Call for Session Proposals

Call for Session Proposals
We are currently seeking workshop proposals for the 20th Annual Book Fair to be held April 25, 2015 at The Crucible in West Oakland. Here’s how you can help us make this year’s Book Fair dynamic and engaging:

  • Forward this call to a group that’s doing work that inspires you, especially if they’ve never come to the Book Fair.
  • Submit a proposal for a workshop topic that has never before appeared at the Book Fair.
  • Create a strategy to get a crowded room full of people talking about how to create the structures needed to dismantle capitalism.
  • Organize an event (ex. a talk, a panel, a skillshare, a music show) during the week preceding the Book Fair, and let us know about it! We will use the Book Fair’s website to promote what’s happening across the Bay Area.

Deadline: January 15th, 2015:

Submit Your Workshop Proposal

 

What Are Workshops?

The Book Fair provides a forum for discussion among anarchists and individuals/groups who work with anarchists. Workshops will be generally facilitated by one person or a panel of people, and scheduled in blocks of 60-90 minutes. We encourage active hands-on participation, creativity, and enough time and space for questions, answers, and discussion.

We are looking for workshop proposals that:

  • Are aimed at people who are curious about, or new to, anarchist ideas and radical practices.
  • Delve into a topic in depth for people who are already involved in the anarchist tradition or radical activism.
  • Address broad, philosophical questions about our work and allow a constructive critique of our actions.
  • Encourage dialogue between anarchists and other political tendencies, groups, or movements.
  • Highlight stories or lessons learned.
  • Share specific skills for better organizing and better living.
  • Encourage and enable participants to make connections with each other.
  • Tackle and propose strategies for struggles occurring in our local communities like gentrification and police violence.
  • Connect anarchism and radical activism to the movements around major issues like environmental destruction, workers’ struggles, and immigration.

These parameters provide a starting point for developing a session, but please feel free to get creative and propose something outside of these categories.

Deadline: January 15th, 2015:

Submit Your Workshop Proposal

 

A Special Workshop Theme this Year

In the Americas, anarchists have always been the target of state repression, most recently from grand juries on the west coast, from Seattle to Santa Cruz, and arrests in Mexico City for fire bombings. Anarchists are also among those at the forefront of the struggle against systems of domination. Both of these aspects of struggle rely heavily, if not completely, on the quality of the social and personal relationships we keep.

For those facing repression, these relationships are the main source of economic, emotional, and legal support through letter writing,  money, friendship, etc. We also rely on these same relationships when executing plans for the obliteration of hierarchal systems.

At the same time, the cracks in our social relationships and our internal conflicts are exploited by the state to defeat us. Repression, and our difficulties resolving conflict, create seemingly unbridgeable chasms between us.

This year, we are particularly interested in workshops which focus on maintaining and building  relationships within our community, how and why (and if!) to resolve internal conflicts, and working with non-anarchist groups and communities.

 

How Do I Submit My Proposal?

To propose a session for the Book Fair, please submit the form on our website by January 15, 2015. We will finalize the program and confirm sessions by January 30.

Deadline: January 15th, 2015:

Submit Your Workshop Proposal

 

What Else is Happening Besides the Book Fair?

In addition to the Book Fair, a variety of diverse anarchist themed events will occur at different venues throughout the Bay Area the week preceding and the weekend during the Book Fair. You can propose any type of event or activity; the only limitation is your imagination!

These events will be organized autonomously from the Book Fair (think of the Anarchist Café, often held the Friday evening before the Book Fair, or the BASTARD conference, normally held on Sunday), and as such, venues are the responsibility of the event organizer—though we are happy to help with suggestions.

The Book Fair organizers are committed to promoting autonomous events to the best of our ability through the event website and Facebook page. In general, contacting the Book Fair organizers in advance of scheduling the event is a useful way to ensure the least number of event conflicts. Please email us to let us know of events that are schedule during or around the Book Fair.