In Spring of 2024, Metro DC DSA is excited to host 10 separate 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.
Most (but not all) reading groups 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!
Capital in the Capitol Reading Group
The Spring 2024 Capital Reading Group (Sundays) will take ~20 weeks, meeting online weekly or biweekly from late winter to early summer, interspersed with ~monthly social meet ups to get the group knowing each other socially and to break up the reading a bit. The group will be reading through the Penguin edition of Capital Vol. 1 while using optional online supplementary sources. Capital is available for free as a PDF online, though the hard copy version is recommended and available for order.
The Nonprofit Industrial Complex
The Nonprofit Industrial Complex Reading Group is a reading group starting in February 2024, with the purpose of reading and discussing key readings . Based in the DC area, the Reading Group hopes to examine how the nonprofit sector developed, its relationship to capitalism and the state, and how to change the world with or against it. The group will meet ~biweekly in a virtual setting on Monday nights, with optional in-person social events around the DMV. No experience or knowledge level is required to join. Members are encouraged to find a copy of The Revolution Will Not be Funded by the INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence collective and/or Nonprofit Neighborhoods by Claire Dunning (though online text is available for these and all other readings).
Radical Climate Fiction Reading Group
The Parable of the Sower reading group, hosted by Metro DC DSA, will meet online to discuss themes of climate justice, creeping fascism and neoliberalism, state collapse, mutual aid, the metaphysics of life, and revolutionary theology weekly from February through April 2024. In addition to the novel, we’ll be reading related pieces of short fiction, political theory, and other media to dig deep into this portentous story.
Palestinian Liberation Film and Reading Group
The Palestinian Liberation Film and Reading Group will begin in late January 2024. The group will meet weekly, in a two week cycle based around themes- with the first week dedicated to an in-person film screening and the second week a virtual discussion group on the previous film and accompanying reading. The group’s themes on Palestinian liberation include indigenous memories, green colonialism, the influence of Christian Zionism, economic dominion, free speech, and more.
Socialist Feminist Reading Group
Syllabus and meeting to be determined.
If We Burn Reading Group
The If We Burn Reading Group, hosted by Metro DC DSA, will read and discuss Vincent Bevins’ new book in an online setting in February and March 2024. The group will reflect on the mass protest movements of the 2010s -seeking to understand their origins, evaluate their results, and debate what socialists in the USA can learn from the past cycle of struggle. The group will meet mostly in-person at DC library locations and will host social meet ups to get to know each other better.
Public Power Reading Group
The Spring 2024 Public Power Reading Group, sponsored by We Power DC of Metro DC DSA, will meet on Monday evenings and examine the climate crisis and potential solutions from a socialist perspective. The group will read through Climate Change as Class War by Matthew Huber, engaging with his perspective on the class politics and labor politics of the climate crisis and environmental movement. The group will connect attendees to engagement in local organizing on climate and labor issues through Metro DC DSA and beyond.
Migrant Justice Reading Group
The Migrating to Prison Reading Group, part of the Spring 2024 Metro DC DSA reading groups, will analyze the history of America’s immigration detention system and the brutal and abusive nature of this system through reading and discussing Migrating to Prison: America’s Obsession with Locking Up Immigrants by Cesar Cuauhtémoc García Hernández. The reading group will conclude by reading and discussing various shorter articles that discuss how grassroots movements challenge detention and deportation, and connect participants to contemporary organizing in the Migrant Justice Working Group in the NOVA Branch of Metro DC DSA.
The Late Capitalism Reading Group
The Late Capitalism Reading Group is a reading group starting in February 2024, with the purpose of discussing key readings related to capitalism and culture, based around Malcolm Harris’s book Kids These Days, Astra Taylor’s The Age of Insecurity, and a series of other readings. Based in the DC area, the reading group hopes to deepen our understanding of 21st century “late” capitalism by examining key themes and characteristics of capitalist society in our era—time, security, childhood, and more.
Liberation Theology Reading Group
The Liberation Theology Reading Group will begin in February of 2024 and will explore the theology and history of a movement that began in Latin America in the 1960s and spread beyond Latin America, to North America, Africa, and Asia. This reading group will look at the theology that animated this movement while providing some needed context as to the history surrounding liberation theology. While the focus of this reading group will primarily be on Christian liberation theology and theologians, part of the group will be creating a reading list of other faith traditions and their engagement with liberation theology.