We are gearing up for Part 2 of our discussion on the recent turmoil in Sri Lanka with Kanya D’Almeida and Quincy Saul. It is the next installment of our series on racial and environmental justice, facilitated by Kali Akuno. If you missed part 1, which focused on the historical background of the Sri Lankan crisis, it is now up on our YouTube channel. It was a fascinating initial discussion, and we’re excited to dig deeper. Part 2 will take place next week, at 11:30am Eastern on Thursday, December 21. This session (“Ecosocialist Sri Lanka”) will focus on the future and what we can learn a ..read more

By Chaia Heller [Note: This commentary by ISE faculty member Chaia Heller was originally published on ZNetwork. The views expressed here are her own and the text was not reviewed by the ISE’s board or faculty prior to publication.] I’m not a scholar of the history or politics of Palestine or Israel. But I’m Jewish, queer, a mother, a feminist, and a leftist who mourns this tragic moment in history. I’m a leftist fearful and grieving for Palestinians, Israelis, non-Israeli Jews, and Muslims across this tattered world. If I’m sure of anything, it’s that this moment will forever remain a dark sta ..read more

by Mason Herson-Hord. Posted November 5, 2023. Jewish Voice for Peace protesters in Washington, D.C. October 18, 2023. Over the course of the past several weeks, millions of people have flooded the streets in cities around the world in resistance against the latest and deadliest Israeli onslaught on the Gaza Strip. These have faced widespread repression, with protesters beaten, kettled, and arrested from New York to Paris, while even gently worded calls for peace have been met with purges, firings, and other arbitrary discipline. Amid demands for a ceasefire by progressive factions of electeds ..read more

Ecology, Democracy, Utopia: Introduction to Social Ecology In Fall 2023, we are again offering our collectively taught social ecology overview course diving into our theory and practice. Over ten sessions, we will cover social ecology’s philosophy of nature; its critique of hierarchy; its analysis of race, patriarchy, capitalism, and the ecological crisis; its perspectives on direct democracy; and the radical mass movements required to bring such a utopian society into being.  Instructors:  Dan Chodorkoff, Chaia Heller, Brian Tokar, Kali Akuno, Blair Taylor, Grace Gershuny, Mason Her ..read more

Despite attempts at repression, the 2023 “Challenging Capitalist Modernity” conference in Hamburg brought together over a thousand activists and academics from all over the world for three days of utopian discourse. By Marcel Suter Like the previous three iterations, this year’s conference connected the Kurdish struggle with broader deliberations about a world free from oppression, patriarchy and ecological destruction. Much had changed since the last conference in 2017: Back then all eyes were on the Kurdish fighters repelling the Islamic State in Rojava. In the meantime the main threat has s ..read more

Register here. We are excited to announce that this year’s summer intensive course will be hosted in Detroit, Michigan in partnership with the James and Grace Lee Boggs Center, from July 7 to 13. This year’s theme is All Power to the People!: Social Ecology and the Black Radical Tradition in Today’s Revolutionary Movements. Participants—local as well as from across North America—will spend six days together studying and learning the core ideas of social ecology, popular movements for direct democracy and community power, and the practice and legacy of transformative community action in t ..read more

Register here to attend. South Africa is currently being gripped by a devastating energy crisis with homes and businesses suffering blackouts for up to twelve hours a day. The failure of the country’s national power utility—Eskom—to meet electricity demand has been ongoing since 2007, and is now experiencing perhaps its worst period. In May 2022, the South African government, under the leadership of President Cyril Ramaphosa, adopted a Just Transition Framework to move the country through a climate change inspired energy transition. However, given the numerous contradictions of the Ramaphosa ..read more

by Steven R. D. Henderson Ecofascism: Lessons from the German Experience was published when the American ecology movement debated social critique on one hand, or Malthusianism and anti-humanism on the other. Its authors Janet Biehl and Peter Staudenmaier pointed to historic far-Right environmentalism as a warning. The subject again gained attention in 2019 when a white supremacist gunned down 51 people at two New Zealand mosques. While he murdered friends and families in their places of worship, the attack was posted online for the world to see. “In his shoddy manifesto, the accused shooter i ..read more

First in a series of historical features, leading up to the 50th anniversary of the founding of the ISE, coming soon in 2024. By  Brian Tokar Along with Murray Bookchin’s increasingly prolific output at the time, one of the many influential writings during the first decade of the ISE was a pamphlet by Lee Webb, then a faculty member at Goddard College, titled “Colonialism and Underdevelopment in Vermont.” This concise ten-page pamphlet, first published in 1971, sparked an important critical conversation that lasted well over a decade in Vermont and beyond. It even inspired what may have b ..read more

by Chaia Heller Like many of you, I learned of Bruno Latour’s death on October 9th and it brought me great sadness. Somehow, when someone seems larger than life, the end of their life is a terrible surprise. Even intellectual giants are mortal. I had the good fortune of being one of Latour’s thésards (doctoral students), working for 2+ years as research fellow at his sociology labo in Paris during the late ‘90s. In addition to weekly doctoral seminars that seemed to go on forever, Bruno invited all nine thésards to lunch each Friday as well as to many dinners in his soaring Hausmannian Paris ..read more