Founded in 2017, the Social Justice Syllabus Book Club invites community members to read together on themes related to equality and justice. During our first series, Kaepernick’s Reading List, we read and discussed books the New York Times described as being inspirational to quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s activism. Our second syllabus, called Borders, focused on fiction, nonfiction, and poetry about immigration, asylum, and borders. Our third series, Pages Against the Patriarchy, explored what patriarchy is, how it affects us, and looked at other ways of living. Series four, Policing & Protest, explored the role of policing in the Unitied States and looked at how protest movements can be used to build a more just future for all. During our fifth series, Native Lands, Native Lives, we spent the year reading histories, novels, and poetry by and about Native Americans, with a particular focus on some of the Native stories from the Seattle region.
Series 6 is called Say Gay. After kicking off with a radical fairytale/treatise that may provide a touchstone, we will spend the year exploring, in chronological order by date-published, the writings of LGBTQ+ people and communities.
Writer and pro bono immigration attorney C. Hudak is the founder of the Social Justice Syllabus Book Club. She collaborates with Third Place Books to develop the SJS reading lists and hosts the monthly discussions.
The Social Justice Syllabus Book Club meets on the last Thursday of every month. All are welcome and no purchase is required.
for this virtual event
Past reads include:
An incisive case for trans justice from a powerful new voice
In this brilliant introduction to trans politics, journalist Shon Faye gives an incisive overview of systemic transphobia and argues that the struggle for trans rights is necessary to any struggle for social justice.
Best Book of the Year
NPR • The Washington Post • Boston Globe • TIME • USA Today • Entertainment Weekly • Real Simple • Parade • Buzzfeed • Electric Literature • LitHub • BookRiot • PopSugar • Goop • Library Journal • BookBub • KCRW
It is the late twenty-first century, and Momo is the most celebrated dermal care technician in all of T City. Humanity has migrated to domes at the bottom of the sea to escape devastating climate change. The world is dominated by powerful media conglomerates and runs on exploited cyborg labor.
Art about glaciers, queer relationships, political anxiety, and the meaning of Blackness in open space--Borealis is a shapeshifting logbook of Aisha Sabatini Sloan's experiences moving through the Alaskan outdoors.
“Enchanting . . . the most surprising, confounding, and oddly insightful couple’s trip in recent literary history.” —Entertainment Weekly
Upon its first publication more than twenty years ago, And the Band Played on was quickly recognized as a masterpiece of investigative reporting.
In defiance of the brutal military government that took power in Uruguay in the 1970s, and under which homosexuality is a dangerous transgression, five women miraculously find one another—and, together, an isolated cape that they claim as their own.
Finalist, Lambda Literary Award
In the beginning, there is no he. There is no she. Two cells make up one cell. This is the mathematics behind creation. One plus one makes one. Life begets life. We are the period to a sentence, the effect to a cause, always belonging to someone. We are never our own. This is why we are so lonely.
Presenting the essential writings of black lesbian poet and feminist writer Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider celebrates an influential voice in twentieth-century literature.
“[Lorde's] works will be important to those truly interested in growing up sensitive, intelligent, and aware.”—The New York Times
From one of the most brilliant and provocative literary figures of the past century comes a groundbreaking novel set among the bohemian bars and nightclubs of 1950s Paris, about love and the fear of love—"a book that belongs in the top rank of fiction" (The Atlantic).
“Come, come! I’m sick to death of this particular self. I want another.”
As his tale begins, Orlando is a passionate sixteen-year-old nobleman whose days are spent in rowdy revelry, filled with the colorful delights of Queen Elizabeth I’s court.
The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions is a beloved queer utopian text written by Larry Mitchell with lush illustrations by Ned Asta, published by Calamus Press in 1977.
