In January 2020, Martin Aagaard Jensen and I will launch a reading group and podcast, tentatively called #TheProletariat. We are two academics based in Wilkes-Barre, PA, a former coal-mining region, and we recognize the need to engage the working-class consciousness of this community while also building multi-racial and diverse coalitions. This project will cultivate public understanding of topics such as racial capitalism, colonialism and its legacies, globalization, neoliberalism and collective action.
Our reading group promises to bring academic skills and arguments to folks in Wilkes-Barre, and to facilitate a conversation on the economic and political crises that continue to plague recently deindustrialized areas. We're happy to partner with Anthracite Unite, a local collective of activists and organizers whose aim is to foster class unity across lines of race and ethnicity.