Radicals in Conversation

A People’s History of Football

From England, France and Germany to Palestine, South Africa and Brazil, the 'beautiful game' has been a powerful instrument of emancipation for workers, feminists, young people and protesters around the world. Football has often found itself at the heart of anti-colonial struggles; a tool of repression and cooptation, as well as liberation and resistance.

In October 2023, Pluto published the English language edition of A People’s History of Football by Mickaël Correia. We are joined on the panel today by the book's translator, Fionn Petch, as well as Kevin Blowe, from Clapton CFC, an East London community-owned football club; and Andy Gittlitz, author of the Pluto cult classic, I Want to Believe: Posadism, UFOs and Apocalypse Communism. We talk about the early origins of football in feudal Britain, its role in the formation of working class identity, the repression and resurgence of women’s football, as well as the unique trajectory of soccer in the US. We also talk about fan-owned clubs, and the international response of supporters' groups and clubs to the ongoing destruction in Gaza. 

A People’s History of Football is 40% off for listeners of Radicals in Conversation with the coupon PODCAST. Find out more at: plutobooks.com/podcastreading.

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Clapton CFC:

https://www.claptoncfc.co.uk/about-clapton-community-fc/

The Reservoir Journal:

https://autonomedia.org/product/reservoir-communion/

Let Them Eat Crypto: The Blockchain Scam That’s Ruining the World

The subject of immense hope, hype and confusion, crypto has amassed countless headlines in recent years. Right now, one of crypto’s biggest names, Sam Bankman-Fried, is set to go on trial in New York, accused of having defrauded millions of investors at his FTX cryptocurrency exchange, stealing billions of dollars in the process. But with cryptocurrencies, NFTs and metaverse markets crashing, the underlying blockchain technology is still promised to solve global development challenges, and revolutionise every industry.

We are joined on the show this month by Peter Howson, author of the new book, Let Them Eat Crypto: The Blockchain Scam That’s Ruining the World. In the book, Peter cuts through the jargon and hyperbole to tell an alarming story of how right-wing libertarian crypto entrepreneurs - often aided by charities, politicians and philanthropists - have sought out and exploited conditions of poverty, oppression, corruption and conflict around the world, in a new front of 'crypto-colonial' extractivism. Far from 'banking the unbanked', saving the gorillas, or freeing people from oppressive governments, blockchain offers only false solutions, surveillance and hi-tech snake oil.

We discuss the obscene environmental footprint of crypto, why it endures in spite of a recent negative shift in public perception, and how we might go about getting rid of it.

Podcast listeners can get 40% off the book on plutobooks.com, using the coupon PODCAST at the checkout.

Family Abolition with M. E. O’Brien

For many of us on the left, it would probably be uncontroversial to say that seek a political horizon in which class society, and all of its manifold expressions, has been overcome - wage labour, private property, the capitalist state, white supremacy, settler colonialism and anti-Blackness. But what about the family? In a world that is often bereft of love, compassion and stability, it seems far more controversial to call for its abolition as well.

'Family Abolition' may be an alarming slogan, but this is what M. E. O’Brien argues for in her fantastic new book, Family Abolition: Capitalism and the Communizing of Care. Published by Pluto Press in June 2023, the book traces the changing family politics of racial capitalism in the industrial cities of Europe and in the slave plantations and settler frontier of North America, explaining the rise and fall of the housewife-based family form. From early Marxists to Black and queer insurrectionists to today's mass protest movements, O'Brien finds revolutionaries seeking better ways of loving, caring, and living. Taking us beyond the past and present of family politics, Family Abolition looks also to the future, into a speculative vision of the revolutionary commune, imagining how care could be organized in a free society.

M. E. O'Brien writes on gender and communist theory. She co-edits two magazines, Pinko, on gay communism, and Parapraxis, on psychoanalytic theory and politics. Her work on family abolition has been translated into Chinese, German, Greek, French, Spanish, and Turkish. She received her PhD from NYU. She is the co-author of the novel Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052–2072. She tweets @genderhorizon.

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Podcast listeners can get 40% off the book on plutobooks.com with the coupon PODCAST.

RIC in-haus: Space Crone: Ursula K. Le Guin on Feminism and Gender

Radicals in Conversation in-haus is a podcast series collaboration between Pluto Press and Bookhaus, an independent bookshop in Bristol. RIC in-haus is recorded on location at Bookhaus. The bookshop’s ‘in-haus’ events programme features authors of some of the most exciting radical nonfiction being published today.

Episode 10 was recorded in May 2023. Sarah Shin talks about her new co-edited collection, Space Crone, which brings together Ursula K. Le Guin’s writings on feminism and gender. The book is published by Silver Press, and offers new insights into Le Guin’s imaginative, multispecies feminist consciousness: from its roots in deep ecology and philosophies of non-violence to her self-education about racism and her writing on motherhood and ageing. Sarah is in conversation with Samantha Walton, an author and Reader in Modern Literature at Bath Spa University.

Find out more about the book: bookhausbristol.com/shop

Mad World: The Politics of Mental Health

Mental health is a political issue, even though we often discuss it as a personal one. So how is the current mental health crisis connected to capitalism, racism and other social issues? And in a different world, how might we transform the ways that we think about mental health, diagnosis and treatment?

These are some of the big questions Micha Frazer-Carroll asks in her new book, Mad World, as she presents mental health as an urgent political concern that needs a deeper understanding, beyond the scope of today's 'awareness-raising' campaigns.

Micha joins us on the show for a conversation around the themes of the book. We talk about the history of asylums and psychiatry, the connections with disability justice and neurodiversity movements, art and imagination, abolition, policing, diagnosis and knowledge production.

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Micha Frazer-Carroll is a columnist at the Independent. She has previously edited for gal-dem, the Guardian and Blueprint, a mental health magazine that she founded. Micha has also written for Vogue, HuffPost, Huck and Dazed. She was nominated for the Comment Awards’ Fresh New Voice of the Year Award, and the Observer/Anthony Burgess Award for Arts Criticism. She is invested in using journalism to challenge systems of power.

RIC in-haus: Mussolini’s Grandchildren: Italian Fascism in 2023

Radicals in Conversation in-haus is a podcast series collaboration between Pluto Press and Bookhaus, an independent bookshop in Bristol. RIC in-haus is recorded on location at Bookhaus. The bookshop’s ‘in-haus’ events programme features authors of some of the most exciting radical nonfiction being published today.

Episode 9 was recorded in May 2023. David Broder came to Bookhaus to talk about his new book, Mussolini’s Grandchildren: Fascism in Contemporary Italy, which was published by Pluto Press in March. David is a historian of the Italian far-right and Europe editor for Jacobin. His writing has also appeared in the New Statesman, New York Times, Guardian, Independent, New Left Review and Tribune. He’s joined in conversation by John Foot, Professor of Modern Italian History at the University of Bristol, and author of Blood and Power: The Rise and Fall of Italian Fascism. 

David joined us on Radicals in Conversation in September 2022, shortly after Giorgia Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia party won the Italian general election. Now, several months on, David and John discuss how things have panned out for the new fascist government, both domestically and on the international stage.

bookhausbristol.com/shop

Locating Legacies: ’Abolition in the UK’ with Ruth Wilson Gilmore

In the sixth and final episode of Locating Legacies, series host Gracie Mae Bradley speaks to Ruth Wilson Gilmore. Often dismissed or set aside as a US-based movement, Gracie and Ruth sit down together to explore how we can think about the histories, legacies and politics of abolition in the British context and beyond. They map how local instances of political organising express themselves globally, as well as interrogating how past struggles express themselves in the present.

Ruth Wilson Gilmore is the Director of the Center for Place, Culture, and Politics and professor of geography in Earth and Environmental Sciences and American Studies at the City University of New York. She is the co-founder of many grassroots organisations, including the California Prison Moratorium Project, Critical Resistance, and the Central California Environmental Justice Network. She is also the author of Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California, and Abolition Geography.

About the Series:

Locating Legacies is a fortnightly podcast created by the Stuart Hall Foundation, co-produced by Pluto Press and funded by Arts Council England. The series is dedicated to tracing the reverberations of history to contextualise present-day politics, deepen our understanding of some of the crucial issues of our time, and to draw connections between past struggles and our daily lives.

Get 40% off books in our ‘Locating Legacies’ reading list: plutobooks.com/locatinglegacies

RIC in-haus: Friends of Israel: The Backlash Against Palestine Solidarity

Radicals in Conversation in-haus is a podcast series collaboration between Pluto Press and Bookhaus, an independent bookshop in Bristol. RIC in-haus is recorded on location at Bookhaus. The bookshop’s ‘in-haus’ events programme features authors of some of the most exciting radical nonfiction being published today.

Episode 8 was recorded on 17th May, the same week as Palestinians commemorated the 75th anniversary of the Nakba. Hil Aked came to Bookhaus to talk about their new book Friends of Israel: The Backlash Against Palestine Solidarity. Hil Aked is a writer, investigative researcher and activist with a background in political sociology whose work has appeared in the Guardian, Independent, Sky News and Al Jazeera. They are a contributor to What is Islamophobia?: Racism, Social Movements and the State. 

Hil is in conversation with Narzanin Massoumi, senior lecturer in the department of Sociology, Philosophy and Anthropology at the University of Exeter, and co-editor of What is Islamophobia? They discuss the activities of Israel’s advocates in Britain, showing how they contribute to maintaining Israeli apartheid, as they seek to repress a rising tide of solidarity with Palestinians expressed through the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. They also consider the parallels with apartheid South Africa, and assess the recent protests in Israel around Judicial reform.

bookhausbristol.com/shop

Locating Legacies: ’Queer Class Politics’ with Sita Balani

In episode 5 of Locating Legacies, series host Gracie Mae Bradley speaks to Sita Balani. They explore the legacies of queer liberation struggles on contemporary class politics, and the ways in which queer radicalism has expanded notions of liberatory politics in the everyday. They also discuss the radical potential of the trade union movement, and unpack the material roots of an ongoing transphobic moral panic.

Sita is a Lecturer in English at Queen Mary University of London. She is the author of Deadly and Slick: Sexual Modernity and the Making of Race, and co-author of Empire's Endgame.

About the Series:

Locating Legacies is a fortnightly podcast created by the Stuart Hall Foundation, co-produced by Pluto Press and funded by Arts Council England. The series is dedicated to tracing the reverberations of history to contextualise present-day politics, deepen our understanding of some of the crucial issues of our time, and to draw connections between past struggles and our daily lives.

Get 40% off books in our ‘Locating Legacies’ reading list: plutobooks.com/locatinglegacies

Queer Footprints: LGBTQIA+ Solidarity, Protest and Pride

In May 2023, Pluto published Queer Footprints: A Guide to Uncovering London’s Fierce History, by Dan Glass. The book is a groundbreaking guide that takes you through the city streets to uncover the scandalous, hilarious and empowering events of London's 'queerstory'. Accompanied by a chorus of voices of both iconic and unsung legends of the movement, readers can dip into beautifully illustrated maps and extraordinary tales of LGBTQIA+ solidarity, protest and pride, where the shadows of gentrification, policing, homophobia and racism are time and again resisted.

We are joined on the show by Queer Footprints author, Dan Glass, and Josh Rivers. Josh is the creator and host of the award-winning Busy Being Black podcast, and Head of Cultural Partnerships at UK Black Pride - the world’s largest pride celebration for LGBTQIA+ people of African, Asian, Caribbean, Latin American and Middle Eastern heritage.

Dan and Josh discuss the connections and solidarity that has existed over the years between queer, feminist, anti-racist and labour movements; equivocations around celebrating the anniversary of the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality; and how we metabolise grief - with particular reference to the AIDS crisis. They also talk about the exciting work being done by UK Black Pride, the process of researching, writing and editing Queer Footprints, and much more.

Queer Footprints is 40% off for podcast listeners. Go to plutobooks.com/podcastreading for more information.