Race Capitalism Justice urges us to embrace a vision of justice attentive to the history of slavery not through the lens of human rights, but instead through an honest accounting of how slavery was the foundation of capitalism, a legacy that continues to afflict people of color and the poor. Inspired by Cedric J. Robinson's work on racial capitalism, as well as Black Lives Matter and its forebears including the black radical tradition, the Black Panthers, South African anti-apartheid struggles, and organized labor, contributors to this volume offer a critical handbook to racial justice in the age of Trump.

Race Capitalism Justice Vol. 1 (Boston Review / Forum)

Politics & Social Sciences

Kelley, Robin

Johnson et al, Walter

Sociology

Boston Review

"In time of crisis, we summon up our strength," wrote poet Muriel Rukeyser. This collection gathers poems―from the eve of the twenty-first century to the month following Trump's election―to mark a moment of political rupture, summoning the collective strength found in the languages of resistance and memory, subversion and declamation, struggle and hope. Poetry is a counterforce. We offer these poems to readers as Rukeyser did―"not walls, but human things, human faces."

Poems for Political Disaster

Literature & Fiction

History & Criticism

Technology and the loss of manufacturing jobs have many worried about future mass unemployment. It is in this context that basic income, a government cash grant given unconditionally to all, has gained support from a surprising range of advocates, from Silicon Valley to labor. Our contributors explore basic income's merits, not only as a salve for financial precarity, but as a path toward racial justice and equality. Others, more skeptical, see danger in a basic income designed without attention to workers' power and the quality of work. Together they offer a nuanced debate about what it will take to tackle inequality and what kind of future we should aim to create.

Work Inequality Basic Income (Boston Review / Forum)

Business & Money

Rogers et al, Brishen

Economics

The President's House is Empty: Losing and Gaining Public Goods explores the question of what we―the public―owe each other as free and equal members of a democratic society. With essays by writers and thinkers like Bonnie Honig, this collection attempts to make sense of the current administration's disdain for public things like the White House, public education, and clean water.

Presidents House Is Empty (Boston Review / Forum)

Hardt, Michæl

Rahman, K.Sabeel

Honig, Bonnie

Kamarck, Elaine

Meares, Tracey

Steinbaum, Marshall

Politics & Government

Stories, essays, and interviews explore dystopias that may offer lessons for the present.
As the recent success of Margaret Atwood's novel-turned-television hit Handmaid's Tale shows us, dystopia is more than minatory fantasy; it offers a critical lens upon the present. “It is not only a kind of vocabulary and idiom,” says bestselling author and volume editor Junot Diaz. “It is a useful arena in which to begin to think about who we are becoming.”
Bringing together some of the most prominent writers of science fiction and introducing fresh talent, this collection of stories, essays, and interviews explores global dystopias in apocalyptic landscapes and tech futures, in robot sentience and forever war. Global Dystopias engages the familiar horrors of George Orwell's 1984 alongside new work by China Miéville, Tananarive Due, and Maria Dahvana Headley. In “Don't Press Charges, and I Won't Sue,” award-winning writer Charlie Jane Anders uses popularized stigmas toward transgender people to create a not-so-distant future in which conversion therapy is not only normalized, but funded by the government. Henry Farrell surveys the work of dystopian forebear Philip K. Dick and argues that distinctions between the present and the possible future aren't always that clear. Contributors also include Margaret Atwood and award-winning speculative writer, Nalo Hopkinson.
In the era of Trump, resurgent populism, and climate denial, this collection poses vital questions about politics and civic responsibility and subjectivity itself. If we have, as Díaz says, reached peak dystopia, then Global Dystopias might just be the handbook we need to survive it.
Contributors Charlie Jane Anders, Margaret Atwood, Adrienne Bernhard, Mark Bould, Thea Costantino, Tananarive Due, Henry Farrell, JR Fenn, Maria Dahvana Headley, Nalo Hopkinson, Mike McClelland, Maureen McHugh, China Miéville, Jordy Rosenberg, Peter Ross, Sumudu Samarwickrama

Global Dystopias (Boston Review / Forum)

Poetry that grapples with the intersection of natural and cultural crises.
In an age of record-breaking superstorms and environmental degradation, What Nature seeks―through poetry―to make sense of how we interact with and are influenced by nature. 
Shifting its focus from what has already been lost to what lies ahead, What Nature rejects the sentimentality of traditional nature poetry. Instead, its texts expose and resist the global iniquities that create large-scale human suffering, a world where climate change disproportionately affects the poorest communities. The intersection of natural and cultural crises―like Standing Rock's fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline and the water crisis in Flint, Michigan―are confronted head on. These poems, lyric essays, and hybrid works grapple with political unrest, refugeeism, and resource exploitation, transforming the genre of ecopoetics.
Contributors Kaveh Akbar, Zaina Alsous, Desirée Alvarez, Rae Armantrout, Aase Berg, Kyle Booten, Jericho Brown, Kyce Bello, Kayleb Rae Candrilli, Jesús Castillo,, Abigail Chabitnoy,Adam Day, Camille T. Dungy, Noah Dversdall, Gyrðir Elíasson, Tracy Fuad, Carolyn Guinzio, Amanda Hawkins, Sheikha Helawy, Claire Hero, Brenda Hillman, Joan Kane, Douglas Kearney, Benjamín Naka-Hasebe Kingsley, Nam Le, Diana Keren Lee, Adrian Lurssen, Matt Massaia, Iréne Mathieu, Ted Mathys, Christopher Nelson, Kathy Nilsson, Greg Nissan, Elsbeth Pancrazi, Sarah Passino, Rowan Ricardo Phillips, Roger Reeves, Evelyn Reilly, Emelia Reuterfors, Mutsuo Takahashi, Brian Tierney, Alissa Valles, Nicole Walker, Ellen Welcker

What Nature (Boston Review / Forum)

Genre Fiction

Martin Luther King's legacy for today's activists, fifty years after his death.
Since his death on April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King's legacy has influenced generations of activism. Edited and with a lead essay by Brandon Terry, this volumeexplores what this legacy can and cannot do for activism in the present.
King spent the months leading up to his death organizing demonstrations against the Vietnam War and planning the Poor People's Campaign, a “multiracial army of the poor” that would march on Washington in pursuit of economic justice. Thus the spring of 1968 represented a hopeful, albeit chaotic set of possibilities; King, along with countless other activists, offered both ethical and strategic solutions to the multifaceted problems of war, racism, and economic inequality. With a critical eye on both the past and present, this collection of essays explores that moment of promise, and how, in the fifty years since King's death, historical forces have shaped what we claim as a usable past in fighting the injustices of our time.
Contributors Christian G. Appy, Andrew Douglas, Bernard E. Harcourt, Elizabeth Hinton, Samuel Moyn, Ed Pavlic, Aziz Rana, Barbara Ransby, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Brandon M. Terry, Jeanne Theoharis, Thad Williamson

50 Years Since MLK (Boston Review / Forum)

History

Terry et al, Brandon

Americas

Feminist writers and scholars consider whether technology has made good on its promise to liberate women―sexually, biologically, economically, and politically.
In Once and Future Feminist, editor and lead essayist Merve Emre turns a critical eye on the role of technology in feminism both past and present. With her starting point the “fertility benefits” offered by Silicon Valley tech companies, Emre posits that such reproductive technologies as egg freezing and in vitro fertilization aren't inherently emancipatory; they often make women even more vulnerable to exploitation in the workplace. Almost fifty years ago, radical feminist Shulamith Firestone viewed developments in reproductive technology with skepticism, arguing in The Dialectic of Sex that they are only "incidentally in the interests of women when at all.” 
Engaging other feminist writers and scholars, this collection broadens out to examine whether technology in general has made good on its promise to liberate women―sexually, biologically, economically, and politically. In this context, Once and Future Feminist considers not only whether or not a radical, emancipatory feminism is possible today but what such a feminism might look like.
Contributors Irina Aristarkhova, Michael Bronski, James Chappell, Mary Darnovsky, Silvia Federici, Chris Kaposy, Sophie Lewis, Andrea Long Chu, Annie Menzel, Cathy O'Neil, Sarah Sharma, Diane Tober, Miriam Zoll

Once & Future Feminist (Boston Review / Forum)

Emre et al, Merve

Investigation of power and dominion, through the lens of genre fiction, interviews, and essays.
“All history,” writes Maximillian Alvarez, “is the history of empire―a bid for control of that greatest expanse of territory, the past.” Evil Empire confronts these histories head-on, exploring the motivations, consequences, and surprising resiliency of empire and its narratives. Contributors grapple with the economic, technological, racial, and rhetorical elements of U.S. power and show how the effects are far-reaching and, in many ways, self-defeating. Drawing on a range of disciplines―from political science to science fiction―our authors approach the theme with imagination and urgency, animated by the desire to strengthen the fight for a better future.
Contributors Maximillian Alvarez, Mark Bould, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Adom Getachew, Yuri Herrera, Michael Kimmage, Marisol LeBrón, Pankaj Mishra, Jeanne Morefield, Frank Pasquale, Arundhati Roy, Stuart Schrader, Nikhil Pal Singh

Evil Empire (Boston Review / Forum)

The history of international banking, the commodification of black masculinity, the buying and selling of women's eggs, Michelle Obama's dubious advice to black youth, and the workings of affirmative action at elite universities viewed through the lens of racial capitalism.
In Racist Logic, lead essayist Donna Murch writes that “historically, the division between 'dope' and medicine was the race and class of users.” By using the concept of “racial capitalism” to examine the opioid crisis alongside the War on Drugs, Murch brings an otherwise familiar story into new territory. To understand the twisted logic that created the divergent responses to drug use―succor and sympathy for white users, prison and expulsion for people of color―Murch shows how a racialized regime of drug prohibitions led Purdue Pharma to market OxyContin specifically to whites.
Alongside Murch, contributors consider how racial capitalism helps us understand the history of international banking, the commodification of black masculinity, the buying and selling of women's eggs, Michelle Obama's dubious advice to black youth, and the workings of affirmative action at elite universities.
Contributors
Michael Collins, Richard Thompson Ford, Helena Hansen, David Herzberg, Peter James Hudson, Jonathan Kahn, L.A. Kauffman, Julilly Kohler-Hausmann, Jordanna Matlon, Max Mishler, Donna Murch, Julie Netherland, Britt Rusert, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Alys Eve Weinbaum

Racist Logic (Boston Review / Forum)

Murchet al, Donna

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