"We must love and support one another" -Assata Shakur
The Personal Is Political
Critical University Studies
Orienting our work is a realization that we are shaped by our workplace, the university, and must keep a critical gaze upon both it and the management which profits off our exploitation.
History Of The University
- Ebony and Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America's Universities
- Cost of College Degree Has Risen 1,120% in 30 Years
- Students Are Already Workers
- The Waste Product of Graduate Education: Toward a Dictatorship of the Flexible
- Innovation for What? The Politics of Inequality in Higher Education
- Coming Due: Accounting for Debt, Counting on Crisis
- Austerity Politics And The University of California
- Confronting Our Permanent Public University Austerity
Critical University Texts
- Introduction: Teaching Critical University Studies
- The University and the Undercommons
- The Last Good Job In America: Work and Education in the New Global Technoculture
- How The University Works: Higher Education and the Low Wage Nation
- The Contingency of (Some) Academic Labor: Communication Studies and the Cognitariat
Resources: Race
What is race and how does it intersect with the labor movement? Below you'll find resources (both practical and academic) on race.
Organizing Resources
This list includes syllabi organized by activists, as well as particularly informative articles on race.
- The Black Radical Tradition Reader
- Black Lives Matter Syllabus
- Black Feminism Syllabus
- Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color
- #TalkAboutTrayvon: A Toolkit for White People
- The 5 Methods of Divestment & Weaponization [The Right Kind] of White Power & Privilege
- About the Weary Weaponizing of White Women's Tears
- Trayvon Taught Me: A Toolkit for Black and Non-Black POC Organizers (Duel Version in Spanish)
- Demands Toolkit: Placing Power With The People
- Direct Action Planning 101
- White Supremacy & Free Speech Toolkit
- Ferguson Syllabus
- Resources for Non-Black Asians on Anti-Blackness
- Understanding AntiSemitism: An Offering To Our Movement
- Native American Activism: 1960s-Present
- Anti-Muslim Racism Syllabus
- Islamophobia Is Racism Syllabus
- Standing Rock Syllabus
- Disarming Campus Police
- Prison Abolition Syllabus
Academic Resources
As a part of an academic union, we've also compiled a set of academic resources. What is open-source we have linked, otherwise we've directed folks towards their presses.
- Michael Omi and Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s
- Glenn, Evelyn Nakano, Unequal Freedom: How Race and Gender Shaped American Citizenship and Labor
- Frankenberg, Ruth, White Women, Race Matters: The Social Construction of Whiteness
- Roediger, David R., The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class
- Massey, Douglas S. & Nancy Denton, American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass
- Jewish Voices For Peace, On AntiSemitism: Solidarity and the Struggle for Justice
- David Lewis-Coleman, Race Against Liberalism: Black Workers and the UAW in Detroit
Resources: Class
What is class and how does it inform the labor movement? Below you'll find resources (both practical and academic) on class.
Organizer Resources
This list includes syllabi organized by activists, as well as particularly informative articles on class.
- Labor, Class, And Austerity Syllabus
- Labor History For The Classroom and The Public
- Keywords For The Age of Austerity
- Talking Points: Student Debt
- Women's Student Debt Crisis In The United States
- Why Are There Banks In Education?
- Who Are The 99%? Ways to Teach About Occupy Wall Street
- The Average Black Family Would Need 228 Years to Build The Wealth Of A White Family Today
- European Socialism and Communism: Communist Interventions, Vol. 1
- Welfare Reform Syllabus
- FILM: Harlen County U.S.A
- FILM: Salt of the Earth
Academic Resources
As a part of an academic union, we've also compiled a set of academic resources. What is open-source we have linked, otherwise we've directed folks towards their presses.
- Stephen Steinberg, The Ethnic Myth: Race, Ethnicity, and Class in America
- Julie Bettie, Women Without Class: Chicas, Cholas, Trash, and the Presence/Absence of Class Identity
- Douglas Massey & Nancy Denton, American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass
- Angela Davis, Women, Race, and Class
- Bill Fletcher, Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path Toward Social Justice
- Joshua Clover, Riot, Strike, Riot: The New Era of Uprisings
- Aaron Brenner, Rebel Rank and File: Labor Militancy and Revolt from Below During the Long 1970s
- The Living Indebted: Student Militancy and the Financialization of Debt
Resources: Gender
What is gender and how does it intersect with the labor movement? Below you'll find resources (both practical and academic) on gender.
Organizer Resources
This list includes syllabi organized by activists, as well as particularly informative articles on gender.
- Black Feminism Syllabus
- #SayHerName Syllabus
- WhyWeCantWait & #BlackGirlsMatter Syllabus
- The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism
- Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color
- About the Weary Weaponizing of White Women's Tears
- Teaching About The #MeToo Moment
- Women and Femmes Unite! A Structural and Political Analysis of Femininity
- #TransJusticeSyllabus
- Women’s Strike Syllabus
- Revolutionary Feminism, Communist Interventions, Vol.3
- How Unions Can Help End Academia's Gender Inequalities
- Survivor-Centered Guide For Accountability and Action
Academic Resources
As a part of an academic union, we've also compiled a set of academic resources. What is open-source we have linked, otherwise we've directed folks towards their presses.
- Candace West and Don Zimmerman, Doing Gender
- Arlie Hochschild, The Second Shift: Working Parents and the Revolution at Home
- Eric Stanley & Nat Smith, Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex
- Gail M. McGuire, Gender, Race, and the Shadow Structure: A Study of Informal Networks and Inequality in a Work Organization
- Leslie Salzinger, Genders in Production: Making Workers in Mexico’s Global Factories
- Nancy Gabin, Feminism in the Labor Movement: Women and the United Auto Workers, 1935-1975
Resources: Sexuality
What is sexuality and how does it inform the labor movement? Below you'll find resources (both practical and academic) on sexuality.
Organizer Resources
This list includes syllabi organized by activists, as well as particularly informative articles on sexuality.
Academic Resources
As a part of an academic union, we've also compiled a set of academic resources. What is open-source we have linked, otherwise we've directed folks towards their presses.
Steven Seidman, The Social Construction of Sexuality
Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality
Eve Sedgewick, Epistemology of the Closet
- Miriam Frank, Out In The Union: A Labor History of Queer America
- Murray Healy, Gay Skins: Class, Masculinity and Queer Appropriation
- Patricia Hill Collins, Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender, and the New Racism
- Diane Richardson, Sexuality and Citizenship
- Jasbir Puar, Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism In Queer Times
Resources: Immigration
What is immigration and how does it inform the labor movement? Below you'll find resources (both practical and academic) on immigration.
Organizer Resources
This list includes syllabi organized by activists, as well as particularly informative articles on immigration.
Academic Resources
As a part of an academic union, we've also compiled a set of academic resources. What is open-source we have linked, otherwise we've directed folks towards their presses.
- Evelyn Nakano Glenn Unequal Freedom: How Race and Gender Shaped American Citizenship and Labor
- Mae M. Ngai, Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America
- Frank Bardackie, Trampling Out the Vintage: Cesar Chavez and the Two Souls of the United Farm Workers
- Michele Lamont, Michele, The Dignity of Working Men: Morality and the Boundaries of Race, Class, and Immigration
- Vijay Prashad, The Karma of Brown Folks
Resources: Disability
What is disability and how does it inform the labor movement? Below you'll find resources (both practical and academic) on disability.
Organizer Resources
This list includes syllabi organized by activists, as well as particularly informative articles on disability.
Academic Resources
As a part of an academic union, we've also compiled a set of academic resources. What is open-source we have linked, otherwise we've directed folks towards their presses.
- Audre Lorde, The Cancer Journals
- Alison Kafer, Feminist Queer Crip
- Alondra Nelson, Body and Soul
- Nirmala Erevelles, The Color of Violence: Reflecting on Gender, Race, and
Disability in Wartime - Che Gossett, We Will Not Rest in Peace: AIDS activism, black radicalism,
queer and/or trans resistance - Eli Clare, Exile & Pride: Disability, Queerness, and Liberation
- Jasbir Puar, The Right To Maim: Debility, Capacity, Disability
Resources: Religion
What is religion and how does it inform the labor movement? Below you'll find resources (both practical and academic) on religion.
Organizing Resources
This list includes syllabi organized by activists, as well as particularly informative articles on religion.
Academic Resources
As a part of an academic union, we've also compiled a set of academic resources. What is open-source we have linked, otherwise we've directed folks towards their presses.
- Edward Said, Orientalism
- Saba Mahmood, The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject
- Nikhil Singh, Racial Formation in an Age of Permanent War
- Vijay Prashad, The Karma of Brown Folks
- Jewish Voices For Peace, On AntiSemitism: Solidarity and the Struggle for Justice
Resources: Colonialism
What is colonialism and how does it frame the labor movement? Below you'll find resources (both practical and academic) on colonialism.
Organizer Resources
This list includes syllabi organized by activists, as well as particularly informative articles on colonialism.
- Standing Rock Syllabus
- Puerto Rico Syllabus
- Native American Activism: 1960s-Present
- Black-Palestinian Solidarity
- Whose Birthright? A Zine Exposing Birthright Israel
- Settler Colonialism, White Supremacy, and the "Special Relationship" Between The U.S. and Israel
- State of American Indian and Alaska Native Education in California Report 2012, 2014, and 2015
- Interactive Map of United States Seizure of Indigenous Lands
- Native Lands Map
Academic Resources
As a part of an academic union, we've also compiled a set of academic resources. What is open-source we have linked, otherwise we've directed folks towards their presses.
- Edward Said, Orientalism
- Jasbir Puar, Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times
- Andrea Smith, American Studies without America: Native Feminisms and the Nation-State
- Jodi A. Byrd, The Transit of Empire: Indigenous Critiques of Colonialism
- Amy Kaplan, The Anarchy of Empire in the Making of U.S. Culture
- Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth
- Caroll Kakel, The American West & The Nazi East
- Nancy Ordover, American Eugenics: Race, Queer Anatomy, and the Science of Nationalism
- Nikhil Singh, "The Afterlife of Fascism"
Resources: Palestine
What is Palestine, and how is the conflict over Palestine a labor issue? Below you'll find organizing and academic resources on Palestine.
Organizer Resources
This list includes syllabi organized by activists, as well as particularly informative articles on colonialism.
- Where is Palestine?
- Jerusalem by the Numbers According to the UN
- Palestine Syllabus
- An Introduction to Palestine
- Gaza in Context [Film]
- We are Not Numbers
- Black-Palestinian Solidarity
- Whose Birthright? A Zine Exposing Birthright Israel
- Settler Colonialism, White Supremacy, and the "Special Relationship" Between The U.S. and Israel
- UAW 2865 Solidarity Statement with Gaza
Academic Resources
As a part of an academic union, we've also compiled a set of academic resources. What is open-source we have linked, otherwise we've directed folks towards their presses.
- Edward Said, Orientalism
- Jasbir Puar, Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times
Resources: Prison Industrial Complex
What is the prison industrial complex and how does it impact the labor movement? Below you'll find resources (both practical and academic) on the prison industrial complex (PIC).
Organizer Resources
This list includes syllabi organized by activists, as well as particularly informative articles on the prison industrial complex.
- What is the Prison Industrial Complex?
- Prison Abolition Syllabus
- Prison Industrial Complex Through Film Syllabus
- [Podcast] Beyond Prisons
- Black and Pink: Queer Prison Abolition
- This Is A Prison, Glitter Is Not Allowed
- Mumia Abu Jamal, Writings on the Wall: Selected Prison Writings
- Masked Racism: Reflections on the Prison Industrial Complex
- [Film] No One Is Disposable: Everyday Practices of Prison Abolition
- [Film] Long Distance Revolutionary: A Journey with Mumia Abu-Jamal
Academic Resources
As a part of an academic union, we've also compiled a set of academic resources. What is open-source we have linked, otherwise we've directed folks towards their presses.
- Eric Stanley & Nat Smith, Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex
- Angela Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete?
- Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
- Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison
- Ruth Gilmore, Golden Gulag: Prison, Surplus, Crisis and Opposition in Globalizing California
- Chris Chapman, Allison C. Carey, and Liat Ben-Moshe, eds., Disability Incarcerated: Imprisonment and Disability in the United States and Canada
- Beth Richie, Arrested Justice: Black Women, Violence, and America's Prison Nation
- Gordon Lafer, The Politics of Prison Labor: A Union Perspective
