this list was originally created by joshua briond (@queersocialism on twitter or @jos.hau on instagram), based off my own readings and research over the last couple of years! and i’ve allowed others to add a few of their own readings (some of which i haven’t read yet, so keep that in mind), so i do not endorse every single thing in every single text listed here—in fact, i’ve politically outgrown quite a few of the things listed. so please read and engage critically and with an open mind! let this moment radicalize you, and share widely if you wish! let me know if you’d like to add or edit anything through a request!

thanks!

joshua briond*

intro to radical politics

black and marxist feminism

marxian analysis of the political economy (source: MLM Reading & Video List)

prison abolition (extended list with the help of a curated list by Ashanté Reese and SA Smythe)

on the prison industrial complex (s/o ashanté reese and sa smythe)

  • discipline and punish: the birth of the prison (michel foucault, 1977)
  • slavery by another name: the re-enslavement of black americans from civil war to world war ii (douglas blackmon, 2008)
  • texas tough: the rise of america’s prison empire (robert perkinson, 2010)
  • understanding mass incarceration: a people’s guide to the key civil rights struggle of our time (james kilgore, 2015)
  • policing the planet: why the policing crisis led to black lives matter (jordan camp & christina heatherton, 2016)
  • rethinking the american prison movement (dan berger & toussaint losier, 2017)
  • occupied territory: policing black chicago from red summer to black power (simon balto, 2017)
  • “organized disorder: the new york city jail rebellion of 1970” (orisanmi burton, 2018)
  • force and freedom: black abolitionists and the politics of violence (kellie carter jackson, 2019)

prison writings

  • the interesting narrative of the life of olaudah equiano, or gustavus vassa, the african (olaudah equiano, 1789)
  • incidents in the life of a slave girl (harriet jacobs, 1861)
  • prison notebooks (antonio gramsci, 1929-1935)
  • angela davis: an autobiography (angela y. davis, 1974)
  • assata: an autobiography (assata shakur, 1987)
  • writing on the wall: selected prison writings of mumia abu-jamal (mumia abu-jamal, 1980s-2015)
  • jailhouse lawyers: prisoners defending prisoners v. the u.s.a (mumia abu-jamal, 2009)
  • the new abolitionists: (neo)slave narratives and contemporary prison writings (joy james ed., 2005)

gender, sexuality & punishment

  1. captive genders: trans embodiment and the prison industrial complex (eric stanley & nat smith, 2011)
  2. “building an abolitionist trans and queer movement with everything we’ve got” (morgan bassichis, alexander lee and dean spade, 2011)
  3. “feminism and the (trans)gender entrapment of gender nonconforming prisoners” (julia oparah, 2012)
  4. against equality: prisons will not protect you (ryan conrad ed., 2012)
  5. chained in silence: black women and convict labor in the new south (talitha l. leflouria, 2015)
  6. normal life: administrative violence, critical trans politics, and the limits of law (dean spade, 2015)
  7. no mercy here: gender, punishment, and the making of jim crow modernity (sarah haley, 2016)
  8. invisible no more: police violence against black women and women of color (andrea ritchie, 2017)
  9. all our trials: prisons, policing, and the feminist fight to end violence (emily thuma 2019)
  10. arrested justice: black women, violence, and america’s prison nation (beth ritchie, 2012)

children, juveniles & policing

  • carceral capitalism (jackie wang, 2018)
  • pushout: the criminalization of black girls in schools (monique morris, 2015)

immigration, colonialism & global policing

  • the wretched of the earth (frantz fanon, 1961)
  • the groundings with my brothers (walter rodney, 1969)
  • “transatlantic visions: resisting the globalization of mass incarceration” (julia sudbury, 2000)
  • american gulag: inside u.s. immigration prisons (mark dow, 2005)
  • “amnesty or abolition: felons, illegals, and the case for a new abolition movement” (kelly lytle hernández, 2011)
  • undoing border imperialism (harsha walia, 2013)
  • new racial missions of policing (paul amar, 2013)
  • undocumented: how immigration became illegal (aviva chomsky, 2014)
  • afro-paradise: blackness, violence, and performance in brazil (christen smith, 2016)
  • ‘we have to act. this is what forms collectivity’: black solidarity beyond identity in contemporary paris” (vanessa e. thompson, 2017)
  • policing black lives: state violence in canada from slavery to the present (robyn maynard, 2017)
  • carceral humanitarianism: logics of refugee detention (kelly oliver, 2017)
  • our history is the future (nick estes, 2019)
  • policing life and death: race, violence, and resistance in puerto rico (marisol lebron, 2019)

abolition planning/moves for abolition futures

films

abolitionist blogs & other resources

on racial capitalism

critical race & class studies

  • black aesthetic theories

on capitalism, fascism, imperialism, neocolonialism, settler-colonialism

africa & the global south (s/o: @qgotnorings)

on zionism and towards a liberated palestine

indigenous studies

environmental justice and ecosocialism studies (h/t: @zerowastehabesha on instagram!)

  • rooted in the earth - dianne d. glave
  • freedom farmers - monica m. white
  • farming while black - leah penniman
  • pan-african social ecology - modibo kadalie
  • black food matters - hanna garth
  • black food geographies - ashanté reese
  • black on earth - kimberly n. ruffin
  • black faces, white spaces - carolyn finney
  • a terrible thing to waste - harriet a. washington
  • toxic communities - dorceta e. taylor
  • the environment and the people in american cities 1600s-1900s - dorceta e. taylor
  • the rise of the american conservation movement - dorceta e. taylor
  • sistah vegan - a. breeze harper
  • aphro-ism - aph ko and syl ko
  • as we have always done - leanna betasamosake simpson
  • love letter to the earth - thich nhat hanh
  • as long as the grass grows - dina gilio-whitake
  • braiding sweetgrass - robin wall kimmerer

on revolution

on slavery

whiteness/critical race studies

on gender, sexuality, and masculinities

women’s oppression, through a marxian and/or black feminist lens

fat studies (s/o the brilliant & beautiful @DashaunLH on instagram/twitter for putting this together)

  • sabrina strings: fearing the black body: the racial origins if fat phobia
  • tressie mcmillan cottom: thick: and other essays
  • natalie boero: killer fat: media, medicine, and morals in the american "obesity epidemic"
  • kiese laymon: heavy: an american memoir
  • sonya renee taylor: the body is not an apology: the power of radical self-love
  • roxane gay: hunger: a memoir of (my) body
  • the fat studies reader
  • j. eric oliver: fat politics: the real story behind america's obesity epidemic
  • shadow on a tightrope: writings by women i'm fat oppression
  • kathleen lebesco: revolting bodies? the struggle to redefine fat identity
  • elena levy-navarro: historicizing fat in anglo-american culture
  • paul campos: the obesity myth: why america's obsession with weight is hazardous to your health
  • andrea elizabeth shaw: the embodiment of disobedience: fat black women's unruly political bodies
  • amy erdman farrell: fat shame: stigma and the body in american culture
  • jason whitesel: fat gay men: girth, mirth, and the politics of stigma
  • michelle mary lelwica: shameful bodies: religion and the culture of physical improvement
  • sander l. gilman: fat boys: a slim book
  • sander l. gilman: fat: a cultural history of obesity

disability studies

  • robert mcruer: crip theory; cultural signs of queerness and disability
  • “the ruse of analogy:” blackness in asian american and disability studies
  • disability studies
  • leah lakshmi piepzna-samarasinha: care work: dreaming disability justice by leah
  • mia mingus work on ugliness

critical reads

must read revolutionary texts edition

understanding caste system and indian revolutionary books

 

articles, speeches, and essays

must read cultural texts

master page of info

  • https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ETMn7RmNsi9t2e8_ZsnwERAWTjIMy_xTJHixcOVWuNM/edit

james baldwin

toni morrison

organizations & collectives

podcasts and interviews