Hello chickies!
Tomorrow session two of our CATU In Defence of Housing group will be running over in Kirkos. If you couldn’t make the first session, you’re still very very welcome to come along!
On Thursday the wonderful Care & Community gang will be back for the autumn in Flux Studios, and they’ll be chatting about how we can counter the isolation and alienation of social media.
And finally, next week our Militarism & Neutrality group will be meeting up to chat about Gaming! B)
If you’d like to come along to one of our meetings but would like a little bit more information about how we run our meetings or you’re feeling a bit shy even, please feel free to reply to this email! We’d be very happy to chat about the groups and loop in with you beforehand!
Upcoming dates // readings & info below
Wed 23 September 7PM – CATU x S&S @ Kirkos
Thu 24 September 7PM – Care & Community @ Flux Studios
Tue 29 September 7PM – Militarism & Neutrality @ Connolly Books
Love and solidarity,
SAINTS AND SCHOLARS ☘️ 🩷
CATU v S&S – In Defence of Housing
Wednesday 23 September 2026 / 7pm-8pm //
Kirkos, Little Green Street, Dublin 7
Residential Alienation
Readings:
- Book Chapter: Chapter 2 – Residential Alienation, in David Madden & Peter Marcuse, In Defense of Housing: The Politics of Crisis (Verso, 2016), available at: https://saintsandscholars.club/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Chapter-2.pdf
- Article: Rachel McArdle & Michael Byrne, Rootlessness: How the Irish private rental sector prevents tenants feeling secure in their homes and tenant’s resistance against this (November 2022), available at: https://saintsandscholars.club/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/McArdle-and-Byrne-2022-Rootlessness-How-the-Irish-private-rental-sector-prevents-tenants-feeling-secure-in-their-homes-and-2.pdf
- Short Documentary: Luke Daly & Nathan Fagan, Through the Cracks (2018), available at: https://vimeo.com/281291787
- Video: Architects Against Housing Alienation, Atlas of Housing Alienation (6 June 2023), available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WW8PxLUfAww
Care & Community
Thursday 24 September 2026 / 6.30pm-7.30pm //
Flux Studios, Chatham St, Dublin 2
How can we counter the isolation and alienation of social media?
Core reading:
- Donatella Della Ratta, “Digital Socialism Beyond the Digital Social: Confronting Communicative Capitalism with Ethics of Care” (2020). Available at: https://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/1145
- Anna Gotlib, ‘Main Character Syndrome’ (2024). Available at: https://aeon.co/essays/why-main-character-syndrome-is-philosophically-dangerous
- Jonathon Dean, “From solidarity to self-promotion? Neoliberalism and left politics in the age of the social media influencer” (2023). Available at:https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/200079/10/dean-2023-from-solidarity-to-self-promotion-neoliberalism-and-left-politics-in-the-age-of-the-social-media-influencer.pdf
Further reading/listening: (Optional!)
- Rezgar Akrawi, “The Left and Breaching Capitalism’s Digital Fortress” (2026). Available at: https://countercurrents.org/2026/06/the-left-and-breaching-capitalisms-digital-fortress/
- Joshua Citarella, “Marxist memes for TikTok teens: can the internet radicalize teenagers for the left?” (2020). Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/12/marxist-memes-tiktok-teens-radical-left
Militarism & Neutrality
Tuesday 29 September 2026 / 7pm-8pm //
Connolly Books, 43 Essex Street East, Dublin 2
Militarism & Gaming
Core reading:
- Jacobin, The Pentagon Loves First-Person Shooter Video Games, (19 October 2022), available at: https://archive.ph/TuN8G
- The Baffler, War Games: The company behind Call of Duty reps its own bitter fruits (1 September 2021), available at: https://thebaffler.com/latest/war-games-wham
- People Make Games, The Games Behind Your Government’s Next War (5 September 2024), available at: https://youtu.be/lYaDXZ2MI-k [Video, 1 hour 12 mins]
Further reading: (Optional!)
- Business Insider, British soldiers are racing virtual drones through video game mountains and tracks before taking to the skies for real (28 July 2026), available at: https://www.businessinsider.com/uk-troops-video-games-race-tracks-prepare-drone-flight-ukraine-2026-7
- UK Gov, Strengthening Defence Through Wargaming (24 October 2024), available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/strengthening-defence-through-wargaming