Hi! Sarah Stein Lubrano and I are offering a 6-session online course this July, meeting on Mondays and Thursdays. Registration is open and we start reviewing applications on June 4. I’d be grateful if you could help spread the word. More information is below.
But before that, a few quick words:
A HUGE THANKS to the many hosts of the over 40 event Billionaires & Guillotines board game tour this Spring! The game is now stocked in the UK (ships to Europe), Canada, and the US and can be ordered on the Pluto website. This summer I'm hard at work on my COMRADE ORCA, a cooperative game where you play as a pod of badass killer whales who have sworn vengeance on the corporate criminals who’ve despoiled your ocean. “It’s like cooperative battleship, but you can only use whale sounds to communicate.” Stay tuned!
THE PLAYER AND THE PLAYED: From Gamed Capitalism to 21st-century Fascism, my new book from MIT Press, is out September 15. If you know someone who might be interested in writing a review, or if you know a magazine or podcast or other venue that might be interested in covering it, I’d be grateful if you could let me know.
A Three-Week Workshop on the Confronting the Political Psychology of the Far Right
Fascism is on the rise thanks to scheming billionaires, capitalist crisis, patriarchal power struggles, resurgent racism and imperialism, vicious nationalism and so much more.
As we struggle against fascism and the systems that created it, we want to pause to ask: what motivates the fascist imagination? What attracts people to fascism, historically and today? These questions are key to understanding the enemy and strategizing for a better future.
Sense & Solidarity presents a six-session (two sessions per week for three weeks) online workshop for those engaged in projects that are pushing back against the rising authoritarian, reactionary, and fascist elements of society.
Perhaps you’re community organizing. Maybe you’re making transformative art or doing radical research. Or it’s possible you’ve taken to the streets. In any case, if you want to think more deeply about both theory and strategy (and meet like-minded committed people) we hope you’ll join us.
In this workshop, we’ll look at themes including fascist (and anti-fascist) worldbuilding, how fascists manipulate feelings and hijack “common sense,” and the rise of fascist influencers (and whether there can or should be an anti-fascist equivalent). We’ll consider texts from the long history of antifascist thinkers (including the Frankfurt School and the Black radical tradition) and fascist ideologues (from Mussolini to Palantir’s CEO). We’ll think about the role of alienation, gender, horror, technology, and games. And we’ll help each other develop our theories of change and radical strategies.
Over the past two years, we have offered this workshop in-person in Palermo, London, Brussels and Toronto and most participants have found it to be illuminating, thought-provoking, and even transformative. This is the first time we are offering it online.
The workshop is hosted by Sarah Stein Lubrano and Max Haiven who, together, run Sense & Solidarity, a platform where people who want to change the world come together to ask big questions and develop skills for struggle. Combining Sarah’s expertise on political psychology and Max’s expertise on social movements and the radical imagination, we create podcasts, workshops, retreats and infrastructure for better praxis (theory+action).
The event will take place Mondays and Thursdays at 6pm CET/5pm UK time/noon EST/9am Pacific time on the Zoom platform.
Registrants are invited to enroll in one of two streams:
Those in the auditor stream will attend the first half 75-minute of each session which will include a lecture and Q&A. These will be recorded and available to registrants afterwards.
Those in the participator stream will also attend a second 75-minute session, following the first (after a short break), that will include facilitated large and small group discussion based on small action and reflection assignments to be undertaken between sessions. For example, you might be asked to brainstorm gateway actions to get people involved in a movement, or reflect on how gender and fascism are related in your communities.
All registrants will be required to join the Sense & Solidarity Discord server (it’s a chat platform, and easy to install and use), where all relevant information will be shared and where they can meet participants in past (and future) workshops.
Regardless of your stream (auditor or participator), registration is typically £120 (or equivalent) for regular participants and £240 (or equivalent) for those who can access institutional supports (we can provide an invoice). However, no one will be turned away for lack of funds.
A limited number of bursaries are available to waive some or all of the cost of registration, courtesy of RiVAL: The ReImagining Value Action Lab. You can apply for them via the form below. We prioritize bursaries for applicants who have a plan to make their learning relevant to their communities of struggle.
Please use the application form here or below by June 4th. We will strive to confirm participation by the end of the following week. After difficult experience, we have returned to using Google Forms. If you are uncomfortable doing so, please copy the questions and answer them in an email to registration at senseandsolidarity dot org.
We particularly welcome applications from groups of people working on projects together. Each participant should complete their own application.
MONDAY June 29th 5pm BST/Noon EST: What isn’t fascism?
How can we define fascism? (How) Is it different from authoritarianism, totalitarianism, reactionary politics and more? How is 21st-century fascism like and unlike its 20th -century predecessors?
THURSDAY July 2nd 5pm BST/Noon EST: How does fascist ideology work (and how can we fight it)?
It’s less a comprehensive system of coherent ideas and more a gang of feelings in search of a narrative. But in any case, we’ll learn how ideologies take hold of the imagination and what can be done.
MONDAY July 6th 5pm BST/Noon EST: Fascism and the crisis of gender and social reproduction
Capitalism has made life impossible for so many of us. How does fascism reframe and capitalize on this everyday crisis and how does it mobilize the imagination around sex, families, babies and hatred of trans people?
THURSDAY July 9th 5pm BST/Noon EST: Fascism, racism and colonialism in the neoliberal moment
Fascism is always racist, but racism is a shapeshifter that serves capitalism and colonialism. In today’s hyper-individualist and competitive system, we need to update our analysis.
MONDAY July 13th 5pm BST/Noon EST: Building radical infrastructure
Unlike many of our predecessors, we inherit a ruined social world where the very way we’ve built our capitalist society promotes fascist feelings. How can we rebuild as part of the antifascist fight?
THURSDAY July 16th 5pm BST/Noon EST: We can’t just react, we need strategy
There are many fronts for an antifascist struggle: the neighborhood, the streets, social institutions, the media, arts, culture and ideas and more… But social movements can only win when they have a plan. We’ll explore some tools for setting priorities, focusing our energies and picking our battles.
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