Rebellious Mourning: The Collective Work of Grief [Paperback]

This intimate, moving, and timely collection of essays points the way to a world in which the burden of grief is shared, and pain is reconfigured into a powerful force for social change and collective healing. —Astra Taylor, authorThe People's Platform

A primary message here is that from tears comes the resolve for the struggle ahead. —Ron Jacobs, author ofDaydream Sunset

Rebellious Mourninguncovers the destruction of life that capitalist development leaves in its trail. But it is also witness to the power of grief as a catalyst to collective resistance. —Silvia Federici, author ofCaliban and the Witch

We can bear almost anything when it is worked through collectively. Grief is generally thought of as something personal and insular, but when we publicly share loss and pain, we lessen the power of the forces that debilitate us, while at the same time building the humane social practices that alleviate suffering and improve quality of life for everyone. Addressing tragedies from Fukushima to Palestine, incarceration to eviction, AIDS crises to border crossings, and racism to rape, the intimate yet tenacious writing in this volume shows that mourning can pry open spaces of contestation and reconstruction, empathy and solidarity. With contributions from Claudia Rankine, Sarah Schulman, David Wojnarowicz, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, David Gilbert, and nineteen others.

Cindy Milsteinis the author ofAnarchism and Its Aspirations, co-author ofPaths toward Utopia: Graphic Explorations of Everyday Anarchism, and editor of the anthologyTaking Sides: Revolutionary Solidarity and the Poverty of Liberalism.