Category: Events

For our tenth reading group we will continue reading The Ecology of Freedom by Murray Bookchin. From the blurb:

“The very notion of the domination of nature by man stems from the very real domination of human by human. With this succinct formulation, Murray Bookchin launches his most ambitious work, The Ecology of Freedom. An engaging and extremely readable book of breathtaking scope, its inspired synthesis of ecology, anthropology, and political theory traces our conflicting legacies of hierarchy and freedom, from the first emergence of human culture to today’s globalized capitalism, constantly pointing the way to a sane, sustainable ecological future. On a college syllabus or in an activist’s backpack, this book is indispensable reading for anyone who’s tired of living in a world where everything is an exploitable resource.”

We are reading The Ecology of Freedom over three months. This month we will be reading chapters five to eight, staring with The Legacy of Domination and ending with From Saints to Sellers.

A free version of The Ecology of Freedom can be found on the Anarchist Library here and our friends at Freedom Press here have offered a 10% discount on physical copies for the reading group. Just quote “London SolFed Reading Group” or pop into Freedom for your general radical book buying needs.

The reading group will be meeting on Tuesday the 27th of May, 19:00, at Freedom Bookshop, 84b Whitechapel High St, London E1 7QX. You are welcome to come and join in the discussion even if you have not finished the reading or are jumping in half way through the book.

For our ninth reading group we will start reading The Ecology of Freedom by Murray Bookchin. From the blurb:

“The very notion of the domination of nature by man stems from the very real domination of human by human. With this succinct formulation, Murray Bookchin launches his most ambitious work, The Ecology of Freedom. An engaging and extremely readable book of breathtaking scope, its inspired synthesis of ecology, anthropology, and political theory traces our conflicting legacies of hierarchy and freedom, from the first emergence of human culture to today’s globalized capitalism, constantly pointing the way to a sane, sustainable ecological future. On a college syllabus or in an activist’s backpack, this book is indispensable reading for anyone who’s tired of living in a world where everything is an exploitable resource.”

We will be reading The Ecology of Freedom over three months. This month we will be reading all the introductory material and the first four chapters, up to an including chapter four, Epistemologies of Rule.

A free version of The Ecology of Freedom can be found on the Anarchist Library here and our friends at Freedom Press here have offered a 10% discount on physical copies for the reading group. Just quote “London SolFed Reading Group” or pop into Freedom for your general radical book buying needs.

The reading group will be meeting on Tuesday the 29th of April, 19:00, at Freedom Bookshop, 84b Whitechapel High St, London E1 7QX. You are welcome to come and join in the discussion even if you have not finished the reading.

Our friends over at Freedom Press, who host the reading group, are having a book launch tomorrow, February the 13^th, for Physical Resistance, a 100-year history of grass roots anti-fascism in Britain. Physical resistance covers the fight of the International Brigades in Spain to the Battle of Cable Street and the defence of Southall, and locates these large-scale events alongside forgotten episodes of everyday resistance, collecting voices from across the movement to highlight the ways racism was faced down in communities nationwide. As part of the launch there will be a discussion about the book with the editor of its latest edition, Louise Purbrick, who inherited Dave Hann’s book, and has extended this new edition with activists’ accounts of the formation of the Anti-Fascist Network and their role in street anti-fascism of the twenty-first century.

The book launch will be at 7pm, at Freedom Bookshop, Angel Alley, 84b Whitechapel High Street, London E1 7QX.

For our seventh reading group we will be reading Queering Anarchsim, an anthology of essays. From the blurb:

“What does it mean to “queer” the world around us? How does the radical refusal of the mainstream codification of LGBT identity as a new gender norm come into focus in the context of anarchist theory and practice? How do our notions of orientation inform our politics and vice versa? Queering Anarchism brings together a diverse set of writings ranging from the deeply theoretical to the playfully personal that explore the possibilities of the concept of “queering,” turning the dominant, and largely heteronormative, structures of belief and identity entirely inside out. Ranging in topic from the economy to disability, politics, social structures, sexual practice, interpersonal relationships, and beyond, the authors here suggest that queering might be more than a set of personal preferences, pointing toward the possibility of an entirely new way of viewing the world.”

For this book we will be changing our format slightly. We will be reading Queering Anarchism over two months. This month we will be reading up and including the essay Harm Reduction as Pleasure Activism and stopping there, and we will read the rest of the book in March,

Free versions of Queering Anarchism can be found on the Anarchist Library here and our friends at Freedom Press here have offered a 10% discount on physical copies for the reading group. Just quote “London SolFed Reading Group” or pop into Freedom for your general radical book buying needs.

The reading group will be meeting on Tuesday the 25h of February, 19:00, at Freedom Bookshop, 84b Whitechapel High St, London E1 7QX. You are welcome to come and join in the discussion even if you have not finished the book.

For our sixth reading group we are changing venue. From now on we will be meeting at Freedom Bookshop, 84b Whitechapel High St, London E1 7QX. We will still be holding a reading group on the last Tuesday of the month (28th of January) at 7pm until 9pm.

Arranging a new venue has meant that the call out for this reading group is going out later than usual, so we have decided to read a much shorter work than usual; What is Social Ecology? by Murray Bookchin. Bookchin’s ideas have been influential on the ongoing revolution in Northern Syria, and are increasingly relevant in a world that is facing a climate catastrophe.

A free version of What is Social Ecology? can by found on the anarchist library here and even if you have not finished the essay, feel welcome to come and get involved in the discussion.

For our fifth reading group we will be reading Anarchism and The Black Revolution by Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin. Ervin was a Vietnam war conscript who became an anti-war activist, went on to join the Black Panthers, and became an anarchist while in prison for high-jacking an aircraft to escape to Cuba after being alleged in an attempt to kill a Ku Klux Klan leader. Anarchism and The Black Revolution, written in prison and first published in 1979, is not only a classic work of late 20^th century anarchism, but brings a black perspective to anarchism that has often been missing in a movement dominated by the ideas of white European thinkers.

This book places its critique of both capitalism and racism firmly at the centre of the text, discussing capitalism and white supremacy, the differences between anarchism and Marxism, the anarchist critique of the state, police violence, the threat of fascism, and, as the title suggests, anarchism and the black revolution.

Free versions of Anarchism and The Black Revolution can be found on the Anarchist Library here and our friends at Freedom Press here have offered a 10% discount on physical copies for the reading group. Just quote “London SolFed Reading Group” or pop into Freedom for your general radical book buying needs.

The reading group will be meeting on Tuesday the 26h of November, 19:00, at Well Space, Hackney, 241 Well Street, E9 6RG. You are welcome to come and join in the discussion even if you have not finished the book, and if you have the money, please bring a donation for the space.