SOLD OUT! But you can get a copy over at AK Press Distro!
5x7 inch paper pamphlet.
New Bones: Abolitionism, Communism, and Captive Maternals is an essay written by Joy James and curated by chris time steele.
Dr. James honors the legacy of communities who have fought for liberation while examining international resistance to white supremacy, and the new bones of solidarity while also questioning how social movements get co-opted by philanthropic funders and academia. In New Bones Dr. James writes, “Prison is the most tangible domestic war zone. War zones are destabilizing. The Attica rebellion, on this its 50th anniversary, exemplifies the torturous growth of new bones by Captive Maternals. Those in Attica, an ungendered mass of captives (not all identified as male although the state classified them as such), maintained the prison structure as trustees and laborers.”
Dr. Joy James is Ebenezer Fitch Professor of Humanities, Williams College. She is the author and editor of numerous books. Authored books: Resisting State Violence: Radicalism, Gender & Race in U.S. Culture (Minnesota UP, 1996); Transcending the Talented Tenth: Black Leaders and American Intellectuals (Routledge, 1997); Shadowboxing: Representations of Black Feminist Politics (St. Martin’s, 1999); and Seeking the Beloved Community: A Feminist Race Reader (SUNY Press, 2013). Edited books: The Angela Y. Davis Reader (Blackwell, 1998); The Black Feminist Reader (Blackwell, 2000), co-edited with T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting; States of Confinement: Policing, Detention, and Prisons (St. Martin’s, 2000); Imprisoned Intellectuals: America’s Political Prisoners Write on Life, Liberation, and Rebellion (Rowman & Littlefield, 2003); The New Abolitionists: (Neo) Slave Narratives and Contemporary Prison Writings (SUNY Press, 2005); Warfare in the American Homeland: Policing and Prison in a Penal Democracy (Duke UP, 2007). Over the course of her career James has received numerous grants, fellowships, and awards. Her article "The Womb of Western Theory" forms the theoretical foundation for her forthcoming monograph, FULCRUM: The Captive Maternal Leverages Democracy.
This essay originally appeared on Verso’s blog on June 4, 2021