Common Notions

06/29/2024

Hello Asheville! is in full swing, with tons of great tables, powerful talks, big-hearted folks, and…wait for it, a beautiful breeze. We’re thrilled to be in the mix! Shout out to the organizers and to for hosting us all.

06/25/2024

“During their trip to Cabo Verde, Dona Maria Isabel Vaz warns Sónia Vaz Borges to respect the sea, ‘pamodi mar, ka ten kau di pega.’ [‘Respect the sea, because the sea has no place to grab.’]

Ragás, the story of that trip, is a search for where history, personal and public, has places to grab.”

—An excerpt from the forward by Craig Gilmore and Ruth Wilson Gilmore.

06/11/2024

Thank you to everyone who attended our event last week with Brian Whitener on the aftermath of the 2001 popular uprising in Argentina (documented in three books published by us—Genocide in the Neighborhood, Grupo de Arte Callejero: Thought, Practices, and Actions, and 19 and 20: Notes for a New Insurrection), along with reflections on what these books can say to us today about strategy and tactics in the face of rising global fascisms.

If you weren’t able to attend in person at Fitz Books in Buffalo, NY or online, you can catch the recording here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Xp5KLGJglM

06/04/2024

Thinking about starting a summer reading group? Use code STUDY&STRUGGLE for 40% off on 5 or more copies of the same book.

And reach out to us if you want support publicizing your group or putting together a reading guide! Happy reading, comrades 📚

05/16/2024

Looking for a feminist view of the economy after the onset of COVID-19? We recommend THE HOME AS LABORATORY.

The home is not a site of private life and isolation, but a battleground where the conflict over the reorganization of working days, over what even counts as labor, is waged. In the very spaces that capital historically sought to portray as an “unproductive” and apolitical space, and refused to pay for, now emerge new forms of debt and profit extraction. Although the home has been transformed into a favored site of finance’s colonization of social life and of experimentation for capital, this is not a finished process—or one without its resistance.

THE HOME AS LABORATORY traces this story through the links between debt and financial technologies, the violence of property, and reproductive and feminized labor, and everyday forms of feminist organizing. Drawing on militant research and interventions with feminist organizers in informal settlements and renters’ organizations in Buenos Aires, Luci Cavallero, Verónica Gago, and Liz Mason-Deese offer a powerful feminist methodology that points to the vital space of the home as an open dispute. They critically analyze the changes that have occurred in domestic routines, in labor dynamics, in the very cuts imposed by the pandemic’s reorganization of the sensible and of logistics. Thus, the home—its spatiality, functioning, and dynamics—suffered from reconfigurations during these novel years of the COVID-19 pandemic that have not ended. Yet, these processes are also resisted by feminist organizations, which have put the question of debt at the forefront of alliance-building, political education, and public interventions.

05/01/2024

Solidarity with everyone fighting for a free Palestine! If you would like books for the library at your encampment, please send us an email at [email protected] and we’ll ship you a package of our titles. !

04/25/2024

04/11/2024

The Home as Laboratory provides key insights into transformations in the home leading up to and during the pandemic. Luci Cavallero, Verónica Gago, and Liz Mason-Deese analyze how the home has become a site of battles over what work is considered essential, the intensification of paid and unpaid work, often at the same time, the expansion of new forms of financial extraction, and multiple and interconnected forms of violence. But, importantly, by highlighting the research and action of feminist and housing organizations, they also demonstrate how these processes are being resisted on a daily basis.

04/09/2024

THE HOME AS LABORATORY is out next week!

Drawing on militant research and interventions with feminist organizers in informal settlements and renters’ organizations in Buenos Aires, Luci Cavallero, Verónica Gago, and Liz Mason-Deese offer a powerful feminist methodology that points to the vital space of the home as an open dispute. They critically analyze the changes that have occurred in domestic routines, in labor dynamics, in the very cuts imposed by the pandemic’s reorganization of the sensible and of logistics. With an organizer’s optimism, they show us forms of resistance and possibilities for a feminist future of social reproductive work and shelter.

04/04/2024

What’s on your reading list?

THE FEMINIST SUBVERSION OF THE ECONOMY is a call to action to subvert the foundational order of racial capitalism, colonial violence, and a heteropatriarchal economy that threatens every form of life.

THE SELF-DEVOURING SOCIETY unites critiques of political economy and the psychoanalytic tradition to explain how contemporary capitalism has turned everyone into a narcissist.

DEFEND / DEFUND: A VISUAL HISTORY OF ORGANIZING AGAINST THE POLICE is a sweeping and poignant history of community response to the violence of white supremacy and carceral systems in the US, told through interviews, archival reproductions, and narrative.

04/02/2024

Bread, and roses too! NEW YORK LIBERATION SCHOOL is our pick for staying in from the rainy weather here in Brooklyn today and imagining how the classroom and the streets can coalesce in the struggles for Black, Puerto Rican, q***r, and women’s liberation.

Robin D. G. Kelley said of the book, “City University of New York has a very long history of making revolutionaries. It was a magnet for students and some faculty who recognized the indivisibility of the campus and the street, study and struggle. New York Liberation School turns to CUNY’s insurgent history to offer lessons for how we might remake higher education and the world.”

03/26/2024

From a rebellion against neoliberalism’s miserable failures, notes for a new insurrection and a new society.

19 and 20 tells the story of one of the most popular uprising against neoliberalism: on December 19th and 20th, 2001, amidst a financial crisis that tanked the economy, ordinary people in Argentina took to the streets shouting “¡Qué se vayan todos!” (They all must go!) Thousands of people went to their windows banging pots and pans, neighbors organized themselves into hundreds of popular assemblies, workers took over streets and factories. In those exhilarating days, government after government fell as people invented a new economy and a new way of governing themselves.

It was a defining moment of the antiglobalization movement and Colectivo Situaciones was there, thinking and engaging in the struggle. Their writings during the insurrection have since been passed hand to hand and their practice of militant research modelled widely as a way of thinking together in a time of rebellion.

With forewords by Marcello Tarì, Liz Mason-Deese, Antonio Negri, and Michael Hardt, this collection shows us embers from the 2001 rebellion in the mutual aid initiatives and new forms of solidarity today.

03/14/2024

A groundbreaking study, “Family, Welfare, and the State” offers a comprehensive reading of the welfare system through the dynamics of women’s resistance and class struggle. Mariarosa Dalla Costa, a key figure in the International Wages for Housework campaigns, highlights how the New Deal concretized the central role of women and the family in ensuring the capacity for economic growth and the reproduction of labor power necessary for the maintenance of capitalism. With a preface by Silvia Federici and new foreword by Liz Mason-Deese, this work is reanimated in the wake of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the crisis of care that it laid bare.

03/06/2024

Thank you to everyone who joined us in conversation last week to launch “Claim No Easy Victories” with co-editor Bill Fletcher Jr. We hope discussion of Amilcar Cabral and his legacy in our movements today will continue on from this collection of writing. We’d love to see and hear your reflections as you read. Thank you especially to for cosponsoring our DC launch and and for hosting us!

📸: 1. 2.

02/28/2024

Bill Fletcher Jr. is stopping by Baltimore to launch Claim No Easy Victories! Catch him on Friday, March 1st at 7pm at Red Emma’s Bookstore, 3128 Greenmount Avenue, Baltimore, MD for a reading and Q&A session.

02/21/2024

What do you read when you want to stay under the covers all day? What gives you a fire to keep fighting?

“Making Abolitionist Worlds” gathers insights from today’s international abolitionist movement to reveal a world to win.

Abolition Collective brings us to an Israeli prison for a Palestinian feminist reflection on incarceration within settler colonialism; to protest movements in Hong Kong who use “abolition democracy” to advocate for the abolition of the police; to the punitive landscapes that extend from the incarceration of political prisoners to the mass deportations and detentions along the U.S. southern border. The collection gives an urgent call to imagine and build new worlds.

02/06/2024

In a time of mass incarceration, immigrant detention and deportation, rising forms of racialized, gendered, and s*xualized violence, and deep ecological and economic crises, abolitionists everywhere seek to understand and radically dismantle the interlocking institutions of oppression and transform the world in which we find ourselves. Through essays, interviews, visual art, and poetry, each presented in an accessible manner, ABOLISHING CARCERAL SOCIETY engages with the meaning, practices, and politics of abolitionism in a range of historical and geographical contexts, including: prison and police abolitionism, border abolition, decolonization, slavery abolitionism, antistatism, antiracism, labor organizing, anticapitalism, radical feminism, q***r and trans politics, Indigenous people’s politics, s*x worker organizing, migrant activism, social ecology, animal rights and liberation, and radical pedagogy.

01/23/2024

In ten interviews, political designer and street artist Josh MacPhee talks to committed organizer-artists such as Avram Finkelstein, Emory Douglas, Tings Chak, Melanie Cervantes, Jesus Barraza, Alison Adler, Judy Seidman, Tomie Arai and Daniel Drennan ElAwar.

GRAPHIC LIBERATION: IMAGE MAKING AND POLITICAL MOVEMENTS is essential reading for people doing the work of building the culture of our movements and interpreting radical ideas visually.

Image by Tings Chak.

01/12/2024

“We’re not entertaining the masses by our suffering, driving sales or clicks in media because you want to see another Black dead body, monetizing Black death. She refused that. And the people who organized with her refused that... She was a template for us.”

With heartfelt personal context and insightful political analysis, Dr. Joy James discusses why she committed to only talking about Erica Garner for a year and expands upon her concept of the Captive Maternal and her latest book published with us, “New Bones Abolition.” Don’t miss this conversation between Dr. Joy James and Rev Left Radio.

https://revolutionaryleftradio.libsyn.com/joy-james-on-du-bois-liberation-struggles-revolutionary-love

01/03/2024

GRAPHIC LIBERATION: IMAGE MAKING AND POLITICAL MOVEMENTS by Josh MacPhee is out this month! Thank you for sharing .tokyo ❤️‍🔥

from .tokyo:
・・・
『GRAPHIC LIBERATION: IMAGE MAKING AND POLITICAL MOVEMENTS』 （ 編、 刊）がニューヨークから到着。 も参加している本です！

From the fight against the AIDS crisis to the struggle for Black liberation and international solidarity, Graphic Liberation! digs deep into the history, present, and future of revolutionary political image making.

What is the role of image and aesthetic in revolution? Through a series of interviews with some of the most accomplished designers, Josh MacPhee charts the importance of revolutionary aesthetics from the struggle for abolition by Black Panthers, the agitation during the AIDS crisis from ACT-UP, the fight against apartheid in South Africa and Palestine, as well as everyday organizing against nuclear power, for housing, and international solidarity in Germany, Japan, China, and beyond.

In twelve interviews, political designer and street artist Josh MacPhee talks to decorated graphic designers such as Avram Finkelstein, Emory Douglas, and more, focussing on each of their contributions to the field of political graphics, their relationships to social movements and political organizing, the history of political image making, and issues arising from reproduction and copyright.

エイズ危機との闘いから、黒人解放・国際連帯の闘いまで、革命的で政治的なグラフィック制作の歴史、現在、そして未来を深く掘り下げる。

革命におけるイメージと美学の役割とは？　本書『グラフィック・リベレーション』は、世界各地で活躍する政治的グラフィック・メーカーたちとの一連のインタビューを通して、ブラック・パンサーによる廃絶主義の闘い、ACT-UPによるエイズ危機の頃のアジテーション、南アフリカとパレスチナにおけるアパルトヘイトとの闘い、さらにはアフリカ、アジア、ラテンアメリカ、ヨーロッパ、そして日本における原発反対や、住まい、国際連帯を求める日常の中での組織化から、社会運動における美学の重要性を描き出す。

政治的文化実践者であり研究者でもあるジョシュ・マクフィーが、アヴラム・フィンケルシュタイン、アリソン・アルダー、エモリー・ダグラス、ディグニダッド・リベルデ（メラニー・セルバンテス、ジーザス・バラザ）、ジャマ・アルヤド（ダニエル・ドレナン・エルアワル）、トミー・アライ、サンディ・カルテンボーン、ジュディ・シードマン、A3BC、ティングス・チャックと行った10回の対談を通して、 グラフィックとデザイン分野へのかれらの貢献、社会運動や政治組織との関係、政治的グラフィック制作の歴史、複製や再利用から生じる問題などに焦点を当て検証する。

12/31/2023

Want to receive every new release of next year? Mailed directly to your door as soon as the book comes out?

This is one of the many perks—in addition to limited edition merch and huge discounts on all online orders—that sustainers who contribute $15 or more each month receive.

We want to give a heartfelt thank you to all of our Sustainers who’ve been instrumental in helping us get books like New Bones Abolition and Decolonize Conservation out this year. Our sustainers, those who contribute any amount monthly, give us the confidence and security needed for long-term thinking and transformation. We have just revamped the perks shared with sustainers, like new releases delivered directly to you each month, and we hope you will consider joining us or gifting a monthly sustainer contribution to a loved one.

12/27/2023

Here’s a sneak peak of some titles to expect from us in 2024! Which are you most excited to read?

Check out our website for more info on these forthcoming books or drop your question in the comments.

12/22/2023

Solidarity with everyone organizing and taking to the streets this weekend to demand a permanent ceasefire and end of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Solidarity with the churches of Bethlehem who are cancelling Christmas festivities in mourning of the ongoing genocide of Palestinians.

📸: Spotted in central Brooklyn, featuring the words of Refaat Alareer, Palestinian poet murdered by Israel on December 7, 2023

12/21/2023

What books are on your table today?

12/20/2023

OUT NOW—Genocide in the Neighborhood explores the autonomist practice of the “escrache,” investigates the nature of rebellion, discusses the value of historical and cultural memory to resistance, and tactfully deploys a much-needed model of political resistance that has recently been given new life by feminist groups across Latin America organizing against patriarchal violence.

Escraches are direct and decentralized ways to agitate for justice that Brian Whitener defines as “something between a march, an action or happening, and a public shaming.” The tactic emerged in the late 1990s to honor the lives of those tens of thousands disappeared and exterminated under the Argentinean military dictatorship (1976 to 1983) and to protest the amnesty granted to perpetrators of state violence.

12/19/2023

As a small, independent press, our community is responsible for keeping us going, disseminating on-the-ground movement knowledge and ideas of a world in common. Our sustainers, those who contribute to our press monthly, are essential to helping us pay our bills and plan for future catalogs of work. Plus, sustainers get our titles mailed directly to their door each month and all kinds of other perks!

When you join us as a sustainer or give sustaining membership as a gift, you enter a community pushing boundaries in indie publishing, documenting movement knowledge, and sparking change.

Find more info and join us via the link in our bio! Thank you, comrades ❤️‍🔥

12/18/2023

Thank you to the independent bookstores who stocked our titles this year! And a special thank you to these bookstores who included us in their holiday gift picks! For last minute gifts, be sure to grab any of our titles from your local indie bookstore :)

12/16/2023

May Day Space Holiday Festival is in full swing, with amazing community vendors, food and drink—and a DJ! Come through until 6p.

12/12/2023

What’s at the top of your stack?

“Defend / Defund” examines the history of how communities have responded to the violence of white supremacy and carceral systems in the United States and asks what lessons the modern abolitionist movement can draw from this past.

12/03/2023

Great books, folks, talks, and more all day at the Howard Zinn Book Fair.