Pilsen Community Books
Join us for a very special lineup of authors from the legendary indie press Whiskey Tit including Adam Axler, Tobias Carroll, Andrew Farkas, Dave Fitzgerald, Miette Gillette, David Scott Hay, Daniel A Hoyt, KT Mather, David Leo Rice, and Adam al-Sirgany.
Join Exhibit B for the latest installment of their renowned reading series featuring Fatimah Asghar, Shivani Gupta, C. Russell Price, and Julia Z Caisip.
Join us as we welcome Sophie Lewis and Brit "Red" Schulte to the store for a discussion of Lewis's new essay collection Femmephilia, an original diagnosis of femmephobia in our culture, and a vision of a life-giving femme feminism for all. To be femme is to embody a dispossessed femininity, to be freighted with freedom, to refuse to be made proper or institutionalized. To love it is to embrace love for women (be they butch or not) in the broadest sense. In Femmephilia, Sophie Lewis makes the case for the vital importance of politicized femme-ness: a feminism that is self-consciously artificial, extravagant in its erotic and political appetites, and staunchly anti-work, abolitionist, and utopian. Femme labors deserve our care, respect, and support, but instead face dismissal from masculinist antagonists and feminist allies alike. Where neoliberal women’s empowerment has failed to combat the eruption of right-wing, anti-trans, and anti-feminist attacks, Lewis argues that femmephilia can help us imagine a radical future. In essays on the high femme genius of Marilyn Monroe and trans yearning in the myth of Apollo and Daphne; on octopuses and girlbosses, reluctant heterosexuals, lesbian separatists, and anti-work cats; and on a mother on strike from maternity, Femmephilia offers a new logic of liberation for all feminized people.
Join us as we welcome Danielle Chynoweth and Elizabeth Adams to the store for a discussion of their new book Remaking Democracy: How We Make the Worlds We Want. What tools do we need to empower ourselves and our communities to create a more just and desirable future? We are at a watershed moment of rising fascism and rising seas. Yet, our ability to connect and collaborate in creating our societies has never been greater. The urgent question is: How do we build democratic participation everywhere? Remaking Democracy: How We Make the Worlds We Want is a guidebook for social change. It provides strategy and tools to create a more just and desirable future for everyone. It empowers people from all walks of life to analyze root causes of the problems we face and design actions, transforming ourselves as we transform the world. Stories of successful projects illuminate the book’s theory in action. Remaking Democracy teaches how to proliferate participation and grow democratic practices, so that those affected by systems can become their creators. It equips us to design the abundant variety of solutions our surviving and thriving require.
The People's Historian: The Outsized Life of Howard Zinn: A Conversation Between author Dave Zirin and Rabbi Brant Rosen Tzedek Chicago is proud to present Dave Zirin, author of the recently published book The People's Historian: The Outsized Life of Howard Zinn, This powerful new biography examines the life and work of iconic radical historian Howard Zinn, as a progressive icon and thought leader by highlighting the story of the times that shaped him as well as the United States of America. In our program, Zirin will discuss his book, hia relationship with Howard Zinn, and how his life story "gives us a road map for a politics of change." After his presentation, Zirin will engage in a conversation with Tzedek Chicago's founding rabbi. Brant Rosen, who will also facilitate a conversation with program participants.
What Anarchism Offers a World on Fire with Ashanti Alston, Paul Messersmith-Glavin, and Kim Feicke Celebrate the release of Visions and Interventions: Thirty Years of Perspectives on Anarchist Theory and Anarchist Panther: Selected Writings of Ashanti O. Alston, both new from AK Press. Join former Black Panther Ashanti Alston and Paul Messersmith-Glavin from the Perspectives on Anarchist Theory collective in a discussion of these two compelling new books. We will also focus on what anarchism and anarchists have to offer a burning world in crisis. This discussion will be moderated by Kim Feicke, a longtime antiracist organizer who was involved in Chicago’s A Zone & Active Resistance Gathering in the 90s. Today Kim primarily trains educators to better develop their consciousness & practices related to combating white supremacy and anti-Black racism.
Hard Femme Release Party Hard Femme album release show feat. Cowboy Jane, Future Two, and Outros Join local bands Hard Femme, Cowboy Jane, Future Two, and Outros as they celebrate the release of three new records: Hard Femme’s “Lo-Fem”, Cowboy Jane’s debut LP “Infinite Chest”, and Future Two’s debut EP “Future Two”. This is a mask-required show with air purifiers provided by Clean Air Club. Doors open at 1pm and music begins at 1:30pm. Approximate set times: Outros: 1:30-2pm Future Two: 2:15-2:45pm Cowboy Jane: 3-3:30pm Hard Femme: 3:45-4:30pm
Saturday August 29th, 2026 @ 4:00PM - 6:30PM Join BA NIA for a special screening of BREAST MILK, a documentary that follows the lives of breastfeeding women and addresses the many questions around breast milk, for Breastmilk Awareness Month. About BREAST MILK: Pregnant bodies are easier for society to accommodate. What follows birth is a different, messier story. Through new and honest ways, with a wide range of frank, difficult, revealing interviews, BREAST MILK follows the lives of breastfeeding women and addresses the many questions around breast milk. BA NIA Inc. advances reproductive justice and health equity for BIPOC women + birthing people in Chicago. We fight alongside communities for bodily autonomy, racial equity, and systemic change, offering culturally grounded birthing / “doula” assistance, childbirth education, and holistic prenatal + postnatal care at every stage of life. For more than 30 years, BA NIA has fought alongside communities to change systems and improve Black maternal and infant health outcomes.
We're honored join our friends at In These Times to welcome Sonali Kolhatkar, Richard Wallace and Sandra Puebla for a conversation on the new anthology Breaking ICE: Community Defense against State Terror and MAGA Fascism, a gripping, on-the-ground account of the growing movement against state violence, featuring interviews with those on the frontlines of the fight for immigrant justice and what it means to belong. A war is being waged on the streets of the United States of America: MAGA’s violent anti-immigration regime is being challenged by a growing national movement dedicated to protecting communities and reversing racist and authoritarian policies. In Breaking ICE, award-winning journalist Sonali Kolhatkar presents her conversations with over a dozen movement organizers, lawyers, artists, labor leaders, and scholars on the frontlines of the fight. Through their courageous stories, Kolhatkar documents the impact of ICE violence, workplace raids, mass surveillance, and intimidation tactics, and how communities from Maine to California are organizing for a better world. Our present actions will not only determine the nature of American demographics from here on out, but also whether the future of the United States will look like an open multiracial democracy or a fascist police state. Features conversations with: Pablo Alvarado, Nikki Marín Baena, Eduardo Delgado, Adela de la Torre, Shannon Gibney, Ron Gochez, David Huerta, Ibram X. Kendi, Robin D. G. Kelley, Josefina Lopez, Leonardo Martinez, Christine Neumann-Ortiz, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Favianna Rodriguez, Luis Rodriguez, Ruben Torres, Richard Wallace, Yohuru Williams, and Kent Wong. Foreword by Roberto Lovato. Sonali Kolhatkar is an award-winning multimedia journalist. She is the host of Rising Up With Sonali, a weekly television and radio program that airs on Free Speech TV and Pacifica Radio stations and affiliates around the United States. She is also the author of Talking About Abolition: A Police Free World Is Possible and Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice. She has won numerous awards, including Best TV Anchor and Best National Political Commentary from the LA Press Club, and has been nominated for Best Radio Anchor four years in a row. Richard Wallace is the founder and director of Equity and Transformation (EAT), an organization which fights for social and economic equity for Black workers in informal work and those who have been formerly incarcerated. EAT is involved with research, advocacy, policy development, community organizing, and podcast production. He is currently the board president at Working Family Solidarity. Prior to working at EAT, he worked with the Workers Center for Racial Justice and Chicago Workers Collaborative.
The Chicago Reader presents The Politics of Public Space: A Moderated Panel and Group Discussion Join the Chicago Reader for a live event to talk about the politics of public space. We’ll be discussing who gets to use “public” spaces and what kinds of spaces get built for the public. RSVP here. Panelists: Katie Prout is a features writer for the Chicago Reader focusing on addiction, homelessness, and the unique people who make this city the best in the world. Shawn Mulcahy is the Reader‘s news editor. He covers police, prosecutors, and prisons. His writing has appeared in outlets including the Washington Post, the Guardian, and Bolts. He previously worked for the Texas Tribune and WFSU Public Media. Holly Krig (Moms United Against Violence and Incarceration) | Moms United organizes mutual support & participatory defense in solidarity with mothers who suffer criminalization & separation from their kids. Judah Venturi is an independent researcher, writer, teacher, and philosopher who monitors city cleanings of homeless encampments. The Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice serves to connect organizations working to reduce pretrial incarceration in Illinois and, more broadly, to end mass incarceration and address the root causes of socio-economic and racial inequity in our legal system. Ali Simmons from the Chicago Coalition to End Homelessness (CCH). Tabling Organizations: Chicago Community Jail Support is a grassroots mutual aid project focused on assisting anyone released from Cook County Jail. Parks For All is a coalition of Chicagoans who believe unhoused people have a right to exist in city parks and green spaces. Based in Albany Park.
Kemi Alabi, I.S. Jones, and Meredith Nnoka reading for Black August Wednesday August 5th, 2026 @ 7:00PM - 8:30PM Join poets Kemi Alabi, I.S. Jones, and Meredith Nnoka for a reading and conversation in celebration of Black August, a 50-year tradition that began in U.S. prisons and jails to commemorate key events in the ongoing movement against incarceration. This event is free and open to the public.
Join the Lit & Luz Book Club/Club de Lectura this summer and fall to read and discuss some of today’s most exciting contemporary Mexico and Chicago based authors in both Spanish and English. Founded in 2018 by writer and Lit & Luz Literary Director emeritus, Miguel Jiménez, the esteemed local reading group is hosted this year by author and performer Angelica Julia Dávila and is an opportunity for Chicagoans to read latinx literature in translation and recent works by authors in Lit & Luz’s Collaboration Cohort and community. About Poetry After Barbarism: Against a backdrop of xenophobia and ethnonationalist fantasies of linguistic purity, Poetry After Barbarism uncovers a stateless, polyglot poetry of resistance—the poetry of motherless tongues. Departing from the national and global paradigms that dominate literary history, Jennifer Scappettone traces the aesthetic and geopolitical resonance of “xenoglossic” poetics: poetry composed in the space of contestation between national languages, concretizing dreams of mending the ruptures traced to the story of Babel. As global migration, aerial bombardment, and the wireless telegraph shrank distances with brute force during the twentieth century, visions of transcultural communication emerged in the hopes of bridging linguistic difference. At the same time, evolving Fascist ideologies denied the reality of cultural admixture and the humanity of the stranger.
Join us as we welcome author, educator, and activist Emmaia Gelman for an event celebrating her new book The Anti-Defamation League and the Racial State. David Stovall, UIC professor and author of the acclaimed book Engineered Conflict: Structural Violence and the Future of Black Life in Chicago, will join Emmaia for a conversation about how the ADL continues to shape harmful narratives and policies about race and civil rights - aligning itself with the far-right, enacting politics of disposability and knowledge erasure, and upholding U.S. Empire. Attendees will have the opportunity to learn why the ADL is NOT a social justice organization, and how under the guise of being a reliable resource for educators and schools, the ADL instead weaponizes the IHRA's false definition of antisemitism in order to perpetuate anti-Palestinian and anti-Black racism, repress liberatory curricula, and punish educators and students. As part of the event, we will have time for some small group organizing and collaboration on next steps for resisting the influence of the ADL and adjacent right-wing organizations in our city. Accessibility Note: For our collective safety and care, KN95/N95 masks are required and provided. Extra HEPA air filtration provided by Clean Air Club. About The Anti-Defamation League and the Racial State- The first-ever history of the Anti-Defamation League and its determined, century-long alliance with Western empire. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is a major US political organization, yet its politics have gone largely unexamined. While the ADL is often portrayed as a defender against antisemitism and racism, its history shows that it is better understood as a proponent of the racial state and US empire. From “correcting” the embarrassing racial difference of immigrant Jews to policing the leftist politics of Black, Arab, and Jewish groups, the ADL pursued a conservative version of civil rights paired with aggressive anti-communism. Even as it became an authority on white nationalism in the 1970s, the ADL joined with the emerging anti-left, anti-Arab, and pro-Western neoconservative movement. This history presaged the ADL’s work, from the 1980s to the present, in developing the hate crimes framework as a pro-state policing project, which soon merged with the “War on Terror,” the “antisemitism scare,” and anti-Palestinian racism. The Anti-Defamation League and the Racial State presents the ADL’s history through its conflicts with social justice movements, illuminating the ADL’s outsize role in shaping the ideas about race and rights that have underwritten US empire. “Emmaia Gelman’s gripping book sent chills down my spine. In meticulous detail, she documents how the Anti-Defamation League, in the name of combating hate, terror, and antisemitism, has defended Israeli policies of dispossession and ethnic cleansing, attacked the Left, assailed Black, Brown, and queer movements, given cover to US imperial crimes, and become a mouthpiece for neoconservatism. But this is not the tragic story of an organization that lost its way. Rather, the ADL was born of the belief that the best protection from antisemitism was admission into the white racial state and waging a vigorous defense of capitalism, individual rights, and the West against communists and barbarians. And it has never looked back.” —Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination Emmaia Gelman is the author of The Anti-Defamation League and the Racial State, a critical history of the Anti-Defamation League as a Cold War neoconservative institution (UC Press, 2026) and co-editor of The Anti-Defamation League: A Critical Reader (Pluto Press, 2026). She co-hosts the podcast Unpacking Zionism. Emmaia is co-chair of the American Studies Association Caucus on Academic and Community Activism, and a longtime activist in New York City. She is the founding director of the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism, which examines the political and ideological work of Zionist institutions in Palestine and transnational contexts. She researches the history of ideas about race, queerness, safety, and rights, and their production as levers in surveillance, “anti-terror”, and war. Her teaching spans academic and community spaces. David Stovall, Ph.D. is a professor in the departments of Black Studies and Criminology, Law & Justice at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). In the attempt to bring theory to action, he works with community organizations and schools to address issues of equity, justice and abolishing the school/prison nexus. His work led him to become a member of the design team for the Greater Lawndale/Little Village School for Social Justice (SOJO), which opened in the Fall of 2005. Furthering his work with communities, students, and teachers, his work manifests itself in his involvement with the Peoples Education Movement, a collection of classroom teachers, community members, students and university professors in Chicago, Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area who engage in collaborative community projects centered in creating relevant curriculum. He is the author of the recently published Engineered Conflict: Structural Violence and the Future of Black Life in Chicago.
Come out for a show with Rent Party, everyone's favorite feminist garage folk trio. Rent Party are: Sneža (the axe/box-wielding wailer), Holly (the beat master extraordinaire), and Matt (bass-string and vocal-cord vibrations), and they are your favorite feminist garage folk band. Since 2014, Rent Party has been peddling original tunes and multilingual covers on stages and streets of Chicago, and they’ve also played Brooklyn, Cleveland, Detroit, Manhattan, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, New Jersey, and St. Paul. Featured on The Watt From Pedro Show, they've released Burn It Down (EP, 2019), "Bella Ciao!" (single, 2023), Corto (LP, 2023), and With RP (triple single, 2026). Browse for the next book (e.g. band founder Snežana Žabić’s Concrete Is More Beautiful Disfigured and Stained) that will inspire you to change the world while listening to Rent Party’s upbeat songs of protest, rage and other discontent.
Join us for a night of comedy with Drew Gregory, Lauren Warwick, Hunter Hirsh, Harry Meredith, Jackson White and Anthony hernandez
Queer Tastes: Unconventional Representation in Horror Films with Cat Voleur and Jane Keranen Join us as we welcome Cat Voleur and Jane Keranen for an event in celebration of Voleur's new book Queer Tastes: Unconventional Representation in Horror Films. Pansexual author Cat Voleur guides readers through twenty film recommendations selected from over eighty years of scary movies. Her personal experiences with the LGBTQIA+ community are intertwined into these essays about the history of the genre and persistence of the counterculture. Get ready to let the messiest and most fabulous skeletons out of the closet. Honor some classics, get out of your comfort zone, and embrace some problematic favorites because no one should have to hide their Queer Tastes.
Confronting Scholasticide in Palestine: Repression and Resistance in Academic Associations Join us at Pilsen Community Books for a panel discussion on Palestine, academic freedom, and academic associations, featuring: Margaret Power, emeritus professor at Illinois Institute of Technology, and Van Gosse, emeritus professor of History at Franklin & Marshall College, co-chairs of Historians for Peace and Democracy (HPAD) Andy Clarno, associate professor of Sociology at the University of Illinois Chicago and Eman Abdelhadi, assistant professor of Comparative Human Development at the University of Chicago, members of the organizing committee of Sociologists for Palestine (S4P) Bill Ayers, retired Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University Scholar at the University of Illinois Chicago and long-term organizer and author. Come learn about HPAD’s campaign to bring a resolution to the American Historical Association convention condemning the Gazan scholasticide and calling on the AHA to help rebuild Gaza’s educational system, which was overwhelmingly passed by membership but later vetoed byleadership. Also learn about S4P’s efforts to pass an institutional Boycott resolution in the American Sociology Association. The event will also explore what constitutes scholasticide and consider how academic professionals and community members alike can take proactive steps to preserve vulnerable histories.
The Veiled Prophet: Secret Societies, White Supremacy, and the Struggle for St. Louis with Join us as we welcome Devin Thomas O'Shea to the store for an event in celebration of his new book The Veiled Prophet: Secret Societies, White Supremacy, and the Struggle for St. Louis, a provocative look at the secret society that has controlled St. Louis for over a century, revealing how shadowy elites organize themselves against working-class power.
Translated Lit Club discusses CATHEDRALS by Claudia Piñeros 💫Attention all literature in translation fans!💫 The first meeting of the newly relaunched Translated Lit Club will be on June 30th at 7 pm. We will be discussing Claudia Piñeros' Cathedrals, translated by Frances Riddle. Claudia Piñeros is a staff favorite here at PCB, and we can't wait to dive into her newest from Charco Press. All are welcome!
librarypunk Live: Critical AI Takes Too Hot For the Mainstage! Join us for a live recording of librarypunk, a leftist library worker podcast featuring Sarah Appedu, Kay Slater, and Emily Zerrenner. You can register for this event here. All ticket sales will go to ICIRR.
Jay Besemer and Joe Hall Thursday June 18th, 2026 @ 7:00PM - 8:00PM Join us as we welcome Jay Besemer and Joe Hall to the store for a reading from their books On Being Half-Imaginary and Buffalo Free Rapid Transit.
Armed by Design: Cuban and Salvadoran Agit Prop Internationalism he recent book Armed by Design (Common Notions Press) reflects on the intersection of graphic design and political solidarity work in revolutionary Cuba through the lens of the production of OSPAAAL, the Organization of Solidarity of the Peoples of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Based in Havana, OSPAAAL produced nearly five hundred posters, magazines (Tricontinental), and books beginning in the late 1960s through 2019. Co-editor Josh MacPhee will discuss this incredible political design experiment, where it came from and what we can learn from it.
Alison Kinney and Rachel León Monday June 15th, 2026 @ 7:00PM - 8:00PM Join us as we welcome Rachel León and Alison Kinney to the store for an reading and conversation about writing stories of resistance, joy, and hope amidst an ongoing crisis in celebration of their new books How We See the Gray and United States of Rejection.
The Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity Sunday June 14th, 2026 @ 2:00PM - 3:00PM The Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity with Sarah Schulman and Rabbi Brant Rosen Tzedek Chicago is proud to present acclaimed novelist, playwright, screenwriter, nonfiction writer and AIDS historian Sarah Schulman for a book reading and conversation featuring her recent book, "The Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity." For those who seek to combat injustice, solidarity with the oppressed is one of the highest ideals, yet it does not come without complication. In her searing and uplifting new book, Sarah Schulman delves into the intricate and often misunderstood concept of solidarity to provide a new vision for what it means to engage in this work -- and why it matters. This program will include the author reading from her book, and a conversation with Rabbi Brant Rosen followed by open discussion with attendees.
Points of Departure—A Harry Cleaver Reader Release Party Friday June 12th, 2026 @ 7:00PM - 8:00PM "Refuse work. Revolt against capitalism. Read Harry Cleaver. In that order. Repeat." Join us as we welcome organizers and co-editors Robert Ovetz and Kevin Van Meter to the store for a conversation with activist and Hillbilly Nationalists, Urban Race Rebels, and Black Power co-author James Tracy, on their new book Points of Departure: Refusal of Work and the Crisis of Capitalism: The Collected Writings of Harry Cleaver. Points of Departure is a definitive collection of Harry Cleaver’s best unpublished, translated, or lesser known writings on the refusal of work, class composition and “inversion of the class perspective,” the crisis of capitalism. He shows the ongoing necessity of re-reading Marx theory to understand, find points of departure from, and “finally end capitalism before it ends us. Points of Departure will be released on Common Notion Press’s new Class Compositions series in September 2026. This special edition and release coincides with the Labor Notes conference.
It Is Not Enough to Survive: The Young Patriots Story with Jesse Montgomery and William Harris Join us as we welcome Jesse Montgomery and William Harris to the store for an event in celebration of It Is Not Enough to Survive: The Young Patriots Story. This event is cosponsored by Chicago Union of Tenants.
Join us as we welcome Daniel Gross and Peter Cole to the store for a discussion of Gross's new book Unions of Our Own, an actionable, inviting, and confidence-boosting philosophy on how to tackle problems in your workplace and win.
Join us for an urgent conversation about the future of veterans’ healthcare in America. Authors Suzanne Gordon and Steve Early will discuss their work, Our Veterans Winners, Losers, Friends and Enemies on the New Terrain of Veterans Affairs, exposing the corporate-driven push to privatize the VA one of the last fully integrated public healthcare systems in the United States and what’s at stake for the millions of veterans who rely on it.
Zhandarka Kurti and Jarrod Shanahan (States of Incarceration, Skyscraper Jails) host the filmmaker of WE’RE TOO HOT and Breaking the Fourth Wall, chronicling revolts that have occurred inside and outside of the St. Louis jails over the course of 10 years. WE’RE TOO HOT follows a rowdy demonstration in 2017 at the city’s former holdover facility: the Workhouse. It was sparked by a heatwave that sent temperatures inside the A/C-less jail into the 110s. In 2021, the Workhouse was closed after a long campaign against it, but this has left the equally notorious second jail, the Justice Center, to pick up the slack. 6 mins Breaking the Fourth Wall (or A Justice Center Recruitment Video) is a riotous chronicle of resistance to the deadly reality of the city’s Justice Center, a facility that has killed 21 prisoners since 2020. Within that time prisoners have bravely fought against the jail; engaging in a series of riots, escape attempts, parties, hostage takings and full-on uprisings. Approx. 26 minutes Screenings will be followed by a discussion.
We invite you to join us for Art for Gaza, a community art sale and fundraiser featuring ceramics, prints, zines, textiles, and more by local artists, plus live music. All proceeds will go directly to a family in Gaza to help pay for their food, water, and other essential needs, as well as to support their son Ibrahim in continuing his medical studies. Come enjoy beautiful art, music, and connection!
Join us for a panel discussion featuring editors and writers from the new radical magazine Heatwave. The editors will provide an introduction to the project and share information on coming issues currently in the works. The panel will additionally feature three contributors to Heatwave issue 2. Saul Molcho, the author behind “The Red Thread of Black Power in Jamaica: The Case of Abeng,” is a communist researcher based in the Midwest specializing in the history of revolutionary struggles in the Americas. May Wren conducted the interview “Yasuda Redux: A Conversation about Student Movements at Tokyo University in Spring 2024” and is a writer living between the US and China. Lastly the panel will include the translator of the piece written by Friends of FMS, “Remembering Sher Singh 1951-2025,” which is a reflection on the work of the late editor of Kamunist Kranti in Northern India. Each piece grapples with the twenty-first century inheritance of the movements of the the long 1960s, and our discussion is largely structured by this common thematic. Heatwave is a multi-media project dedicated to sharing experiences and strategizing together in preparation for the next round of struggles to break free from the infernal prison of capital. As the world burns and the political horizon grows increasingly grim, we seek to connect comrades around the globe and contribute to building a mass movement powerful enough to incinerate that prison. In its ashes, we will build a world based on the classic principle from each according to their ability, to each according to their need — a life worth living on a thriving planet.
Join Exhibit B as they welcome brian bean, Noel Quiñones, Nina Sudhakar and Keli Stewart for the latest installment of the Exhibit B reading series.
Join us as we welcome Victoria Law and Maya Schenwar to the store for a conversation about Corridors of Contagion. Tracing the narratives of five incarcerated individuals, Corridors of Contagion speaks to the devastating impact of surviving the pandemic inside prison walls.
Join us as we welcome Steven W. Thrasher and Adam Johnson to the store for a conversation about Thrasher's The Overseer Class and Johnson's How to Sell a Genocide. About The Overseer Class: The author of the critically acclaimed The Viral Underclass (one of Kirkus Reviews best books of 2022) is back with The Overseer Class, which explores what happens when members of historically minoritized groups are selected for high-visibility positions of power within existing institutions—but under the conditions of a kind of Faustian bargain. About How to Sell a Genocide: As bombs rained down on Gaza in October 2023, images of mass death and destruction gripped the world, and openly genocidal statements from Israeli leaders foretold the magnitude of horrors to come. But the US media was quick to downplay, obscure, and repackage an emerging campaign of extermination into a slick “war on terror” framework.
We're excited to join Under the Tree Podcast in welcoming Mark Nowak and Bill Ayers to the store for an event in celebration of Mark's new book ...AGAIN, a harrowing documentation of the expansive landscape of MAGAmerica. Told through five abecedarian prose sections, . . . AGAIN is a photo-text commentary on MAGAism in America. In his sobering voice, Nowak captures the depredations of capitalism, the desensitizing regularity of mass shootings, and the extremism that has fueled white nationalism. From the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and the January 6 insurrection through Donald Trump’s re-election, Nowak chronicles the transformations as the seasons change around him, attempting to make sense of a bitterly divided nation that elected a polarizing figurehead . . . again.
Join us as we welcome Stuart Schrader and Robert Vargas to the store for discussion of Schrader's new book Blue Power: How Police Organized to Protect and Serve Themselves, a history of police unions that reveals how American law enforcement built a political movement that made cops untouchable.
The Young Lords Speak: Building Revolution on the Streets of Chicago brings the history and voices of a groundbreaking social justice movement into the present. Join us for a conversation featuring historians and members of the Young Lords as they reflect on its roots in Chicago and connections to New York, from organizing against displacement and police violence to building collective power in Puerto Rican and Latinx neighborhoods. Moving between past and present, the conversation centers the voices, strategies, and political vision that shaped the movement, and what it means to shape how that history is understood. Together, they revisit how the Young Lords transformed their conditions and what it means to build on that legacy in the present.
Join us at Haymarket House for this Haymarket Presents speakers series event, with Alyssa Battistoni and activist-historian Gabriel Winant for a conversation about Capitalism, Nature, and Battistoni's new book, Free Gifts. Co-sponsored by Haymarket Books.
Working Girls Press is celebrating the launch of our latest book I Hate My Job at Pilsen Community Books in Chicago! We can't wait to celebrate this latest book launch with you all at the amazing Pilsen Community Books. It's completely free to attend, or you can purchase a VIP ticket for some exclusive seating, drink ticket, a copy of the book and some WGP merch! We'll have a raffle and a lineup of amazing readers including Rachel Oyster Kim, Olivia Snow, Marla Cruz, and more! Come out and hear some amazing work and connect with community! Doors open at 6pm, opening remarks and readings begin at 6:30pm!
We're thrilled to welcome Palestinian author, Palestine Chronicle editor, Ramzy Baroud to Pilsen Community Books on May 3rd. His latest book, Before the Flood is a social, political, and historical context of the current Israeli-Palestinian War told through the stories of the author’s family and village. A profound exploration of Palestinian history and resilience through personal stories of his family-the al-Badrasawis, Baroud begins with intimate details of village life in Beit Daras prior to the Nakba, He vividly portrays the rich cultural heritage, deeply rooted traditions, and daily struggles faced by ordinary people whose lives were radically disrupted by the violent upheavals and ongoing conflicts driven by British colonialism and Zionist aggression. Baroud weaves together past and present, illuminating how historical forces shaped the collective consciousness and steadfast resilience of the Palestinian people. His storytelling reveals not only the harsh realities of occupation, displacement, and loss but also the extraordinary courage, faith, and solidarity that underpin a powerful and enduring spirit of resistance, encapsulated in what the author refers to as the Palestinian “longue durée.”
Join members of Chicago Union of Tenants' West Side Branch for an introduction to tenants' collective fight against crises created by landlords.
We are united as working writers. We labor at writing, often without pay, and many of us labor at other jobs. This poetry reading focuses on labor and labor organizing—organizing that is inclusive of issues such as race, gender, and national origin in the workplace and larger community—which is necessary for winning the pay and conditions that would allow us to creatively thrive. The poems explore oppression in workplaces such as higher ed and factories as well as the solidarity of collective resistance.