The Social Theory Book Club was a special reading group for discussing “theory” texts in sociology and beyond. I co-organized this group with Katrina Quisumbing King (Northwestern University), Demetrius Murphy (University of Southern California), and Blanca Ramirez (University of Southern California). We read books (sometimes articles) that a) challenged us to rethink “theory,” “theorists,” and “the canon” and b) encouraged us to engage ideas and themes that are often neglected in sociological theory courses. More importantly, this book club aimed to provide a casual and welcoming setting for discussing social theory.

Here are the texts we read (in order of reading):

• The Sociology of W.E.B. Du Bois: Racialized Modernity and the Global Color Line by José Itzigsohn and Karida Brown (2020)

• Marx at the Margins: Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Non-Western Societies by Kevin Anderson (2010)

• Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition by Cedric Robinson (1983)

• Essays on the Missing Revolutions in Sociology: “The Missing Feminist Revolution in Sociology” by Judith Stacey and Barrie Thorne (1985 Social Problems), “‘I Can’t Even Think Straight’ ‘Queer’ Theory and the Missing Sexual Revolution in Sociology” by Arlene Stein and Ken Plummer (1994 Sociological Theory), and “Sociology and Postcolonialism: Another ‘Missing’ Revolution?” by Gurminder K. Bhambra (2007 Sociology)

• The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon (1961)

• Women, Race, and Class by Angela Davis (1981)

• Essays on abolitionist calls in 2020: “Abolitionist Socialism” by Peter Bloom (2020 Spectre), “The Only Way Out of the Crisis is to Fight for Open Borders” by Justin Akers Chacón (2020 Spectre), “The Abolition Geographies of COVID-19” by Madeleine Hamlin (2020 Society and Space), “Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police” by Mariame Kaba (2020 New York Times), and “The Coronavirus Crisis Shows It’s Time to Abolish the Family” by Sophie Lewis (2020 Open Democracy)

• White by Law: The Legal Construction of Race by Ian Haney López (2006)

• Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination by Robin Kelley (2002)

• Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory by Patricia Hill Collins (2019)

• Capital is Dead: Is this Something Worse? by McKenzie Wark (2019)

• The Intimacies of Four Continents by Lisa Lowe (2015)