Reading Groups

Spring 2022 Reading Groups

Sign Up, Transfer, and More - Spring 2022 Reading Groups
In Spring 2022, Metro DC DSA is excited to host 10 different reading groups—and we’d love for you to join one! Reading groups provide an opportunity to share learning and political education in a group setting, allowing members and supporters’ organizing and knowledge to develop alongside comrades.
 

Reading group meetings will be held virtually, though many groups have scheduled in-person social meet ups. Some groups are topic-driven and read a series of articles, while others are focused on a specific book. All meetings will be held in the evenings except where specified. No experience or knowledge is necessary before entering any group and all readings and materials will be made available online for free! Sign up here! 

Topic-Driven Groups

Marx at the Movies: Marx at the Movies is a film and reading discussion group in Metro DC DSA which will view films together in-person one week and connect those films to texts of Marxist cultural and critical theory in online discussions the following week. Movies will include Oceans Eleven, Fight Club, Drag Me to Hell, A Woman Under the Influence, The Matrix: Resurrections, Born in Flames, Hail Caesar!, and more. Film screenings and discussions will be held Tuesday nights. More information available here.

 

 

Ecosocialism and Public Power: The Ecosocialism and Public Power reading group will explore important questions concerning the climate crisis, conservation, and environmental justice with a class-aware analysis. The group will also be using public power – the collective ownership of the energy system – to explore how ecosocialism is applied in practice. This group meets Monday nights. More information available here.

 

 

Book-Based Groups

Illustration of Karl Marx in front of an open book and the US Capitol with text: Capital In the Capitol Reading Group

Capital in the Capitol: The Capital in the Capitol reading group will read Karl Marx’s Capital Volume 1 cover to cover. The group will read and discuss chapters in Capital with the help of optional supplementary materials and a structure and calendar generated from other reading groups’ past experiences. More information is available here.

 

 

 

Indigenous Resistance: This reading group will cover Our History is the Future by Nick Estes. The text examines the history of extractive settler colonialism and indigenous resistance to it. Through supplementary readings from other indigenous authors, we will explore interconnected topics in decolonization, feminism, environmentalism, and internationalism.

 

 

 

Socialist Feminism: The Socialist Feminist Reading Group will foster lively conversations on the intersections of patriarchy and capitalism. This reading group is sponsored by the SocFem section of Metro DC DSA. The core reading will be The Dialectic of Sex: The Case For A Feminist Revolution by Shulamith Firestone. The group will be held Sunday evenings.

 

 

 

Black Marxism: Cedric Robinson’s Black Marxism traces the emergence of Marxist ideology in Europe, resistance by Black people in historically oppressive environments, and the influence of both of these traditions on important twentieth-century Black radical thinkers. The reading group is sponsored by the AfroSOC section of Metro DC DSA and will meet Tuesday nights. More information available here.

 

 

 

Labor: The Labor reading group will explore texts that illuminate exploitative aspects of the current labor structures and ways to resist them as workers and organizers. The reading group is sponsored by the Labor section of Metro DC DSA. The core reading will be Work Won’t Love You Back by Sarah Jaffe.

 

 

 

 

Dawn of Everything: This reading group will cover Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow. The text challenges existing grand narratives of history: both the idea that human beings are innately selfish and only ever held in check by the power of the state, and the idea that our present society at some point fell from an idyllic state of nature to which we cannot really return. More information available here.

 

 

 

Debt and Finance: The Debt and Finance reading group will read and discuss the origins of debt, the rise of our current monetary system, the implications of the monetary system for liberatory projects in the U.S., and the role of debt in creating the U.S. empire. This reading group will also consider opportunities for debt and finance organizing, such as canceling student debt and forms of mutual aid. This group will meet on Saturday afternoons. More information here.