A chairde,

Thanks so much to everyone who came out for week one! We had the best time and it was so nice chatting with everyone! Also thank you so so much to our hosts Connolly Books, FLUX, and Marrowbone Books! Absolute angels all of them!

This week we’re going to be running our very first film club (!!!) in Ballybough Community Centre and we’d love to see you there! There’s more information below, and we’ve also included the reading for next week’s reading groups. We’ll be looking at INTERNATIONAL NON-ALIGNMENT, THE COMMONS AND THE LOUGH NEAGH CRISIS, and CARE! They’ll be great sessions and we’d love to see you there! Newcomers are always welcome!

P.S. AGAIN, don’t worry if you couldn’t get through all of the reading for a group. If you’ve read one article/chapter, that’ll do!

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Film Club #1 on Wednesday!

Wednesday 2 July 2025 / 7pm-8pm //
Ballybough Community Centre, 49 Ballybough Rd, Dublin 3

[FYI this is not a screening! Just a chat!]

Bamboozled (dir. Spike Lee, 2000) [WATCH]

Frustrated when network brass reject his sitcom idea, producer Pierre Delacroix pitches the worst idea he can think of in an attempt to get fired: a 21st century minstrel show. The network not only airs it, but it becomes a smash hit.

Suggested reading: Patrick Nkang, Joe King and Paul Ugo, “Legacies of Blackface Minstrelsy and Contemporary American Media: The Political Critique of Spike Lee’s Bamboozled”, available at https://www.ajol.info/index.php/gjh/article/view/79385/69682

Further viewing (optional): The Producers (dir. Mel Brooks, 1967); American Fiction (dir. Cord Jefferson, 2023)

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NEXT WEEK! 

Militarism and Neutrality

Tuesday 8 July 2025 / 7pm-8pm //
Connolly Books, 43 Essex Street East, Dublin 2

International Non-Alignment

Core Reading

• Comhiarracht Gaelach, ‘Non-alignment and neutrality: A response to Ireland’s Consultative Forum on International Security Policy’ (10 January 2024), available at: https://diem25.org/non-alignment-and-neutrality-a-response-to-irelands-consultative-forum-on-international-security-policy/
• Pat Walsh, ‘Non-Alignment Now!’ (2 December 2022), available at: https://drpatwalsh.com/2022/12/02/non-alignment-now
• Paul Stubbs, ‘The Non-Aligned Movement Then and Now’ (8 November 2023), available at: https://www.greeneuropeanjournal.eu/the-non-aligned-movement-then-and-now/

Further Reading (optional)

• Dáil Éireann debate 14 June 1978 – Questions on Non-Aligned Nations, available at:https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/dail/1978-06-14/21/
• DiEm25, ‘Yanis Varoufakis, Jeremy Corbyn and Ece Temelkuran present the Athens Declaration’ (13 May 2022), available at: https://diem25.org/yanis-varoufakis-jeremy-corbyn-and-ece-temelkuran-present-the-athens-declaration/
• Harsh V. Pant, ‘End of the Road for the Non-Aligned Movement?’ (29 September 2016), available at: https://archive-yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/end-road-non-aligned-movement
• Hennie Strydom, ‘The Non-Aligned Movement and the Reform of International Relations’ (2007), available at: https://www.mpil.de/files/pdf1/mpunyb_01_strydom_11.pd

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Property, Land and Ecology

Wednesday 9 July 2025 / 7pm-8pm //
Flux Studios, 4 Chatham Row, Dublin 2

The Commons (and Lough Neagh)

• Louise Taylor & John Barry, “The Commons / Lough Neagh
  Northern Ireland as a Sacrifice Zone: The Lough Neagh Crisis”. Available at: https://pureadmin.qub.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/613768576/Northern-Ireland-as-a-Sacrifice-Zone-The-Lough-Neagh-Crisis.pdf
• Silvia Federici, “Feminism and the Politics of the Commons”. Available at: https://wealthofthecommons.org/essay/feminism-and-politics-commons
• Daniel Long, “The case for a land observatory in Ireland”. Available at: https://www.arc2020.eu/the-case-for-a-land-observatory-in-ireland/

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Care and Community

Saturday 12 July 2025 / 10am-11am //
Marrowbone Books, 78 The Coombe, Dublin 8

Care

• Ch. 3 – “Caring Communities” in The Care Collective, The Care Manifesto: The Politics of Interdependence.
• Ch. 2 – “The Political Economy of Love” in Alva Gotby, They Call It Love: The Politics of Emotion.
• Ch. 1 – “Redefining Democracy as Settling Disputes about Care Responsibilities” in Joan Tronto, Caring Democracy.

Chapters available as a PDF.

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Love and solidarity,
SAINTS AND SCHOLARS ☘️ 🩷

We’re really excited that our (inaugural!) summer reading groups will be kicking off next week! We will be running four groups on a fortnightly basis, and the full set of reading lists for our first sessions are included below.

If you don’t end up managing to get around to all the core reading, please don’t feel like you can’t attend. Even if you only ended up reading one of the articles, we’d still love to have you!

Sessions are drop-in and we always love to see new faces but we ask that you pre-register if possible so that we have an indication of numbers. You can do that at the following link: forms.gle/foscFQn1bV5BARXs5.

P.S. If you have any difficulty accessing either the readings or the film for the sessions, just email us at [encode link=”mailto:”][/encode] and we can give you a hand.

P.P.S. The full schedule for our summer sessions is available if you’d like to add hanging out with us to your calendar xx

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Militarism and Neutrality

Tuesday 24 June 2025 / 7pm-8pm //
Connolly Books, 43 Essex Street East, Dublin 2

Irish Neutrality

Core Reading

• Colin Gannon, ‘Ireland Should Resist the Pressure to Join the Western Military Bloc’ (19 July 2023), available at: https://jacobin.com/2023/07/ireland-nonalignment-neutrality-nato-us-european-union-war-foreign-policy 
• Karen Devine, ‘The Resilience of Irish Neutrality’ (9 July 2024), available at: https://www.e-ir.info/2024/07/09/the-resilience-of-irish-neutrality/ 
• Niamh Ní Bhriain, ‘Saving the Triple Lock: Neutrality Hawks v The Government of Ireland’ (August 2024), available at: https://www.tni.org/files/2024-08/Policy_Brief_Ireland_web.pdf 

Further Reading (optional)

• Afri, ‘A Force for Good? Reflections on Irish Neutrality’ (2024), available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h00k3pFLofk 
• Dennis Driscoll, ‘Is Ireland Really ‘Neutral’?’ (1982), available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/30001725 
• Irish Times, ‘Should Ireland revisit its neutrality?’ (4 February 2025), available at: https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2025/02/04/should-ireland-revisit-its-neutrality-prof-ben-tonra-and-dr-raymond-murphy-debate/ 
• Report of the Consultative Forum on International Security Policy (10 October 2023), available at: https://www.gov.ie/en/department-of-foreign-affairs/campaigns/consultative-forum-on-international-security-policy/

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The Environment and Capitalism

Wednesday 25 June 2025 / 7pm-8pm //
Flux Studios, 4 Chatham Row, Dublin 2

Core reading

• Rebecca Vining and Criostóir King, The World Can Feed Itself (Rundale), available at: https://www.rundale.org/2024/05/30/the-world-can-feed-itself/
• Calo et al, Achieving Food Resilience Requires Challenging Dominant Land Property Regimes (Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems), available at: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/sustainable-food-systems/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2021.683544/full
• Rebecca May Johnson, I Dream of Canteens (Dinner Document), available at: https://dinnerdocument.com/2019/04/30/i-dream-of-canteens/ 

Further reading (optional)

Elise Wach, Market Dependency as Prohibitive of Agroecology and Food Sovereignty – A Case Study (Sustainability), available at: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/4/1927

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Care and Community

Thursday 26 June 2025 / 8pm-9pm //
Marrowbone Books, 78 The Coombe, Dublin 8

The Family

• Liza Featherstone, Don’t Be Afraid to Embrace the Utopian Spirit (Jacobin) 
• Evan Calder Williams, What the Hell is the Family? (The New Inquiry)
• Laura Anne Roberston, Who Cares (The New Inquiry)

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Film Club

Wednesday 2 July 2025 / 7pm-8pm //
Venue to be confirmed!!

Bamboozled (dir. Spike Lee, 2000)

Frustrated when network brass reject his sitcom idea, producer Pierre Delacroix pitches the worst idea he can think of in an attempt to get fired: a 21st century minstrel show. The network not only airs it, but it becomes a smash hit.

Suggested reading: Patrick Nkang, Joe King and Paul Ugo, “Legacies of Blackface Minstrelsy and Contemporary American Media: The Political Critique of Spike Lee’s Bamboozled”, available at https://www.ajol.info/index.php/gjh/article/view/79385/69682 

Further viewing (optional): The Producers (dir. Mel Brooks, 1967); American Fiction (dir. Cord Jefferson, 2023)

Militarism and Neutrality

Tuesdays // 7pm-8pm
24 June,
8 July,
22 July,
5 August,
19 August

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Film Club

Wednesdays // 7pm-8pm
2 July,
16 July
30 July
13 August
27 August

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The Environment and Capitalism

Wednesdays // 7pm-8pm
25 June,
9 July,
23 July,
6 August,
20 August

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Care and Community

Thursdays // 8pm-9pm + Saturdays // 10am-11am
Th 26 June 8pm,
Sat 12 July 10am,
Th 24 July 8pm,
Sat 9 August 10am
Th 21 August 8pm