Spectre Journal

01/10/2025

“Lessons from the Air Canada Strike” by John Clarke examines the flight attendants’ strike organized by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE).

By defying the federal government’s back-to-work orders, the strike set a precedent for more militant, rank-and-file–driven union democracy, in preparation for the struggles to come.

https://spectrejournal.com/lessons-from-the-air-canada-strike/

24/09/2025

https://youtu.be/KqPk1o5kz4Q?si=_oYc7vtJAuKDamvi

ICYMI: The first session of this Fall's SRT lab is online featuring Rebecca Carson.

Please like or comment on the vid for the algo.

Rebecca Carson of the Royal College of Art discusses social reproduction theory.SRT Lab is organized by Tithi Bhattacharya, Sue Ferguson, and Aaron Jaffe. It...

23/09/2025

.𖥔 ݁ ˖✶⋆.˚Rebel alliances. Studio empires.
Johnathan Brown’s new essay for Spectre maps out the political economy of Star Wars, the class battles behind the franchise and the possibilities of class struggle in a galaxy far, far away. .𖥔 ݁ ˖✶⋆.˚

Link in the comments.

19/09/2025

In his new essay, L**e, Alan Sears .alan reads Adam Hanieh’s book Crude Capitalism: Oil, Corporate Power, and the Making of the World Market (Verso, 2024) through the insights gleaned from his own book Eros and Alienation: Capitalism and the Making of Gendered Sexualities (Pluto, 2025).

In doing so, Sears reflects on the erotic dimensions of oil-centered development from resource extraction and dispossession to personal styling products and lubricants to cars and the politics of the far right.

Read it now at Spectrejournal.com.

19/09/2025

https://spectrejournal.com/lube/

Hey y'all! This Friday we have Alan Sears reflecting in the intersection between his Eros and Alienation ( Pluto Press ) and Adam Hanieh's Crude Capitalism ( Verso Books )

Inspired by Adam Hanieh's Crude Capitalism, Alan Sears reflects on the influence of oil-centered capitalist development on our erotic lives.

18/09/2025

https://www.youtube.com/live/AokV9UO14ek?si=b0qXzg_YwgoK0B0h

ICYMI: Our last Spectre Live (cohosted with Haymarket Books
) on resistance in higher education is on YouTube.

w/ Heba Gowayed , Isaac Kamola, and Vineeta Singh.

Moderated by Spectre's own Zachary Levenson.

Please like or comment on the video for the algorithm.

The Trump regime took advantage of the repression of the Palestine solidarity movement under the Biden administration to launch a full-scale assault on highe...

17/09/2025

Hey y'all! SRT lab is in an hour!

QR Code on the original poster was broken.
ZOOM LINK HERE 👇🏽
https://purdue-edu.zoom.us/j/92062392513?pwd=i72qeQDuO5bXdw2X42T5M1QtSAuJ2v.1

16/09/2025

New at Spectrejournal.com
T̲h̲e̲ ̲H̲o̲p̲e̲s̲ ̲o̲f̲ ̲D̲i̲s̲a̲l̲i̲e̲n̲a̲t̲i̲o̲n̲
̲A̲ ̲r̲e̲v̲i̲e̲w̲ ̲o̲f̲ ̲A̲l̲a̲n̲ ̲S̲e̲a̲r̲s̲’̲s̲ ̲E̲r̲o̲s̲ ̲a̲n̲d̲ ̲A̲l̲i̲e̲n̲a̲t̲i̲o̲n̲
by Sean K. Isaacs and Isadora Seconi

“Sears mobilizes a broad understanding of eros rooted in the notion of 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 activity as human fulfillment, instead of a more limited and confined understanding of sexuality. Likewise, the concept of work goes beyond wage labor, encompassing all lifemaking activity, including “caring, aesthetic expression, physical performance and social belonging.”[2] Drawing from elements of Social Reproduction Theory (SRT) such as Susan Ferguson’s expansive concept of labor, 𝘚𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘴 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘴 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬 𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘭𝘶𝘥𝘦𝘴 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘷𝘦𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘧𝘪𝘵𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘴.[3]“

16/09/2025

This week we have Isadora Seconi and Sean K. Isaacs's review of Alan Sears's Eros and Alienation ( Pluto Press ).

We'll also have a new article from Alan Friday (9/19) about some intersections between his book and Adam Hanieh's Crude Capitalism.

Isadora Seconi and Sean K. Isaacs review Alan Sears's Eros and Alienation, looking at the book's utopian implications for ecosocialism and Marxist theory.

15/09/2025

This year's SRT lab starts Wednesday (9/17) with a talk from Rebecca Carson.

15/09/2025

Today (9/15) at 5pm EST!

https://www.tickettailor.com/events/haymarketbooks/1852479

12/09/2025

From repression of the Palestine solidarity movement under the Biden administration to Trump’s full-scale assault on higher education, educators have been on the front lines of the New McCarthyism. Join us for a Spectre Live event next Monday 9/15 to hear from a panel of activist educators fighting back. Link is in our bio.

———/-//—————-/-//————————-
Speakers:

Isaac Kamola is a professor of political science at Trinity College, Hartford, CT. He is author of Free Speech and Koch Money: Manufacturing a Campus Culture War (2021) and Making the World Global: US Universities and the Production of the Global Imaginary (2019). He currently directs the Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom at the American Association of University Professors (AAUP).

Heba Gowayed is a writer and associate professor sociology at CUNY Hunter college and a current Carnegie Fellow. She is the author of Refuge: How the State Shapes Human Potential (2022).

Vineeta Singh is a fellow at AAUP’s Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom, an associate editor of Ethnic Studies Review, and a non-tenure track college teacher. She studies the history of US higher education as a site of racial contestation, so we can put contemporary confrontations about “diversity, equity, and inclusion” in the context of the four hundred years of racial capitalism. Her work for the Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom is currently available as a limited run series on the podcast “AAUP Presents.”

Zoé Samudzi is a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of African-American and Africana Studies at The Ohio State University. She is also a Global Blackness Fellow with the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of Johannesburg, and a fellow with African Museums and Heritage Restitution (AFRIMUHERE).