War, with members of Iraq Veterans Against the War (SR): In late 2003, Weary of the overall failure of the US media to accurately report on the realities of the war in Iraq for the Iraqi people and US soldiers, Dahr Jamail went to Iraq to report on the war himself. He spent a total of 8 months in occupied Iraq as one of only a few independent US journalists in the country, and has reported from other countries in the region, including Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. His new book, Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq is a critical addition to our understanding of the occupation of Iraq and the essential role of independent journalism. Jamail will be joined by members of the Iraq Veterans Against the War coalition, who will share their experiences in Iraq and at home.




4PM: On the Question of Copyright (VLP): Description forthcoming!




5PM: UNITE-HERE on the Sheraton Workers Campaign(VLP): Description forthcoming!