Every Fire on Cosmopod

I recently visited my friends at Cosmonaut for a lively discussion of my new book Every Fire Needs a Little Bit of Help. Check out the episode here!

Every Fire on the Antifada

After two awesome NYC events for Every Fire Needs a Little Bit of Help, I stopped by the Antifada with my pals in the Lake Effect Collective to discuss the group's work and the situation in Chicago. Check it out here, Fandys!

Update 9/19: The audio from our reading at Punk Alley is now available on the Antifada Patreon page for a small subscription fee. Check it out here! 

Two Every Fire Events in NYC

Excited to be coming through NYC on Saturday 9/13 for two events about my new book Every Fire Needs a Little Bit of Help

At 1:30pm, I'll be at the Lenapehoking Anarchist Book Fair at Bluestockings (116 Suffolk Street, Manhattan) in discussion with the Lake Effect Collective. 

At 8pm, I'll be reading at an Every Fire release party organized by my old pal A.M. Gittlitz, featuring a bunch of awesome readers, at Punk Alley (867 Broadway, Brooklyn). 

Come hang out! 

In the Sunday Times

My Rikers Island research popped up in this week's London Sunday Times. Check out the story here. Cheers.

Skyscraper Jails at the American Bar Foundation

Zhana and I will be presenting on our book Skyscraper Jails at the American Bar Foundation headquarters in Chicago on Wednesday, September 10th at noon. You can attend in person or virtually. Click here for more information. 

Every Fire Needs a Little Bit of Help

My new book Every Fire Needs a Little Bit of Help: A Decade of Rebellion, Reaction, and Morbid Symptoms is out today from PM Press! Pick up a copy here, and if you're in Chicago, come hang out tonight at 7pm at Pilsen Community Books to celebrate.

From the publisher:

Every Fire Needs a Little Bit of Help collects a decade of reflections on recent US struggles—Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, and the George Floyd Rebellion—alongside accounts of the rise of Trumpism, the alt-right, an apocalyptic shift in popular culture, to paint a dense and complex portrait of a decade of protracted social crisis. Jarrod Shanahan reports from the ground. On the streets in 2014, from the depths of the Rikers Island penal complex, inside the alt-right underground and the carnival of Trump rallies, and in the line of fire in Kenosha, Wisconsin in 2020, among other scenes that Shanahan accessed not as a credentialed observer but an active participant: prisoner, infiltrator, activist. The resulting essays outline the pitfalls and opportunities facing those seeking to reverse the suicidal course of capitalist society and build a liberated world.

Advance praise:

“Alternately funny and furious, this collection is a radical guide to the history of the present—something we all need.”
—Malcolm Harris, author of What’s Left: Three Paths Through the Planetary Crisis 

 “These essays are political theory, cultural critique, movement memoir, and ethnographic study. Together, they are a crucial analysis of the decade of tumult that brought us here. Shanahan writes with brilliance, humor, and—above all—love, love for those who dream of better horizons and take to the streets to build them. Every Fire Needs a Little Bit of Help is a chance to reflect, to dream and to plot—a true gift to the Left.”
—Eman Abdelhadi, coauthor of Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052–2072

“Rather than pondering politics from a distance, Shanahan writes from within the political moment itself. We find in these pages not simply an appraisal of America's slow decline into social anomie or even an activist account of recent political movements but instead a picture of history in all its murky motion, where the antipolice riot gives way to the Trump rally, while apocalyptic myths play out on TV. This book therefore offers both a treasure trove of careful observations tracking the trends of our chaotic moment and an example to be followed by others seeking real social change.”
—Phil A. Neel, author of Hinterland: America’s New Landscape of Class and Conflict 

“A banger! Tracing the morbid symptoms of late capitalism and collective responses from Occupy Wall Street to the rise of the far-right and everything in between, Shanahan’s activism and writing remain deeply committed to building movements that demand ‘everything for everyone.’ Coming at a time of great despair and disillusionment with liberal politics, this collection offers today’s revolutionaries a sober analysis of past and present political experimentations, all the while remaining hopeful and engaged with our fiery future.”
—Zhandarka Kurti, coauthor, States of Incarceration: Rebellion, Reform, and America’s Punishment System

 “Every Fire Needs a Little Bit of Help, and so do we. Jarrod Shanahan delivers on the promise. He is a fine writer, perhaps the best of his generation among far-left activists—a participant-journalist and a revolutionary who thinks while he acts. These essays are grounded in his experiences in mass mobilizations against police terror, some days and nights in jail, watching some good and not so good movies, and personal underground investigations into the alt-right. Because of his writing, we go where he goes. And we're all better prepared for what comes next.”
—John Garvey, editor of Race Traitor, Insurgent Notes, and Hard Crackers

 “Searching, and hilarious—Shanahan writes from, about, and for the people. These essays document more than a decade of struggle and reflection from an expansive thinker and committed writer; Shanahan is a relentless and astute interpreter of the present American landscape.”
—Jack Norton, coeditor, The Jail is Everywhere: Fighting the New Geography of Mass Incarceration

 “Protests against police and the carceral logic of racial apartheid in the United States have swept the nation, from organized militant movements such as Stop Cop City in Atlanta, to protracted street battles in Ferguson, to widespread popular resistance during the George Floyd Rebellion. Every Fire Needs a Little Help offers an urgently needed collection of essays written from the heart of this conjuncture, with crucial insights that will be necessary for navigating out of the liberal cooptation of struggle.”
—Danielle Carr, author of The Brains of the Living: the Rise, Fall, and Second Coming of Neural Engineering

Every Fire on Pod Damn America

I visited my pals at Pod Damn America to discuss my new book Every Fire Needs a Little Bit of Help, which comes out tomorrow! Check out the episode here.  

Every Fire at Pilsen Community Books

My new book Every Fire Needs a Little Bit of Help: A Decade of Rebellion, Reaction, and Morbid Symptoms (PM Press, 2025) is almost here! To celebrate its release, I will appear in discussion with the Lake Effect Collective at Pilsen Community Books at 7pm on September 3rd. Hope to see you there!

The Dystopia of the World's Tallest Jails

There is a new excerpt from Skyscraper Jails available in the publication Inquest, entitled "The Dystopia of the World's Tallest Jails." Check it out here!

Skyscraper Jails in Journal of Urban Affairs

The scholar Enrique Alan Olivares-Pelayo has written a review of Skyscraper Jails for the Journal of Urban Affairs. Hop the paywall here.

Replace the State at Pilsen Community Books

On Tuesday, August 5th at 7pm I will appear at Pilsen Community Books for a discussion with author Sasha Davis about his new book Replace the State: How to Change the World When Elections and Protests Fail (University of Minnesota Press, 2025). Come check it out!

City Time in DDT21

Gilles Dauvé has published an excellent review of City Time for the French publication DDT21, concluding: "Un livre dont on espère vivement la traduction." We agree! Check it out here.

Socialism 2025

Zhana and I are delighted to be presenting on Skyscraper Jails at Socialism 2025 in Chicago. Our panel is on Saturday, July 5, at 3pm. We will be joined by our pal Jack Norton. Click here for more info. 

Nothing Can Truly Prepare You

There's a lengthy excerpt of City Time, entitled "Nothing Can Truly Prepare You for Your First Time Behind Bars," up now on Truthout. Check it out here.

Stop Cop City and the Insurrectionary Horizon

There's a new excerpt from Skyscraper Jails up on Ill Will called "Stop Cop City and the Insurrectionary Horizon." Check it out here.

Captives in Labor

The scholar Dallas Augustine has penned a lovely review of Captives for the journal Labor: Studies in Working-Class History. Check it out here or hop the paywall here. Thanks to the author.

City Time in Public Seminar

The writer Carina Filemyr has penned an excellent review of City Time for the publication Public Seminar. Check it out here. Thanks to the author.

UChicago Popular University For Gaza

I'm honored to be speaking at the UChicago Popular University for Gaza on Wednesday, April 30th at 4pm. The topic is "Insurrection, Abolition, and the Non-Profit Industrial Complex." Come find us on the quad!

City Time on the Cosmonaut Podcast

David and I sat down with our friends at the Cosmonaut podcast to discuss City Time. Check out the episode here!

More Skyscraper Jails Events

Zhana and I have two upcoming university appearances to discuss our collaborative work, including Skyscraper Jails. One is online and open to the public.

April 16th

Governors State University 

with Jack Norton and Abby Cunniff 

part of the Research Days conference

1 University Parkway, University Park IL 

2:30pm

 

April 24

SUNY Binghamton Department of Sociology

online and open to the public 

register here 

1:30pm

 

Hope to see you there!

City Time on Factually!

David and I appeared on the show Factually! with Adam Conover to discuss City Time. Check it out here.

Treason to Whiteness at Marx & Philosophy Society

The scholar Viswesh Rammohan has penned a nice review of Treason to Whiteness, the Noel Ignative collection Zhana, Geert and I edited, for the publication Marx & Philosophy Review of Books. Check it out here. Thanks to the author!

Skyscraper Jails on Party Girls

Zhana and I visited our friends the Party Girls to discuss Skyscraper Jails and lots of other stuff. Check it out here!

Skyscraper Jails on the Antifada

Zhana and I paid a visit to our old friends at the Antifada to discuss Skyscraper Jails, the NYS prison guards' strike, and more. Check out the episode here.

City Time with Richard Hunsinger

David Campbell and I sat down with former political prisoner Richard Hunsinger for a wide-ranging interview about City Time, Rikers, and Hunsinger's own experiences in the feds. Read it at Hard Crackers, here!
 

Upcoming Skyscraper Jails Events

Zhana and I will be coming to your town to talk about Skyscraper Jails! Assuming, that is, you live in the following places:

March 20th

NYU Prison Education Program

with Mon Mohapatra

20 Cooper Square, 4th Floor, Manhattan

5pm 

 

March 21st

Brooklyn Jail Support

120 Schemerhorn Street, Brooklyn

9pm

March 22nd

Ask a Punk

Brooklyn

2pm

 

March 22nd

INDEX Space

roundtable with NYC abolitionist organizers

120 Walker Street, 3rd Floor, Manhattan 

6pm 

March 23rd

Making Worlds Bookstore

210 S 45th St, Philadelphia

4pm

 

March 29th

Redbud Books

408 W. Kirkwood Ave, Bloomington IN

7pm

 

Hope to see you there!

Skyscraper Jails

Zhana Kurti's and my new book Skyscraper Jails: The Abolitionist Fight Against Jail Expansion In New York City is out today from Haymarket! Buy it here. 

From the publisher:

A damning account of the latest transformation in mass incarceration, revealing how powerful nonprofits and so-called progressives used the language of social movements to build new jails.

In Skyscraper Jails, scholars and organizers Jarrod Shanahan and Zhandarka Kurti detail how progressive forces in New York City appropriated the rhetoric of social movements and social justice to promise “downsized” and “humane" jails. The principal advocates of these new jails were not right-wing politicians, but prominent city activists and progressive non-profit organizations.

 Advance praise includes: 

"In this view of New York City politics from the street, Jarrod Shanahani and Zhandarka Kurti cut through the double-speak of carceral humanism that elites used to turn the Campaign to Close Rikers into a plan to build new skyscraper jails. Real estate developers and politicians make New York City hospitable to more jails, but so do the philanthropists, nonprofit service providers, professors, and the architects who celebrate modern and even 'green' jail design. But Rikers is not just a toxic complex of buildings. Rikers is built on the toxic social relations of capitalism. This, as Shanahan and Kurti tell us, is what we must confront."   

—Naomi Murakawa, author, The First Civil Right: How Liberals Built Prison America

 

“Skyscraper Jails is an invaluable resource for anyone looking to fight carceral state expansion from a deeply rigorous, anti-capitalist, and revolutionary standpoint. Kurti and Shanahan show how our struggles can be documented, studied, and written about in ways that offer tangible lessons for the future. And for abolitionists committed to bringing about the closure of Rikers and reclaiming the city, Skyscraper Jails is necessary reading on the specific liberal contexts and organizations from which the borough based jails plan emerged and which continue to have profound impacts on policing, incarceration, and social control in New York City.”   

—Mon Mohapatra, organizer with Community Justice Exchange and No New Jails NYC

 

“I have fought against jails in my community for years and I have lived this history. Skyscraper Jails has the audacity to expose the truth about nonprofits and how they have sabotaged our work as revolutionary abolitionist organizers. This book is a must read for anyone who wants to be involved in the hard work of breaking down prison walls and fighting to build another world.”  

—Lisa Ortega, organizer with Community in Unity and Take Back the Bronx

 

"I urge you to embrace the insurrectionist anti-liberalism so generously unfurled in Skyscraper Jails. Blending grounded analysis, critical storytelling, and historical study, Shanahan and Kurti identify the emergence of a ‘progressive’ 21st century counterinsurgency regime in New York City and beyond. These pages demystify the coalescence of philanthropic, nonprofit, academic, and Democratic Party actors and social media influencers who have weaponized the terms of ‘social justice’ and ‘abolition’ to advance reformist expansions of carceral warfare. Skyscraper Jails is an indispensable tool for identifying new-and-old enemies of serious liberationist praxis—a painful though necessary task in this moment of proliferating cooptation, opportunism, and confusion." 

—Dylan Rodríguez, Critical Resistance founding collective and Distinguished Professor, University of California    

 

"Jails are instruments of crisis management, class containment, and counterinsurgency. In their examination of New York City as a laboratory for neoliberal governance and innovations of carceral violence, Jarrod Shanahan and Zhandarka Kurti interrogate the alliance of philanthropic, non-profit, and governmental forces attempting to rescue the legitimacy of incarceration through deploying the vernacular of social justice. At once a sober assessment of the terrain of struggle and a searing argument that, whether decrepit island or gleaming tower, jails are central sites of racialized class war, Skyscraper Jails lays out the urgent stakes of this central battle for an abolitionist future." 

 ―Judah Schept, author of Coal, Cages, Crisis and Progressive Punishment

Skyscraper Jails Release Events

Zhana Kurti's and my new book Skyscraper Jails: The Abolitionist Fight Against Jail Expansion In New York City (Haymarket, 2025) is almost here. Celebrate its release with us March 11th at 7pm at Pilsen Community Books in Chicago! More information is available here. You can also tune in to Haymarket's Youtube channel on March 13th, at 5pm ET for the online release, featuring our friend Dylan Rodríguez! Click here to register.

 

Update 3/17:  The video of our event with Dylan Rodríguez is now available to watch here! Thanks to Haymarket and to Dylan for a great time.

City Time in Inquest

The activist-scholar Josh Davidson has written an excellent review of City Time for the publication Inquest. Read it here. Thanks to the author for his time and generosity.

New York State Prison Guard Strike

To make sense of the New York State prison guard strike, I sat down with Andrea Morrell, a scholar of the upstate system, for a discussion now available on Truthout. Check it out here.

City Time Back in Urban Matters

Another excerpt from City Time has appeared in Urban Matters. Check it out here!

City Time on Pod Damn America

David and I had a great time on Pod Damn America discussing City Time. Check out the episode here!
 

The Old Mole

The Lake Effect Collective has made a cool zine out of a piece of writing I first circulated in late 2014 on the Ferguson rebellion and emergent Black Lives Matter movement, called "The Old Mole Breaks Concrete." Check it out here!

City Time on the Antifada

David Campbell and I appeared on the Antifada podcast to discuss our book City Time. The episode is here. Subscribe to their Patreon for bonus content, including an additional episode of material from our interview. 

City Time in the New York Post

City Time received a two-page spread in today's New York Post. It can be read online here, and like everything in that newspaper, ought to be taken with a grain of salt.

City Time in Urban Matters

A new excerpt of City Time is available now at the Center for New York City Affairs' publication Urban Matters. Check it out here!

City Time Release and Tour

City Time is out today on NYU Press. You can buy a copy here.

Here is some advance praise for the book:

"A riveting portrayal of everyday life at the jail. The authors’ unhurried cataloging of seemingly endless quotidian deprivations fascinates. Readers will be rapt."  

-Publishers Weekly, STARRED

 

"Engrossing, intimate... [Campbell and Shanahan] are deft and balanced collaborators, writing with academic rigor, as well as humor and compassion." 

-Kirkus Reviews

 

"David Campbell and Jarrod Shanahan offer an up-close study of the banality and brutality of short-term incarceration at Rikers Island. Their methodical analysis of the relationships, routines, economies, and architectures of the infamous jail is punctuated by vibrant and evocative insights into the sensory experience of incarceration – the smells, sights, sounds and tastes of the quotidian depravities, degradations, frictions, and resistances that marked their 'city time.'"

-Judah Schept, co-editor of The Jail is Everywhere: Fighting the New Geography of Mass Incarceration

 

"As the notorious Rikers Island is on the verge of closing, City Time provides a timely and invaluable archive written by two men who have experienced its everyday life from inside. This exceptional document, which unveils the meaninglessness of short-stay imprisonment, is a must-read for anyone who wants to reflect on carceral punishment." 

-Didier Fassin, author of Prison Worlds. An Ethnography of the Carceral Condition

To celebrate, co-author David Campbell and I will be appearing at the following book events later this month. Hope to see you there!

January 14

Center For Brooklyn History 

128 Pierrepont Street, Brooklyn

6:30pm

January 15

The Wooden Shoe

704 South St, Philadelphia

7pm

January 16

Red Emma's

3128 Greenmount Ave, Baltimore

7pm

January 17

Small Friend Records & Books

1 N. Lombardy St., Richmond

7pm

January 19

Woodbine

585 Woodward Ave, Ridgewood

4pm (note the early time)

January 20

Tiny Raccoon Books

277 Railroad Ave, Sayville, NY

7pm

January 21

Loyola University (Lakeshore)

6430 N. Kenmore Ave, Chicago
Cuneo Hall, Room 109

6pm

January 22

Governors State University

1 University Parkway, University Park, IL

Social Justice Building

4pm

City Time in Hellgate and Gothamist

Today City Time was featured in Hellgate, in an excerpt available here (hop the paywall here), and Gothamist, where our upcoming event at the Center for Brooklyn History was listed as one of the "11 Totally Free Things to Do in NYC This January." Thanks!
 

Locked Together

The first published excerpt from City Time is now available at Ill Will. Check it out here!

City Time in Kirkus Reviews

My and David Campbell's forthcoming book City Time has received a thoughtful review in Kirkus Reviews. Check it out here, and look out for the book in January! We will be announcing a mid-January book tour shortly.

Triumph of the Swill

On Friday I watched Donald Trump simulate the act of fellatio in a packed basketball stadium in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and wrote an essay for Hard Crackers reflecting on the enduring strangeness of MAGA and what it can teach us about American society. Read it here.

City Time in Publisher's Weekly

Very excited that my and David Campbell's forthcoming book City Time (NYU Press, 2025) has received a starred review in Publisher's Weekly. Check it out here, and look out for the book in January!

NYC Event 9/20: Opposing Carceral Design

I am honored to have been invited to participate in the Borough Based Liberation project, a month of programming against the skyscraper jails in NYC. 

On Friday, September 20, I will appear on the panel "Opposing Carceral Design," alongside Tomie Arai (Chinatown Art Brigade), Mei Lum (W.O.W. Project), and the indefatigable abolitionist researcher Mon Mohapatra. 

The event is at 6pm, at 127 Walker Street in Chinatown. Tickets are free and can be found here. 

Hope to see you there!

Three Way Fight Reviewed in Fightback

The Australian publication Fightback has published a highly engaging review of Three Way Fight (Kersplebedeb and PM Press, 2024), the recent edited anthology in which Zhana and I appear. Part one can be read here, part two here.

Three Way Fight at Pilsen Community Books

I'm excited to be celebrating the release of Three Way Fight: Revolutionary Politics and Antifascism at Pilsen Community Books, at 6pm on August 10th. 

Zhana and I will appear alongside editor Xtn Alexander, fellow contributor Michael Staudenmaier, and local eccentric Liz Simmons. More info can be found here. 

Always support PCB, and see you there!

The Future Belongs to the Mad

To mark the release of George Miller's Furiosa, I have an essay on the history and enduring cultural significance of the Mad Max franchise. Read it now at Hard Crackers.

Three Way Fight Book Out Now

I am honored that a dialogue Zhana and I held with critic Tobi Haslett has appeared, alongside dozens of indispensable entries, in the anthology Three Way Fight: Revolutionary Politics and Anti-Fascism (Kersplebedeb and PM Press, 2024). Pick up a copy here, and support Three Way Fight!

The Horror of Police at Red May

Red May is here again! On Friday, May 24th, Zhana and I will be in dialogue with police scholar Travis Linnemann, discussing his books Meth Wars and The Horror of Police, at 4pm PDT.

You can watch our discussion, live or later, at this link.

Viva Red May!

The Jail is Everywhere

I have a review of the new essay collection The Jail is Everywhere (Verso, 2024) in the Nation. Check it out here!
 

Loren Goldner Presente!

To mark the recent passing of the great theoretician and political mentor Loren Goldner, I appeared on the Antifada podcast along with some of Loren's longtime comrades and friends to reflect on his life and legacy. Click here to listen.