What You Read This Year 2020

Comrade Sophia

Technoschizic Militia Goth
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So 2020 is coming to an end, what have you been reading?

This year what mainly comes to mind is a lot of the Accelerationist and Cyberfeminist works I've been reading, I've been reading more, an analysis of Capital from an Anarchist perspective but it is tbh a bit forgettable.

My List of Works That Struck a Chord With Me:
Ones+Zeros by Sadie Plant- Basically covers the history of women and technology which goes unspoken, as well as how women relate to technology. Touches on how the Capitalist structure seems to rewire humanity to be more "feminized" IE adopt characteristics that were previously the purview of femininity.

Cyborg Manifesto by Donna Haraway- Largely about rejecting carceral definitions of "human", "animal", and "machine" and the need for a new Feminism that recognizes this.

My Words to Victor Frankenstein by Susan Stryker- Really empowering, every trans person but especially trans woman needs to read this. Susan Stryker examines how trans bodies are cast as inhuman and the people who inhabit them as monstruous by the societies they live in, the need to embrace this and become the monsters society makes us. It asks us to take that anger, that rage, and instead of internalizing that hatred of ourselves and allowing it to destroy us as it does many of us, to turn it towards endeavors to undermine and destroy the societies that treat us as such. A very "Why should I apologize for being a monster? Society hasn't apologized for making me one." kinda vibe.

Black Circuit: The Code for the Numbers to Come by Amy Ireland- Basically builds off of Sadie Plant's work and explores the posthuman relationship of woman to machine some more.

Xenofeminist Manifesto by Laboria Cubonix- The takeaway line is that appeals to nature being fallacious and rejections of social structures which seem "natural", "If nature is unjust, change nature."

Gender Acceleration: A Blackpaper by Nyx Land- There are better summaries so i'll use those "Taking as her implicit starting point Vincent Garton’s formulation of unconditional acceleration as, roughly speaking, the view that technocapital processes are, and inevitably will continue, accelerating as per Deleuze and Guattari, n1x draws out the implications such acceleration has on the concept of gender. For her, technocapital will “shred” gender as increasingly inhuman forms of autoproduction develop."

The Manifesto of the Futurist Woman by Valentine de Saint Point- A kind of para-Fascist pseudo-Feminist rebuttal to the original Futurist Manifesto rejecting the misogyny in it and calling on women to become warrior mothers. It's an interesting read with a lot of interesting use of language and ideas, even if I disagree with the "war for wars sake" and traditionalist view of maternal femininity.
 

Strigix

Verified Xeno
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I've been reading a fair amount, I think.

Nothing in specific comes to mind as far as themes go; obviously I've read a lot of what you've been reading, as we're both in the same reading group lol, but there's also been works like Desert, The Murderbot Diaries, and other notable stuff.

It's also been a hell of a year, tbh, and I'm having a hard time being sure what I read further back than a couple months ago. This year began in November, right??? :v
 

Helen of Boy

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I have read almost nothing this year, it feels like, except for rereading some things like the Enchiridion which is in no way modern or broadly useful, I just find Epictetus' words about grief useful when I get overloaded with it because I'm a freak for whom "hey, it could be worse, I'm not on fire right now" genuinely finds cheerfully useful as a reminder even when I'm depressed.

I also read My Words to Victor Frankenstein, which is short but really powerful, as... I imagine is already well known. I'm still kinda collecting my thoughts about it, having just read it this past week. I might need to read it again before I'm able to articulate myself well about it, or I might not get that ability at all. I just like it, and felt a sort of dark relief when I read it, and like something loosened around my heart but left fire in its wake.

Other than that, well... I might just cheat and use some the things mentioned here to make myself a reading list to start my year off with.

It's also been a hell of a year, tbh, and I'm having a hard time being sure what I read further back than a couple months ago. This year began in November, right??? :v
How can it have started in November? It's not even April yet.
 

Strigix

Verified Xeno
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I guess there's also that one Autodidact's Guide that was floating around. Could share that as well, though it's not the subject here...
 

MagnificentLilyWitch

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I've mainly been reading (/listening via audible) to fiction books this year.

Kal Jericho: Sinner's Bounty and The Infinite and The Divine for 40k. They are both pretty forgetable pulp but had some neat worldbuilding.

I read the first two Gotrek and Felix books for the first time. They do *not* live up to the hype. The prose is fine but they have a tendency to be enroumassly sexist.

I've also read the first two Lord of the Rings novels. These *do* live up to the hype. More then a bit meandering, I couldn't read them on paper, but really good for all that.

I've also finally read the Spider-verse and Watchman trades.

Finally my fav boom of the year was probably Dreadnaught: about a closeted transgirl who gets superman style superpowers that also give her a full transition and her struggles. It was a bit too pro cop for my tastes but I've been assured that the second book is less so.
 

Solarstream

Alchemic Anarchist
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i read a handful of print books this year

notably, i finally got around to reading The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du Bois, and i'm gonna try to get my hands on a copy of Black Reconstruction

otherwise i've mostly been reading articles and theory essays online
 
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