AGITATE Now!

Holding Movements, Agitating Epistemes: Introducing a Multipart Series on Remembering, Retelling, and Dreaming for Justice

March 22, 2022

Convened and co-edited by Richa Nagar and Ponni Arasu To invoke movements in search of justice is to summon many layers of lived existence—including motions, moments, rhythms, relationships, and visions—that are, by definition, fluid and uncontainable. What might it mean, then, to document or analyze a movement? Is it possible to hold and feel the…

“She has one thousand eyes, Our Mother Goddess Maadathy”: Exploring separation and invisible labor through Leena Manimekalai’s strategic deifications

December 1, 2021

by Drishadwati Bargi Director Leena Manimekalai’s Maadathy: An Un-Fairy Tale (2021) belongs to a historical moment when anti-caste cinema and in extension an anti-caste audience have already acquired a vibrant presence in India and the diaspora, thanks to the works of Nagaraj Manjule, Mari Selvaraj, Pa. Ranjith, Neeraj Ghaywan among others. What is perhaps unique…

Talking Back to white “Burma Experts”

August 14, 2021

by Chu May Paing and Than Toe Aung In December 2018, Than Toe Aung attended a talk hosted by Parami Institute (now Parami University), self-proclaimed as “Myanmar’s first private, not-for-profit liberal arts and sciences university” in Yangon. The talk featured the well-known journalist Bertil Lintner covering Burma since the era of the former military regime…

NAPM Yuva Samvad: Young People’s Political Persecution and Resistance | NAPM युवा संवाद: युवाओं का राजनीतिक उत्पीड़न और प्रतिरोध

August 7, 2021

This article is a summary of the National Alliance of People’s Movements‘ month-long campaign on ‘Young People’s Political Persecution and Resistance’ that took place in July 2021. This summary was originally published on NAPM Yuva Samvad:Towards Deepening Dialogues, Diversity and Democratic Values. In solidarity with all comrades facing political persecution and remembering human rights defender…

Sci-Fi as Accessible Movement Building: A Review of Larissa Lai’s “The Tiger Flu”

July 27, 2021

by Chloe Dunston The Tiger Flu is set in the year 2145, which author Larissa Lai depicts as a “time after oil” divided by factions, gender, disease, and technology. After years of greedy leadership, environmental degradation, and the exhaustion of fossil fuels, Saltwater City and its outskirts stand alone in what was formerly Vancouver, Canada.…

Black Men’s Stories, By Peter London Global Dance Company

July 20, 2021

with commentary from Terrence Pride Upon the backs of our ancestors we journey forward, as the light and fire they held for us expands into a greater present and still greater future.  We must not let them down! Remember the tremendous brutality of mind, body, and spirit, they endured, that which still continues. Honor and…

My Palestinian Poem that “The New Yorker” Wouldn’t Publish

June 30, 2021

by Fady Joudah This piece was originally published in the LA Review of Books on June 7, 2021. RemoveYou who remove me from my houseare blind to your pastwhich never leaves you,yet you’re no moleto smell and sense what’s being doneto me now by you.Now, dilatory, attritional so that the pastis climate change and not…

The Black Radical Tradition Can Help Us Imagine a More Just World

June 16, 2021

by Brian Lozenski   Thanks to Truthout and author Brian Lozenski for granting us the permission to reprint this article on AGITATE Now!. You can access the original article here, published originally on June 23, 2020. Just as quickly as protests mounted in cities and towns across the country after George Floyd joined the ever-growing…

Memory Histories: I Am Not Your Data

June 7, 2021

By Anjali Arondekar I am not your data, nor am I your vote bank,I am not your project, or any exotic museum object,I am not the soul waiting to be harvested,Nor am I the lab where your theories are tested,I am not your cannon fodder, or the invisible worker,or your entertainment at India habitat center,I…

Shav-vahini Ganga | Ganga, the Carrier of Corpses | શબવાહિની ગંગા | शव-वाहिनी गंगा

May 22, 2021

by Parul Khakhar India is going through a devastating second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although this second wave was long predicted by medical and scientific experts, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government under Prime Minister Modi boasted of how India had conquered the virus. The stories from the first wave—of thousands of migrant wage…