There has been a feeling of eerie calm. Not because there is actual calm in the world but because our shock sensors have dulled considerably over the last three years. It might be an overused line but it holds: this is the new normal. Horror upon horror piles up but visceral outrage feels distant for those of us not directly experiencing the violence. I mostly speak for myself and maybe some others who have admitted to a similar low lying sense of helpless resignation.

The last shock waves came when the US attacked Iran and killed hundreds of little schoolgirls. Nowadays we try to vaguely keep with a hawkish game of negotiations, memorandums and broken ceasefires.

The last shock waves came when ICE grabbed 5-year old Liam Ramos with a Spiderman backpack from his father’s arms and threw him into detention. It was soon after the murders of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in the bright light of day.

The last shock waves came when the satellites captured the bloodied earth after the massacres in Sudan’s El Fasher.

The last shock waves came when Israel passed the mandatory death penalty for Palestinian prisoners, and reports of savage rape and torture in Israeli prisons was splashed across our screens.

The last shock waves came when Israel carried out a massacre in Lebanon and called it Operation Eternal Darkness. Over 360 people were killed, thousands injured.

Not much has changed. Today, US and Iran continue to trade deadly strikes. Settler terrorism in the West Bank has escalated. India’s youth have risen up against rightwing rule only to be disciplined with pellet guns and nail-infested batons. Thousands of people sheltering in Sudan’s El-Obeid are under threat of an impending massacre. People are dying in ICE detention and fatal shootings continue in the US as Trump’s mass deportations plan remains in place. The US blockade of Cuba has left millions without electricity, medical help and food. Over a thousand have been killed in Gaza since the supposed ceasefire.

The news gets worse and worse but the body has gotten used to it. The pain jolts have seized. The spasms of shock have receded. But this might be our turning point, our cue. There is a choice: become comfortably numb or become intellectually and politically heightened.

The leprosy of empire has spread through our world and we might feel overwhelmed with the ruins, decay, disease and death. But we cannot wait around to feel something. We need to start activating our brains and asking what we can actually do, however little and un-immediate it might seem. I always advocate for becoming foot soldiers in the war of the cultural narrative, and where we’re finally seeing some perceptible effects. An entire generation across the planet have wisened up to the horrors of capitalist tyranny everywhere thanks to the tireless work of independent media and publishing, the vociferous campaigning on social media, and the unofficial dissemination of information due to the sheer strength of connectivity and social networks. This is a significant victory yet the rotten and the cannibalistic remain in power.

It is time to take our individual part seriously but within a collective framework. Today, empire has laid its hands on AI and we are hurtling faster than ever towards catastrophe. Stop using ChatGPT and Claude and whatever other AI app. We are completely marinated in it without our consent and empire’s gluttony to invest in it should raise all our alarm bells. I like to think of using AI as littering. When we were told how bad it is to litter in public, we trained ourselves to stop. AI is literally littering our brains and our environment. It is directly helping in genocide. So why not stop.

There are lots of ways to move past resignation and numbness. We have to push ourselves. It is wonderful but not enough to read a book on your own and think that you’ve educated yourself. Find a way to engage, discuss and spread whatever knowledge you have gained. It is wonderful but not enough to boycott Israeli settler products or unsubscribe to the New York Times but even more important to become the killjoy who pokes at everyone within your reach to do the same. People are being slaughtered. Go and become unpopular by having the unpleasant conversations. It is the literal least you can do.

Love and solidarity❤️‍🔥
Bhakti Shringarpure

We have had a busy season at the Radical Books Collective with conversations that have centered anti-coloniality, queerness, Palestine and Sudan. Please consider upgrading to a paid subscription, we would appreciate your contribution.

In case you missed it👇🏾

1. Book Club: How To Date a Fanatic by Aruni Kashyap is a queer campus novel set against the backdrop of rising right-wing Hindu fanaticism in India.

2. Book Club: Homosexual Intifada, edited by Hannah Moushabeck and George Abraham, is a groundbreaking anthology of queer Palestinian writers.

3. Event: Alyson K. Spurgas, Madhuri Sastry and Bhakti Shringarpure unpack the dark side of wellness, self-care and yoga industries. It has never only been about Gwenicide(!).

4. Event: Aruni Kashyap, Madhuri Sastry and Bhakti Shringarpure discuss the moral and ethical dimensions of the rapidly increasing presence of AI, and ways in which it impacts reading, writing, publishing and teaching.

5. Book Club: At Sea by Yassmin Abdel-Magied is a workplace novel featuring a gritty Sudanese female protaganist who takes charge of an isolated offshore oil rig with an entirely male crew.

Aruni Kashyap in conversation with Bhakti Shringarpure about How To Date A Fanatic, queer campus novel about a group of characters whose lives are torn asunder by right-wing political violence in northern India.

Buy the book here.

About the book: In this compassionate, poignant novel set in contemporary India, a young professor searches for connection and love during a time of political and cultural upheaval. As political tensions rise precipitously across India, Rohit returns to Delhi University to teach and gets caught in a web of unrequited love with his friend Dhruv. To alleviate his inevitable heartbreak, Rohit seeks relationships with other men in the city, until he meets and embarks on a delicate new romance with the effervescent Sayan, a literature student he hopes will be the answer to getting over Dhruv.

Rohit’s life soon becomes more complicated as the country’s political tensions erupt on campus, sparking a turbulent student-led movement that entangles Rohit when Dhruv joins the fray, a tipping point that changes Rohit’s life forever. Set against the vibrant, volatile tapestry of modern India, Rohit and his friends must learn to navigate the challenges and triumphs of queer life to survive in an unpredictable political landscape. Propulsive, tense, and charged with humor and tenderness, How to Date a Fanatic is an exploration of identity, connection, and the enduring hope for a better future in a rapidly changing world.

Aruni Kashyap is a writer, translator, and academic. He is the author of The Way You Want To Be Loved, The House With a Thousand Stories, and editor of the story collection How to Tell the Story of an Insurgency. He is the translator of four novels from Assamese to English. Aruni is Associate Professor of English and Director of the Creative Writing program at the University of Georgia (Athens).

Bhakti Shringarpure is the creative editor of the Radical Books Collective.

Share

Previous Book Clubs and Events

Share

Buy the book here

About the book: In this compassionate, poignant novel set in contemporary India, a young professor searches for connection and love during a time of political and cultural upheaval. As political tensions rise precipitously across India, Rohit returns to Delhi University to teach and gets caught in a web of unrequited love with his friend Dhruv. To alleviate his inevitable heartbreak, Rohit seeks relationships with other men in the city, until he meets and embarks on a delicate new romance with the effervescent Sayan, a literature student he hopes will be the answer to getting over Dhruv.

Rohit’s life soon becomes more complicated as the country’s political tensions erupt on campus, sparking a turbulent student-led movement that entangles Rohit when Dhruv joins the fray, a tipping point that changes Rohit’s life forever. Set against the vibrant, volatile tapestry of modern India, Rohit and his friends must learn to navigate the challenges and triumphs of queer life to survive in an unpredictable political landscape. Propulsive, tense, and charged with humor and tenderness, How to Date a Fanatic is an exploration of identity, connection, and the enduring hope for a better future in a rapidly changing world.

Aruni Kashyap is a writer, translator, and academic. He is the author of The Way You Want To Be Loved, The House With a Thousand Stories, and editor of the story collection How to Tell the Story of an Insurgency. He is the translator of four novels from Assamese to English. Aruni is Associate Professor of English and Director of the Creative Writing program at the University of Georgia (Athens).

Bhakti Shringarpure is the creative editor of the Radical Books Collective.

Share

Previous Book Clubs and Events'

Share

A powerful conversation about a groundbreaking anthology! Editors Hannah Moushabeck and George Abraham spoke with Bhakti Shringarpure about Homosexual Intifada, a powerful anthology spotlighting the voices of queer Palestinian writers from both the diaspora and homeland.

Buy the book here.

This first-of-its-kind collection features a dynamic range of LGBTQ+ Palestinian perspectives through deeply personal essays, short stories, poetry, comics, photo essays, and memoir. Centering queer Palestinian identity and experience, this essential volume explores themes of displacement, assimilation, belonging, and love across geographies—from Jerusalem and Ramallah to New York, Beirut, and beyond. These stories, often silenced or misrepresented in Western media, challenge false narratives, boldly reclaim agency, and dismantle stereotypes.

Contributors include celebrated and emerging queer Palestinian authors such as Noor Hindi, Mejdulene Bernard Shomali, Elias Jahshan, Randa Jarrar, and more. More than just a literary work, Homosexual Intifada is a radical act of visibility. It challenges the pinkwashing of queer identities in service of imperial agendas and affirms the existence, resilience, and diversity of LGBTQ+ Palestinians worldwide. This collection is a vital contribution to queer literature, Arab identity, and decolonial thought.

Hannah Moushabeck is a Palestinian American writer and book worker. She is the author of Homeland: My Father Dreams of Palestine and co-owner of Interlink Publishing, the only Palestinian-owned publishing company in the United States.

George Abraham is a Palestinian American poet and author of When the Arab Apocalypse Comes to America and Birthright, as well as the co-editor of Heaven Looks Like Us: Palestinian Poetry.

Bhakti Shringarpure is the creative editor of the Radical Books Collective.

Share

This first-of-its-kind collection features a dynamic range of LGBTQ+ Palestinian perspectives through deeply personal essays, short stories, poetry, comics, photo essays, and memoir. Centering queer Palestinian identity and experience, this essential volume explores themes of displacement, assimilation, belonging, and love across geographies—from Jerusalem and Ramallah to New York, Beirut, and beyond. These stories, often silenced or misrepresented in Western media, challenge false narratives, boldly reclaim agency, and dismantle stereotypes.

Contributors include celebrated and emerging queer Palestinian authors such as Noor Hindi, Mejdulene Bernard Shomali, Elias Jahshan, Randa Jarrar, and more. More than just a literary work, Homosexual Intifada is a radical act of visibility. It challenges the pinkwashing of queer identities in service of imperial agendas and affirms the existence, resilience, and diversity of LGBTQ+ Palestinians worldwide. This collection is a vital contribution to queer literature, Arab identity, and decolonial thought.

Also available on YouTube!

About the editors
Hannah Moushabeck is a Palestinian American writer and book worker. She is the author of Homeland: My Father Dreams of Palestine and co-owner of Interlink Publishing, the only Palestinian-owned publishing company in the United States.

George Abraham is a Palestinian American poet and author of When the Arab Apocalypse Comes to America and Birthright, as well as the co-editor of Heaven Looks Like Us: Palestinian Poetry.

About the moderator
Bhakti Shringarpure is the creative editor of the Radical Books Collective.

Share

Our recent events and book clubs!

Subscribe now

Alyson K. Spurgas, Madhuri Sastry and Bhakti Shringarpure unpack the dark side of wellness, self-care and yoga industries.

Celebrity wellness influencer Gwenyth Paltrow recently shocked the world with an ad selling real estate in Israel even as the settler colonial state’s genocide of Palestinians is being documented in real time. India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi instituted an International Yoga Day for the world while being engaged in fascism, censorship and violence towards Indian Muslims at home. Tradwife influencers stand for wholesome and healthy lifestyles alongside the notion that women should hark back to an idyllic time when white, Christian, male supremacy prevailed. There has been outrage about Israeli soldiers who spend their R&R traveling around India pursuing meditation, wellness and spirituality after committing genocide at home. The global wellness industry is priced at $6.8 trillion having doubled in size from just a decade ago. It is a big dirty business and this conversation unpacks it’s complicity with racism, fascism, patriarchy and violence. The hosts discuss these issues at length and ask we pay heed to Audre Lorde’s famous comment on self-care that has been misused in the last many years: ““Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”

Watch here!

References:
Decolonize Self-Care by Alyson K. Spurgas and Zoe Meleo-Erwin: https://orbooks.com/catalog/decolonize-self-care/

“Notes of an Ambivalent Yogi” by Bhakti Shringarpire https://evergreenreview.com/read/notes-of-an-ambivalent-yogi/

“Hindutva Gets Sugarcoated Through Pop Culture Sensations While Fascism Continues Its Rise” by Madhuri Sastry https://wyvarchive.com/hindutva-gets-sugarcoated-through-pop-culture-sensations-while-fascism-continues-its-rise/

From the Clinic to the Streets: Psychoanalysis for Revolutionary Futures by Lara Sheehi https://www.plutobooks.com/product/from-the-clinic-to-the-streets/

Omwashing Yoga: Weaponized Spirituality in India, Israel, and the US by Sheena Sood https://sheenashining.com/

Combat Trauma: Imaginaries of War and Citizenship in post-9/11 America by Nadia Abu El Haj https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/994-combat-trauma

L’Oreal: Makeup for Israeli Apartheid! https://bdsmovement.net/news/l%25E2%2580%2599oreal-makeup-israeli-apartheid-0

Alyson K. Spurgas is writer, researcher and Associate Professor of Sociology at Trinity College (Hartford). She is the author of Diagnosing Desire: Biopolitics and Femininity into the Twenty-First Century (2020) and the co-author of Decolonize Self-Care (2022).

Madhuri Sastry is a writer and editor with a background in human rights law. She is the Culture Editor at The Polis Project and has written for Bitch Media, Slate, Catapult and Guernica, among several other publications.

Bhakti Shringarpure is a writer, editor and creative director of the Radical Books Collective.

Subscribe | Follow
https://www.radicalbookscollective.com/

Share

Aruni Kashyap, Madhuri Sastry and Bhakti Shringarpure discuss the rapidly increasing presence of AI which is causing a cognitive vertigo. Love it, hate it, need it or resist it, there is no denying that the pervasive presence of AI in all aspects of life has caused an upheaval. It is easy to denounce the use of AI in technologies of warfare and to rail against the environmentally disastrous AI data centers but when it comes to the worlds of research and creativity, the lines blur rather too quickly. Even as Google or Siri or Alexa are integrated into our lives, is it wrong to have ChatGPT or Claude take our projects a few steps further? How far is too far? Do you even recall consenting to this technology on our phones, cars, homes and computers? At the Radical Books Collective, we are concerned with how AI impacts reading, writing, publishing and pedagogy but more importantly, we want to engage with its moral and ethical dimensions. We may not have answers or solutions but we will ask the right questions.

Aruni Kashyap is a writer, translator, and academic. He is the author of The Way You Want To Be Loved, The House With a Thousand Stories, and the forthcoming How to Date a Fanatic. He has edited the story collection How to Tell the Story of an Insurgency and is the translator of four novels from Assamese to English. He is Associate Professor of English and Director of the Creative Writing program at the University of Georgia (Athens).

Madhuri Sastry is a writer and editor with a background in human rights law. She is the Culture Editor at The Polis Project and has written for Bitch Media, Slate, Catapult and Guernica, among several other publications.

Bhakti Shringarpure is a writer, editor and creative director of the Radical Books Collective.

Listen | Follow www.radicalbookscollective.com

Share

Also on YouTube

Aruni Kashyap is a writer, translator, and academic. He is the author of The Way You Want To Be Loved, The House With a Thousand Stories, and the forthcoming How to Date a Fanatic. He has edited the story collection How to Tell the Story of an Insurgency and is the translator of four novels from Assamese to English. He is Associate Professor of English and Director of the Creative Writing program at the University of Georgia (Athens).

Madhuri Sastry is a writer and editor with a background in human rights law. She is the Culture Editor at The Polis Project and has written for Bitch Media, Slate, Catapult and Guernica, among several other publications.

Bhakti Shringarpure is a writer, editor and creative director of the Radical Books Collective. She is the author of Cold War Assemblages: From Decolonization to Digital and the forthcoming Leila Aboulela: Writing as Refuge. She produces and hosts the Radical Futures podcast.

Share

Previous Book Clubs and Events

Celebrity wellness influencer Gwenyth Paltrow recently shocked the world with an ad selling real estate in Israel even as the settler colonial state’s genocide of Palestinians is being documented in real time. India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi instituted an International Yoga Day for the world while being engaged in fascism, censorship and violence towards Indian Muslims at home. Tradwife influencers stand for wholesome and healthy lifestyles alongside the notion that women should hark back to an idyllic time when white, Christian, male supremacy prevailed. There has been outrage about Israeli soldiers who spend their R&R traveling around India pursuing meditation, wellness and spirituality after committing genocide at home. The global wellness industry is priced at $6.8 trillion having doubled in size from just a decade ago. It is a big dirty business and this conversation unpacks it’s complicity with racism, fascism, patriarchy and violence.

Join Alyson K. Spurgas, Madhuri Sastry and Bhakti Shringarpure on Wednesday, July 8th, 12pm New York, 7pm Paris. Event will be livestreamed on Substack, YouTube and X. Set a reminder below to join:

Alyson K. Spurgas is writer, researcher and Associate Professor of Sociology at Trinity College (Hartford). She is the author of Diagnosing Desire: Biopolitics and Femininity into the Twenty-First Century (2020) and the co-author of Decolonize Self-Care (2022).

Madhuri Sastry is a writer and editor with a background in human rights law. She is the Culture Editor at The Polis Project and has written for Bitch Media, Slate, Catapult and Guernica, among several other publications.

Bhakti Shringarpure is a writer, editor and creative director of the Radical Books Collective. She is the author of Cold War Assemblages: From Decolonization to Digital and the forthcoming Leila Aboulela: Writing as Refuge.

Share

A conversation between Yassmin Abdel-Magied and Bhakti Shringarpure about her novel At Sea.

Buy the book here.

Watch on YouTube

At Sea is propulsive novel of ambition, greed, and the deadly fury of Mother Nature, as a female driller takes charge of an isolated offshore oil rig with an entirely male crew. When Zainab, an expert driller, is tasked with overseeing a high-stakes oil rig operation, she leaves behind her pregnant sister to embark on the most challenging assignment of her career. But there’s a catch. The rig is teetering on the edge of disaster—and Zainab is the only woman among a crew of hardened men who want absolutely nothing to do with her. At the helm, but forced to prove herself at every turn, Zainab investigates the issues that have plagued the operation. When all her warnings are ignored, she quickly grasps that the real danger may lie in the cold calculations and base desires of the men determined to finish the operation as quickly and cheaply as possible. As tensions rise and secrets unravel, Zainab races to prevent the looming catastrophe that threatens the rig, the lives of the crew and the welfare of the sea before it’s too late.

About the author: Born in Sudan, Yassmin Abdel-Magied’s first job as a teenager was in a coal mine in rural Australia. After graduating with first-class honours in Mechanical Engineering, Abdel-Magied trained and worked as an MWD (Measurement While Drilling) contractor and drilling engineer. She is a also screenwriter and award-winning social advocate. Abdel-Magied’s debut literary novel At Sea was a Dua lipa Service95 ‘Must Read’ for 2026. Previous titles include action packed teen fantasy Silverbrook: Yumna and the Golden Horse, the essay collection Talking About A Revolution and two novels for younger readers, You Must Be Layla and the award-winning Listen, Layla. She is currently a writer on British continuing drama Emmerdale and her original drama series Cruise Control is in development with the BBC. Abdel-Magied is the creator of Keep Eyes on Sudan and adviser on the Sudan Digital Archive. She is dedicated to the civilian movement in Sudan and the celebration and amplification of Sudanese culture. Follow her on Instagram and on Good Chat with Yassmin Abdel-Magied on Substack.

Listen | Subscribe
www.radicalbookscollective.com

Share

Buy the book here.

About the novel
At Sea is propulsive novel of ambition, greed, and the deadly fury of Mother Nature, as a female driller takes charge of an isolated offshore oil rig with an entirely male crew. When Zainab, an expert driller, is tasked with overseeing a high-stakes oil rig operation, she leaves behind her pregnant sister to embark on the most challenging assignment of her career. But there’s a catch. The rig is teetering on the edge of disaster—and Zainab is the only woman among a crew of hardened men who want absolutely nothing to do with her. At the helm, but forced to prove herself at every turn, Zainab investigates the issues that have plagued the operation. When all her warnings are ignored, she quickly grasps that the real danger may lie in the cold calculations and base desires of the men determined to finish the operation as quickly and cheaply as possible. As tensions rise and secrets unravel, Zainab races to prevent the looming catastrophe that threatens the rig, the lives of the crew and the welfare of the sea before it’s too late.

About the author
Born in Sudan, Yassmin Abdel-Magied’s first job as a teenager was in a coal mine in rural Australia. After graduating with first-class honours in Mechanical Engineering, Abdel-Magied trained and worked as an MWD (Measurement While Drilling) contractor and drilling engineer. She is a also screenwriter and award-winning social advocate. Abdel-Magied’s debut literary novel At Sea was a Dua lipa Service95 ‘Must Read’ for 2026. Previous titles include action packed teen fantasy Silverbrook: Yumna and the Golden Horse, the essay collection Talking About A Revolution and two novels for younger readers, You Must Be Layla and the award-winning Listen, Layla. She is currently a writer on British continuing drama Emmerdale and her original drama series Cruise Control is in development with the BBC. Abdel-Magied is the creator of Keep Eyes on Sudan and adviser on the Sudan Digital Archive. She is dedicated to the civilian movement in Sudan and the celebration and amplification of Sudanese culture. Follow her on Instagram and on Good Chat with Yassmin Abdel-Magied on Substack.

About the moderator
Bhakti Shringarpure is the founder and creative director of the Radical Books Collective.

Share

A live book club chat about The Extended Universe: How Disney Killed the Movies and Took Over the World (Haymarket Books, 2026) by Vicky Osterweil. Moderated by Sherry Zane.

About the book: A provocative history of Disney’s rise to cultural dominance, pulling skeletons from the corporate closet to decode the political messages hidden in all of your favorite childhood movies. In The Extended Universe, Vicky Osterweil takes us on a quest to discover how Disney’s “imagineers” have made it impossible to reflect on the wonders of growing up without thinking of Disney’s movies, amusement parks, and merchandising. Drawing on extensive interviews with filmmakers, screenwriters, union organizers, and Disney “adults” alike, Osterweil unearths reactionary political commitments and maleficent legal maneuvers so cartoonishly evil they would make one of Walt’s own animated villains blush. Along the way, Osterweil braids together corporate skullduggery with a not entirely unsympathetic analysis of some of Disney’s most famous movies. The result is an entertaining and convincing case that Disney’s entire business model has been built upon a ruthless and fanatical insistence on intellectual property rights—from Steamboat Willie to Avengers: Infinity War and beyond! Buy the book: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/2525-the-extended-universe

Watch it on YouTube

About the author: Vicky Osterweil is a Philadelphia-based writer, agitator, and worker whose first book, In Defense of Looting, described historical struggles for liberation in the US. She is a member of the anarchist journal CAW and has written about the intersections of film, politics, and culture for publications such as The Paris Review, Art in America, Al Jazeera America, The Baffler, Dissent, Lux Magazine, and The New Inquiry, where she was also a culture editor for many years.

About the moderator: Sherry Zane is a historian, cultural critic and scholar whose research explores the intersection of visual culture, public memory, and feminist historiography. Her recent essay Michael Jackson, Palestine and the Erasure of Solidarity was published on Radical Books Collective. Her article “’I Did It for the Uplift of Humanity and the Navy’: Same-Sex Acts and the Origins of the National Security State, 1919–1921” was published in the New England Quarterly in 2018 and has since been featured in The MIT Press Reader and 19th News. She writes at The Lioness Archive substack:

The Lioness Archive’s Substack

Feminist Writings from a Canceled Academic

By Sherry Zane

Share

I am always ashamed when I mourn the destruction of monuments. How dare I indulge and grieve empty historical sites when actual human beings are being blown up into bits? All these questions surface as the weekend-long bombing of the 5000-year old city of Tyre in Lebanon has left ancient sites destroyed and several dozen dead.

Palestine’s greatest griot Mahmoud Darwish has a poem titled “The house murdered” (translated here by Fady Joudah) that reconciles the dilemma. Darwish contemplates the whole life of a house, a world that vanishes within one minute of a strike. It is a simple reversal of perspective. An attempt to contemplate life through objects that may seem lifeless. “In each thing there’s a being that aches...the memory of fingers, of a scent, of an image. And houses get murdered just as their residents get murdered. And as the memory of things get murdered—wood, stone, glass, iron, cement—they all scatter in fragments like beings.” We must seek meaning, memories, history, breath in these fragments.

Darwish makes a list of things that scatter, break, shard as a bomb bursts through: “And the lease contract, the marriage and birth certificates, the utility bills, identity cards, passports, love letters, all torn to shreds like the hearts of their owners. And the pictures fly, the toothbrushes, hair combs, make-up accessories, shoes, underwear, sheets, towels, like family secrets hung in public, in ruin.”

Everywhere we turn, a ruin.

Strikes on Qeshm and Goruk in Iran; strikes all over Lebanon; strikes as always in Gaza; Dutch police strike a pregnant Palestinian women; police strike and arrest over 700 people all over France for celebrating football match victory; German police draw guns at pro-Palestine protesters; police strike protesters outside an ICE detention center in New Jersey and a mayor imposes a curfew; police strike furious protesters who wanted bury their dead from Ebola in Democratic Republic of Congo; police strike anti-goverment protesters in La Paz, Bolivia, etc. Rinse and repeat.

Same news, different place. A world rising up. A world struck down.

I have nothing meaningful to say about what we can do anymore but I take solace in South African writer Sisonke Msimang’s words from almost a year ago: “The role of everybody is to be at the front lines of fighting for justice, right? There is a demand as a human being to show up in the world in particular ways, which is always difficult. It’s difficult in all times to show up with honesty and integrity in the world. And then in a time of genocide, it is more important than ever.”

The world is in a crisis so acute and so massive that every solution on the table and every strategy of resistance feels like we’re trying to put square pegs in round holes. The savagery and hatred at the core of all this is profound that there we are in a perennial state of cognitive vertigo. But we have to keep trying, we have to keep at it.

Love and solidarity❤️‍🔥
Bhakti Shringarpure

There has been a lot of activity at the Radical Books Collective. We’ve had so many wonderful guests and conversations. I’ve been terrible at sending out updates but please check these out!

—Two incredibly illuminating conversations on Sudan and Palestine, and the role of the media:

—Our Books Clubs are back and rolling! We had two conversations; one on the evils of Disney and another on forests in African novels:

About the book
A provocative history of Disney’s rise to cultural dominance, pulling skeletons from the corporate closet to decode the political messages hidden in all of your favorite childhood movies. In The Extended Universe, Vicky Osterweil takes us on a quest to discover how Disney’s “imagineers” have made it impossible to reflect on the wonders of growing up without thinking of Disney’s movies, amusement parks, and merchandising. Drawing on extensive interviews with filmmakers, screenwriters, union organizers, and Disney “adults” alike, Osterweil unearths reactionary political commitments and maleficent legal maneuvers so cartoonishly evil they would make one of Walt’s own animated villains blush. Along the way, Osterweil braids together corporate skullduggery with a not entirely unsympathetic analysis of some of Disney’s most famous movies. The result is an entertaining and convincing case that Disney’s entire business model has been built upon a ruthless and fanatical insistence on intellectual property rights—from Steamboat Willie to Avengers: Infinity War and beyond!

Watch on YouTube

About the author
Vicky Osterweil is a Philadelphia-based writer, agitator, and worker whose first book, In Defense of Looting, described historical struggles for liberation in the US. She is a member of the anarchist journal CAW and has written about the intersections of film, politics, and culture for publications such as The Paris Review, Art in America, Al Jazeera America, The Baffler, Dissent, Lux Magazine, and The New Inquiry, where she was also a culture editor for many years.

About the moderator
Sherry Zane is a historian, cultural critic and scholar whose research explores the intersection of visual culture, public memory, and feminist historiography. Her recent essay Michael Jackson, Palestine and the Erasure of Solidarity was published on Radical Books Collective. Her article “’I Did It for the Uplift of Humanity and the Navy’: Same-Sex Acts and the Origins of the National Security State, 1919–1921” was published in the New England Quarterly in 2018 and has since been featured in The MIT Press Reader and 19th News. She writes at The Lioness Archive substack.

Share

A book discussion on Forest Imaginaries: How African Novels Think by Ainehi Edoro. Moderated by Bhakti Shringarpure.

About the book: Forests in fiction are often understood simply as settings, symbols, or remnants of a premodern past. Yet many African novelists have turned to the forest to experiment with worldbuilding and to imagine new futures. This groundbreaking book explores the life of the forest in African fiction, showing how writers have used it to reinvent the novel’s formal, aesthetic, and political possibilities.

About the author: Ainehi Edoro is a Nigerian literary scholar who focuses on African literature and digital culture. She is the founding editor of Brittle Paper, a leading platform for African literary culture, and faculty of English and African cultural studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Buy the book here: https://cup.columbia.edu/book/forest-imaginaries/9780231565073

Watch on YouTube:

Subscribe | Follow
www.radicalbookscollective.com

Share

Featuring journalists Ism’ail Kushkush and Raghdan Orsud. Even as Sudan enters the 4th year of devastating war, media coverage remains abysmal. Madhuri Sastry and Bhakti Shringarpure speak to two Sudanese journalists about why the deadliest conflict in the world has become the the casualty of today’s media attention economy.

Isma’il Kushkush is a journalist who has contributed to the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New York Review of Books, the New Yorker, The Atlantic, Granta, Guernica, Nieman Reports, Columbia Journalism Review, Smithsonian, The Nation, the Associated Press and others. He was based in Khartoum, Sudan, for eight years, and has been acting bureau chief for the New York Times in East Africa. He was a Samuel I. Newhouse Foundation Fellow at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and an Ida B. Wells Fellowship recipient with Type Investigations.

Raghdan Orsud is a digital ecosystems and media development specialist with 15+ years working at the intersection of technology, information integrity, and development programming. She’s built misinformation monitoring systems, designed digital initiatives for public-interest media, and advised organizations operating in fragile and conflict-affected contexts. As Co-founder of Beam Reports, she’s now channeling that expertise into building smarter tools for stronger information ecosystems.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Listen to previous episodes of It’s Not You, It’s The Media here: https://www.radicalbookscollective.com/s/its-not-you-its-the-media

Watch previous episodes of It’s Not You, It’s The Media here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLstXMEF0r05bhdfv7yCt5V2KXTdK4cO5F

Buy the book here.
About the book
Forests in fiction are often understood simply as settings, symbols, or remnants of a premodern past. Yet many African novelists have turned to the forest to experiment with worldbuilding and to imagine new futures. This groundbreaking book explores the life of the forest in African fiction, showing how writers have used it to reinvent the novel’s formal, aesthetic, and political possibilities.

About the author
Ainehi Edoro is a Nigerian literary scholar who focuses on African literature and digital culture. She is the founding editor of Brittle Paper, a leading platform for African literary culture, and faculty of English and African cultural studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Buy the book here: https://cup.columbia.edu/book/forest-imaginaries/9780231565073

Join Madhuri Sastry and Bhakti Shringarpure for a live recording of It’s Not You, It’s The Media with guests Ism’ail Kushkush and Raghdan Orsud.

Thursday, May 14th, 12pm New York, 6pm Khartoum.

Event will be livestreamed online on Substack, YouTube and X. Set a reminder below to join:

Isma’il Kushkush is a journalist who has contributed to the New York Times, the Washington Post, New York Review of Books, New Yorker, The Atlantic, Granta, Guernica, Nieman Reports, Columbia Journalism Review, Smithsonian, The Nation, Associated Press and others. He was based in Khartoum, Sudan, for eight years, and has been acting bureau chief for the New York Times in East Africa. He was a Samuel I. Newhouse Foundation Fellow at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and an Ida B. Wells Fellowship recipient with Type Investigations.

Raghdan Orsud is a digital ecosystems and media development specialist with 15+ years working at the intersection of technology, information integrity, and development programming. She’s built misinformation monitoring systems, designed digital initiatives for public-interest media, and advised organizations operating in fragile and conflict-affected contexts. As Co-founder of Beam Reports, she’s now channeling that expertise into building smarter tools for stronger information ecosystems.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Listen to previous episodes of It’s Not You, It’s The Media here: https://www.radicalbookscollective.com/s/its-not-you-its-the-media

Watch previous episodes of It’s Not You, It’s The Media here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLstXMEF0r05bhdfv7yCt5V2KXTdK4cO5F

Share

Madhuri Sastry and Bhakti Shringarpure speaking with guest Robin Andersen, author of The Complicit Lens: US Media Coverage of Israel’s Genocide in Gaza. (OR Books, 2025). They discuss why the media framing of October 7th narrative became pivotal to manufacture consent for the genocide in Gaza. Andersen explains that the New York Times, in particular, played an outsize role in framing this October 7th origin story. However, Andersen argues that this has led to the downfall of establishment media since popularity of Israel is at an all time low in the US. They also discuss the current media ecosystem, and the need to dismantle existing ways in which journalism is practiced.

Buy the book here: https://orbooks.com/catalog/the-complicit-lens/

“Gaming the Iran war and the Gaza Genocide Syndrome” by Robin Andersen https://mondoweiss.net/2026/03/gaming-the-iran-war-and-the-gaza-genocide-syndrome/

Watch it here:

Listen to previous episodes of It’s Not You, It’s The Media here: https://www.radicalbookscollective.com/s/its-not-you-its-the-media

Watch previous episodes of It’s Not You, It’s The Media here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLstXMEF0r05bhdfv7yCt5V2KXTdK4cO5F

Share