Now that the blog has fully been transitioned to the more ‘central hub’ role I outlined in an article earlier this year, I will be making some more of the update/announcement posts I used to make in the early days of the blog. This is just a handy way to advertise events and projects I have a hand in or wish to support, and track the direction the blog is heading in generally. Simply put, it’s a pretty good way to give my long-term readers an idea of where things are at.

With that said, this will mostly be on the announcements side. I have a couple events to advertise, a new project to announce, and some smaller bits to cover as well. To get the big stuff out of the way…

Black Star Books Closing Sale
(18th October, 12-6PM, Yours café, 43 Moray Place)

Ending a major chapter of both my own life and the life of radical politics in 21st century Ōtepoti Dunedin, the remaining collective around Black Star Books has made a final decision to wind up the long-running anarchist infoshop this year. An institution of anarchism in this corner of the world for some 20 years (running roughly from 2003-2023, across multiple locations), Black Star Books was for some time the physical center of revolutionary politics in the city (with other groups never having their own building or rooms to operate out of). Now something of a relic of a bygone age in the anarchist politics which flourished from the 1980s-2010s, the infoshop has been largely swept aside by rising property costs and the demise of physical social spaces (especially the internet café). While something like the infoshop is arguably more necessary than ever, the exact function and contours of such a project would need to change to something more like general social centers to meet the needs of the extant movement.

At any rate, the remaining sale stock and the “not rare or irreplaceable” part of the library will be available to browse for purchase, accompanied by live music and the café operating as usual. I will be around all day, and I’ve even been drafted to do DJ a set under my old radio moniker. It should be a good day, and worth dipping in to have a look around.

Anthems to the Estranged: In Conversation with Dr Rosie Overell
(29th October, 6.30PM, Yours café, 43 Moray Place)

The Otago Socialist Society will be hosting myself in conversation with Dr Rosie Overell of the Media, Film & Communication programme at the University of Otago on the topic of class, alienation, and heavy metal. Acting as our Halloween event this year, this will be a fascinating discussion between myself and Dr Overell on a subject near & dear to my heart. The conversation will be followed by a more open Q&A with the audience, and the café will be operating for the evening (with many thanks from us at OSS).

We will discuss Dr Overell’s work studying extreme metal as both fan & scholar; themes of alienation, class, political radicalism, and social isolation in heavy metal; and how the feelings of alienation, class frustration, and social oppression find political expression through the heavy metal subculture. I hope that we can get into the weeds of subcultural obscurities and the insights Dr Overell can bring to the table through her background in Lacanian studies. If you can track down a copy, I recommend checking out her 2014 book Affective intensities in extreme music scenes: Cases from Australia and Japan, published by Palgrave Macmillan.

The Spectre of History Collective (SHC)

Perhaps the most exciting new project I’ve had a hand in, or maybe just the one I’m most excited about, is a new reading & discussion circle entitled the Spectre of History Collective. While we are still nailing down a lot of things, the general gist is that the group will read and discuss texts on the topic of revolutionary history over a 600 year period from the mid-14th to mid-20th centuries. This period, running from the immense social fallout of the Black Death to the onset of the Cold War, essentially covers the period in which modern revolutionary politics emerged from the peasant and labour revolts of the 1370s-1380s all the way to the final climactic chapter of the Chinese Civil War and the establishment of a second major communist power on the world stage. The collective will not be reading these topics chronologically, and will be pulling from a large pool of texts across the many revolutions we hope to discuss over time. Likewise, participating in the collective does not entail necessarily joining with the intent to attend every or most session(s). Participants are welcome to dip in and out as time dictates, with the only expectation being that if a topic spans multiple sessions (say, a full book rather than one or a handful of shorter texts) than they should make reasonable efforts to attend all of those sessions.

The collective at present is a small circle, all in Ōtepoti Dunedin, and we will be onboarding a few new readers with an eye towards getting together a couple times over November-December and launching consistent dedicated reading group sessions from January-February onwards. Our hope is to have a pool of interested participants to draw from locally for in-person sessions, and any non-local interested being welcome to follow our readings from afar (though meetings will be strictly in-person). It is worth noting that while I am a committee member of the Otago Socialist Society (OSS), and the collective has the support of OSS, it is not an OSS project and there is no requirement to join OSS to participate. The committee of OSS is keen to follow our progress to help design future educational efforts, but it is a separate project that is only affiliated by cross membership (I bring all this up in the interests of transparency, given that there is a natural association due to that cross membership). Anyone interested in joining or learning more is encouraged to reach out through the email on the flyer above.

NZ Political Studies Association Conference Paper
(19th-21st November, University of Otago)

I will also be presenting a paper provisionally titled “Small-Town Socialism: On Researching Socialism and Radical Left-Wing Politics in Aotearoa” at the 2025 NZ Political Studies Association Biennial Conference in mid-November. This is a ticketed conference, and to my knowledge paper presentations will not be public, so for anyone looking to attend I encourage purchasing a ticket soon as the conference is just a month away. More info and tickets are available here.

Bits ‘n’ Pieces

Not terribly much else to add, but of interest to long-time readers would be the following:

• I had an offer from a reader to send me a full run of the influential radical journal Race, Gender, Class – which has now eventuated (many, many thanks if you’re reading this). As I understand it, the journal was published out of the University of Canterbury under the initiative of political studies lecturer Rob Stevens, with a 12 issue run from 1985-1995.
• I am looking to setting up a substack as another means of disseminating the more substantive material I write, as well as cross-posting anything I write which gets published in other publications with their own substacks. While I’m aware of the issues with this, the reality is that almost no social media or adjacent platforms exist anymore which don’t have a raft of essentially the same problems, meaning that to exist on the internet is to engage with the vampires of Silicon Valley. Once I have that up and running, I will put out a call for subscribers, alongside another push to get readers who may miss me when I eventually leave Instagram (as happened with Facebook) to sign up to the mailing list.
• I am considering setting up a Ko-Fi account to help manage research costs (especially purchasing obscure books and old political periodicals) related to my PhD and associated work. I have had a few requests to donate money or material to my work over the years, the money I have politely brushed off while accepting potential research & archival material, but after receiving multiple such requests this year I gave the matter serious thought and decided to at least discuss the idea with other freelance writers and academics. I would prefer not to push the matter much, but just a heads up that a link may pop up on the blog at some point.
• Left From Nowhere, the show I host for local public station Otago Access Radio 105.4FM/1575AM on behalf of the Otago Socialist Society, will be winding up with a final show in late November. I still hope to be involved in both radio and podcasting in the future, but this particular show has run its natural course.
• Lastly, in terms of writing and archiving, I have been pretty busy of late. Multiple articles are either in the work or set for physical print publication in the near future. After finishing the promo for The State Adversary collection, I set about on further efforts and hope to have more of those posts drawing attention to archived publications as well as calls for missing material soon (I am still looking for the missing issues of Socialist Review and The State Adversary!). I also haven’t forgotten about wanting to do an updated survey of the socialist left in Aotearoa, but that project has been kicked back to next year.