SA Smythe

Social media screenshot: Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand In a normal world, this should be an immense scandal in Europe. Le Monde has a long article describing the hellish life of Nicolas Guillou, a French judge at the ICC in The Hague, due to U.S. sanctions punishing him for authorizing arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant for war crimes in Gaza. Guillou's daily existence has been transformed into a Kafkaesque nightmare. He cannot: open or maintain accounts with Google, Amazon, Apple, or any US company; make hotel reservations (Expedia canceled his booking in France hours after he made it); conduct online commerce, since he can't know if the packaging is American; use any major credit card (Visa, Mastercard, Amex are all American); access normal banking services, even with non-American banks, as banks worldwide close sanctioned accounts; conduct virtually any financial transaction. He describes it as being "economically banned across most of the planet," including in his own country, France, and where he works, the Netherlands. That's the real shocking aspect of this: the Americans are: - punishing a European citizen - for doing his job in Europe - applying laws Europe officially supports - at an institution based in Europe - that Europe helped create and fund and Europe is not only doing essentially nothing to protect him, they're actively enforcing America's sanctions against their own citizen - European banks closing his accounts, European companies refusing him service, European institutions standing by while Washington destroys a European judge's life on European soil. Again, in a normal world, European leaders and citizens should be absolutely outraged about this. But we've so normalized the hollowing out of European sovereignty that the sight of a European citizen being economically executed on European soil for upholding European law is treated, at best, as an unfortunate technical complication in transatlantic [further text missing]

Again with alt text:

Glad it resonated with you.

Previous Alchemy Lectures are no longer online, and this one will only be up another week, but I highly recommend checking out all three books from this wonderful lecture series (in US, from Duke Press).

And we can expect a book of this year's lectures in 2026. 🫶🏾📚

political poster by me, "Obsolete" (2020) featuring a quote from Mariame Kaba - We are not abandoning our communities to violence; we don't want to just close police departments. We want to make them obsolete." - @prisonculture. The photo is of the corner of Puritan Ave & Strathmoor, the first place I was ever harassed by cops in Detroit as a kid.

Happy birthday to our beloved @prisonculture.bsky.social, whose imaginings, intentions and invitations have accompanied countless of us on our journeys towards abolition.

She's fundraising for EVlovesNYC to help feed neighbors; pitch in along with me!

evloves.networkforgood.com/projects/224...

a woman in an orange shirt is sitting at a table with a glass of water and a watch . ALT: a woman in an orange shirt is sitting at a table with a glass of water and a watch .

It’s a gift not a chore💜 Plus I feel like you posted some stats (on the fka bird app?) about folks getting the newsletter email but not opening them and my virgo sensibilities were activated 😤😂

a little girl in a red shirt is running through a doorway and says i 'm coming i 'm coming ALT: a little girl in a red shirt is running through a doorway and says i 'm coming i 'm coming

Not proud to say I’m still on #29 😭 but congrats and I’m coming up from the rear to catch the good word!

The cover page of vol 2 of Sankofa Currents, Fall 2025 - the special "year-in-review" journal issue for the Collaboratory for Black Poiesis. The cover background appears like light brown construction paper, with more orange, beige, and deep blue construction paper with torn edges layered above it and glitter adorning the centre of the cover where a purple moon-shaped image rests. The upper right corner depicts a vintage stencil drawing of planetary constellations and related geometric patterns. The central text reads: The Collaboratory for Black Poiesis in white capital letters with the white CBP logo. Underneath a cursive marigold text reading Sankofa Currents (the name of the lab's journal). The footer text reads: We Make - We Study - We Remember - We Write - We Live - We Be in all caps.

Part one of the table of contents for the CBP's Journal: Land Acknowledgment, Living Commitments, Tiding's (Director's Letter), Who We Are, What We're Reading, A Likkle Sankofa Archive--Echoes of Care Collective; Past Fellows & Awardees; Shared Horizons; and Calling the Conjurers

Part two of the table of contents for the CBP's Journal: (Re)Groundings: Fall Open House, Collab Proposals, Continuing Initiatives, Writing in Common, New & Upcoming Programmes, Fall Calendar, Events of Interest, Reflections & Connections, Gratitude & Project Credits

So so proud to share the latest pub from the Collaboratory for Black Poiēsis: Sankofa Currents, vol. 2 - "Ngũgĩ’s Gourd." The issue reviews our recent collabs and future. Thrilled for what our team & community continue to build. Please read & share: bit.ly/CBPJournalF25 #BlackStudy #BlackPoiesis

Prisons, Prose & Protest - #31 Rants, Musings and More

I forgot to share my October newsletter here. prisonculture.substack.com/p/prisons-pr...

Ya rab keep the people safe

The cover page of vol 2 of Sankofa Currents, Fall 2025 - the special "year-in-review" journal issue for the Collaboratory for Black Poiesis. The cover background appears like light brown construction paper, with more orange, beige, and deep blue construction paper with torn edges layered above it and glitter adorning the centre of the cover where a purple moon-shaped image rests. The upper right corner depicts a vintage stencil drawing of planetary constellations and related geometric patterns. The central text reads: The Collaboratory for Black Poiesis in white capital letters with the white CBP logo. Underneath a cursive marigold text reading Sankofa Currents (the name of the lab's journal). The footer text reads: We Make - We Study - We Remember - We Write - We Live - We Be in all caps.

Part one of the table of contents for the CBP's Journal: Land Acknowledgment, Living Commitments, Tiding's (Director's Letter), Who We Are, What We're Reading, A Likkle Sankofa Archive--Echoes of Care Collective; Past Fellows & Awardees; Shared Horizons; and Calling the Conjurers

Part two of the table of contents for the CBP's Journal: (Re)Groundings: Fall Open House, Collab Proposals, Continuing Initiatives, Writing in Common, New & Upcoming Programmes, Fall Calendar, Events of Interest, Reflections & Connections, Gratitude & Project Credits

So so proud to share the latest pub from the Collaboratory for Black Poiēsis: Sankofa Currents, vol. 2 - "Ngũgĩ’s Gourd." The issue reviews our recent collabs and future. Thrilled for what our team & community continue to build. Please read & share: bit.ly/CBPJournalF25 #BlackStudy #BlackPoiesis

I do, I really do

The multicoloured poster for The Collaboratory for Black Poiēsis: Invitation to Collaborate: Invitation for collaborators: let’s get to work! Bring us your ideas, workshops, visions to collab, co-sponsor, join, and/or spread the word! Text reads (in CBP yellow): Our multidisciplinary hub for black study and black aesthetic practice welcomes proposals for programs, gatherings, or projects by and for Afro-diasporic, Black Indigenous, African researchers, students, communities, independent culture workers and all our relations. We welcome proposals for a wide range of events, including but not limited to: Workshops • Critical Literacy Trainings • Teach-Ins • Roundtables, Lectures, Readings • Performances + Exhibitions • Study Sessions • Mutual Aid Initiatives Questions? Contact us: blackpoiesis@utoronto.ca Your Subject Line: Collab - Proposal

The multicoloured poster for The Collaboratory for Black Poiēsis: magnitude + bond: a slow, multimedia reading group. This Fall with Toni Morrison’s Source of Self-Regard (Oct 2025 to Jan 2026) & @Cyrée Jarelle Johnson’s Watchnight (Oct 2025 to Jan 2026) and Winter/Spring 2026 Moten and Harney's The Undercommons (Feb to May 2026) an on-site reading & discussion group dedicated to black cultural production. featuring community-led 'maker-thinker' sessions each semester 3rd Wednesdays; 2-3:30PM (co-reading), 4-5PM (discussion)

The multicoloured poster for Writing in Common: a thesis writing group hosted by The Collaboratory for Black Poiēsis: Looking for an antidote to writing in isolation and the extractive pace of academic life? A group convened by and for PhD students and postdocs across UofT and the GTA, (with consideration for Master's students in the final year of intensive thesis-writing). FRIDAYS, 1-4PM ET IN-PERSON: 10 OCT; 31 Oct; 21 Nov; 12 Dec VIRTUAL: 17 Oct; 14 Nov; 19 Dec with COVID-Conscious-only & BIPOC-only sessions available during UofT's Reading Week in Fall & Winter. check linktree for details. Description: Research Fellows in The Collaboratory for Black Poiesis are convening a space for writing in common-towards shared goals and towards work that matters to and for community. Here, we nurture sustainable writing practices for your research or creative projects, beyond the pressures of productivity, evaluation, or fixed deliverables. Together, we'll build a steady rhythm of writing grounded in Black study, freedom dreaming, and mutual care. Each session offers opening grounding practices, quiet writing time in an ambient environment, light snacks, and mindful reflection to close. We'll meet regularly in the Collaboratory space or on Zoom all year round. Come write with us Send your expression of interest to the link in our link.tree/blackpoiesis; with priority admission by September 26th and confirmations by October 1st for Fall 2025.

The brown, taupe, aubergine-coloured posted of the general weekly schedule for The Collaboratory for Black Poiēsis, which shows it is closed for external public to make room for seminars, CBP workshops, retreats, and BIPOC-only gatherings on Tuesdays and Sundays with other programming updated on Instagram.com/blackpoiesis and the linker.ee/blackpoiesis pages.

✨The Collaboratory for Black Poiēsis is "sharpening our oyster knives," preparing our imaginations and relations, with new + ongoing programs in Black study & collective practice during the 2025–26 year. Details: linktr.ee/blackpoiesis & IG (@blackpoiesis).+ Come thru, reach out, stay tuned ✨

You don’t have to be serious all the time but you should understand serious things are happening everyday as a result of words.

The multicoloured poster for The Collaboratory for Black Poiēsis: Invitation to Collaborate: Invitation for collaborators: let’s get to work! Bring us your ideas, workshops, visions to collab, co-sponsor, join, and/or spread the word! Text reads (in CBP yellow): Our multidisciplinary hub for black study and black aesthetic practice welcomes proposals for programs, gatherings, or projects by and for Afro-diasporic, Black Indigenous, African researchers, students, communities, independent culture workers and all our relations. We welcome proposals for a wide range of events, including but not limited to: Workshops • Critical Literacy Trainings • Teach-Ins • Roundtables, Lectures, Readings • Performances + Exhibitions • Study Sessions • Mutual Aid Initiatives Questions? Contact us: blackpoiesis@utoronto.ca Your Subject Line: Collab - Proposal

The multicoloured poster for The Collaboratory for Black Poiēsis: magnitude + bond: a slow, multimedia reading group. This Fall with Toni Morrison’s Source of Self-Regard (Oct 2025 to Jan 2026) & @Cyrée Jarelle Johnson’s Watchnight (Oct 2025 to Jan 2026) and Winter/Spring 2026 Moten and Harney's The Undercommons (Feb to May 2026) an on-site reading & discussion group dedicated to black cultural production. featuring community-led 'maker-thinker' sessions each semester 3rd Wednesdays; 2-3:30PM (co-reading), 4-5PM (discussion)

The multicoloured poster for Writing in Common: a thesis writing group hosted by The Collaboratory for Black Poiēsis: Looking for an antidote to writing in isolation and the extractive pace of academic life? A group convened by and for PhD students and postdocs across UofT and the GTA, (with consideration for Master's students in the final year of intensive thesis-writing). FRIDAYS, 1-4PM ET IN-PERSON: 10 OCT; 31 Oct; 21 Nov; 12 Dec VIRTUAL: 17 Oct; 14 Nov; 19 Dec with COVID-Conscious-only & BIPOC-only sessions available during UofT's Reading Week in Fall & Winter. check linktree for details. Description: Research Fellows in The Collaboratory for Black Poiesis are convening a space for writing in common-towards shared goals and towards work that matters to and for community. Here, we nurture sustainable writing practices for your research or creative projects, beyond the pressures of productivity, evaluation, or fixed deliverables. Together, we'll build a steady rhythm of writing grounded in Black study, freedom dreaming, and mutual care. Each session offers opening grounding practices, quiet writing time in an ambient environment, light snacks, and mindful reflection to close. We'll meet regularly in the Collaboratory space or on Zoom all year round. Come write with us Send your expression of interest to the link in our link.tree/blackpoiesis; with priority admission by September 26th and confirmations by October 1st for Fall 2025.

The brown, taupe, aubergine-coloured posted of the general weekly schedule for The Collaboratory for Black Poiēsis, which shows it is closed for external public to make room for seminars, CBP workshops, retreats, and BIPOC-only gatherings on Tuesdays and Sundays with other programming updated on Instagram.com/blackpoiesis and the linker.ee/blackpoiesis pages.

✨The Collaboratory for Black Poiēsis is "sharpening our oyster knives," preparing our imaginations and relations, with new + ongoing programs in Black study & collective practice during the 2025–26 year. Details: linktr.ee/blackpoiesis & IG (@blackpoiesis).+ Come thru, reach out, stay tuned ✨

a repost from YK Hong (@ykreborn on Instagram). Dark red and black background post that reads in white letters: war.gov This is now the official government site and name for what was known as the Department of Defence. The United States is a war corporation. Always. The United States manufactures wars to justify its militarism, to run its capitalist colonialism, upon which its entire foundation of oppression is based. If it was not crystal clear to you before now, the United States Empire cannot continue to exist if we want to be free. Ending Empire is the only way to liberation.

Make the Quiet Part Loud Again 2025

Beyond Sanctuary: The Humanism of a World in Motion | Challenge Inequality Book via Duke University Press co-edited by Ananya Roy and Veronika Zablotsky

📖Just out from @dukepress.bsky.social>> Thinking across the U.S. and Europe BEYOND SANCTUARY critically examines liberal democratic policies of sanctuary and asylum and foregrounds migrant movements, those that demand a world beyond borders>> challengeinequality.luskin.ucla.edu/2025/08/20/b...

Book abstract on a dark blue flyer. Email blackpoiesis@utoronto.ca for more info. Text (in WHITE): What do we mean when we invoke “Black Studies” across transnational, intercultural, and transhistorical contexts? How do we honour plurality, contradictions, and insurgent possibility across this terrain of dynamic traditions—especially outside or despite dominant geographies and institutional norms? Transnational Black Studies (TBS) stages a multivalent, transdisciplinary conversation on Black cultural production, blackness in the aesthetic imagination, and African/Afro-Indigenous and diasporic political life and teachings across regions, traditions, and languages. The collection draws from the ongoing lessons of Édouard Glissant, Amina Mama, Stuart Hall, Hazel Carby, Barbara Christian, Sylvia Wynter, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Robin Kelley, and many others, mobilising a Black Studies beyond nation-state logics, linguistic silos, and area studies frameworks. Scholars, artists, literary thinkers, and community-rooted culture workers share work animated by what Katherine McKittrick considers “black livingness” and the fugitive planning that Fred Moten teaches us undergirds black study. TBS refuses tokenised inclusion as a stand-in for “decolonising” syllabi or the elective “diversity” modules of higher education and cultural institutions. It offers a non-exhaustive but expansive engagement with the intellectual and political stakes of Black thought, cultural work, and radical method. Through essays, interludes, community resources, transmedia playlists and other creative-critical forms, contributors will challenge the disciplinary boundaries of modern language studies and the epistemic racism embedded in colonial notions of “modernity.” The volume affirms Afro-diasporic, African, Indigenous, fugitive, revolutionary, and anticolonial ways of knowing-learning, making, and remembering. Organised around four sections from the TML series—“Temporality,” “Language,” “Subjectivity…

Limited call for contributions (cobalt flyer, beige letters). AUGUST 15 DEADLINE: bit.ly/TBSvolume2025. Our edited volume TRANSNATIONAL BLACK STUDIES (Liverpool University Press) is entering its next phase towards publication, but remains open to a limited number of additional full-length contributions (4-6.000 words) from early career researchers, academic-activists, artists, and community educators—especially those whose scholarship or practice engages the literary arts, culture, sociopolitics, pedagogy, or research methods in regions or sub-fields whose absence/limited engagement would be an oversight. We request submissions that are unpublished or in-progress, but we may consider previously published work that has been significantly adapted or revised for our intended audience of modern languages and cultural studies students, early career researchers, and community-engaged culture workers. Queries or submissions to: blackpoiesis@utoronto.ca with Subject Line: "New TBS Submissions." Please be mindful of global and intersectional positionalities when suggesting contributors or circulating this limited call. We are especially seeking perspectives rooted in the Caribbean, Pacific, Africa, the Levant, and/or claimed within global Indigenous communities and sovereign nations. Abstracts that are received by 15 August will receive primary consideration and direct response by 30 August–submissions close on this date. Final Drafts due by 15 November for works in English or already translated; untranslated works by October 30th. Abstracts and initial drafts may be submitted in English, Italian, Spanish, French, Russian, German, or Arabic for editor’s evaluation. Some translation support available for accepted full-length works not written in English. Correspondence from the Editorial Team and Liverpool University Press will primarily be in English.

Limited (Extended) Call for Contributions to Transnational Black Studies (Liverpool UP) by August 15th.

Please note wide-ranging areas on p.2 & share especially to non-Anglo / non-Western Black + Afro-Indigenous scholars, writers, etc. who you admire and have a lesson or a word for future scholars.

Book abstract on a dark blue flyer. Email blackpoiesis@utoronto.ca for more info. Text (in WHITE): What do we mean when we invoke “Black Studies” across transnational, intercultural, and transhistorical contexts? How do we honour plurality, contradictions, and insurgent possibility across this terrain of dynamic traditions—especially outside or despite dominant geographies and institutional norms? Transnational Black Studies (TBS) stages a multivalent, transdisciplinary conversation on Black cultural production, blackness in the aesthetic imagination, and African/Afro-Indigenous and diasporic political life and teachings across regions, traditions, and languages. The collection draws from the ongoing lessons of Édouard Glissant, Amina Mama, Stuart Hall, Hazel Carby, Barbara Christian, Sylvia Wynter, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Robin Kelley, and many others, mobilising a Black Studies beyond nation-state logics, linguistic silos, and area studies frameworks. Scholars, artists, literary thinkers, and community-rooted culture workers share work animated by what Katherine McKittrick considers “black livingness” and the fugitive planning that Fred Moten teaches us undergirds black study. TBS refuses tokenised inclusion as a stand-in for “decolonising” syllabi or the elective “diversity” modules of higher education and cultural institutions. It offers a non-exhaustive but expansive engagement with the intellectual and political stakes of Black thought, cultural work, and radical method. Through essays, interludes, community resources, transmedia playlists and other creative-critical forms, contributors will challenge the disciplinary boundaries of modern language studies and the epistemic racism embedded in colonial notions of “modernity.” The volume affirms Afro-diasporic, African, Indigenous, fugitive, revolutionary, and anticolonial ways of knowing-learning, making, and remembering. Organised around four sections from the TML series—“Temporality,” “Language,” “Subjectivity…

Limited call for contributions (cobalt flyer, beige letters). AUGUST 15 DEADLINE: bit.ly/TBSvolume2025. Our edited volume TRANSNATIONAL BLACK STUDIES (Liverpool University Press) is entering its next phase towards publication, but remains open to a limited number of additional full-length contributions (4-6.000 words) from early career researchers, academic-activists, artists, and community educators—especially those whose scholarship or practice engages the literary arts, culture, sociopolitics, pedagogy, or research methods in regions or sub-fields whose absence/limited engagement would be an oversight. We request submissions that are unpublished or in-progress, but we may consider previously published work that has been significantly adapted or revised for our intended audience of modern languages and cultural studies students, early career researchers, and community-engaged culture workers. Queries or submissions to: blackpoiesis@utoronto.ca with Subject Line: "New TBS Submissions." Please be mindful of global and intersectional positionalities when suggesting contributors or circulating this limited call. We are especially seeking perspectives rooted in the Caribbean, Pacific, Africa, the Levant, and/or claimed within global Indigenous communities and sovereign nations. Abstracts that are received by 15 August will receive primary consideration and direct response by 30 August–submissions close on this date. Final Drafts due by 15 November for works in English or already translated; untranslated works by October 30th. Abstracts and initial drafts may be submitted in English, Italian, Spanish, French, Russian, German, or Arabic for editor’s evaluation. Some translation support available for accepted full-length works not written in English. Correspondence from the Editorial Team and Liverpool University Press will primarily be in English.

Limited (Extended) Call for Contributions to Transnational Black Studies (Liverpool UP) by August 15th.

Please note wide-ranging areas on p.2 & share especially to non-Anglo / non-Western Black + Afro-Indigenous scholars, writers, etc. who you admire and have a lesson or a word for future scholars.

the Supreme Court is illegitimate. Period.

Here’s What Federal Troops Can (and Can’t) Do While Deployed in LA Pentagon rules sharply limit US Marines and National Guard activity in Los Angeles, prohibiting arrests, surveillance, and other customary police work.

I summarize here how DOD interprets the limits of federal troop authority in LA (as best as possible given the volumes on text on this topic), from restrictions on surveillance, interrogation, and other cop-like behavior, to exceptions for "extraordinary" emergencies and "private capacity" conduct.

Reminder that the current configuration known as ICE officially founded in March 2003. If it were a person, it could’ve had its first (legal) drink just last year in the US. I have shoes older than ICE. We know that soles can’t be replaced if they no longer exist—or never did 🗑️ Have a good weekend.

here are travel lengths departing from a few mediterranean ports to gaza, sailing an avg of 10 knots per hour in nautical miles (this is a moderate speed with favourable to typical wind conditions). let’s imagine an avg sailboat (or several) loaded with humanitarian aid going roughly 18.5kmh or ~11.5 statute mph) would take: marseilles 1589 nm 6 days 15hrs thessaloniki 777 nm 3 days 6hrs palermo 1127nm 4 days 17hrs rome fco 1283nm 5 days 8hrs venice 1379nm 5 days 18hrs valletta 1030nm 4 days 7hrs marsa al hariga 560nm 2 days 8hrs tunis 1247nm 5 days 5hrs istanbul 816nm 3 days 10hrs alexandria 290nm 1 day 5hrs barcelona 1674nm 6 days 23hrs

Gaza is close to hearts & actions worldwide. Solidarity @freedomflotilla.bsky.social & others from land + air show us Gaza & Palestinian lib. are physically close, too. What might the world hold in 7 days?

Freedom flotilla comrades are exceptional. They don’t need to be the exception. #EndtheSeige

Nottoway’s Cousins (2025)

Sometimes people say “this too shall pass” but they don’t specify it’ll pass like a kidney stone does.

grief venn diagram white background black text: L- grief R- the ankle you twisted when you were 13 overlap- “i think the pain is gone and then i do something weird and it strikes again”

perhaps another circle for how we simply cannot fully compute the scale of lives lost, nor the toll this inability will carry on a psychic, physiological or policy level, all areas in which the West is already bereft.

Proximity to power has academia & the 4th estate in service to authoritarian empire. They distort our relationship & access to material resources, evidence, knowledge, and replace it with violence. Shoutout to students of the world—permitted to graduate or not, for calling us into global account.

black and white image of 11 members of the MOVE family in Philadelphia 1984. All brown skinned Black people from infants to adults either dreadlocks staring intently at the camera.

May 13th 1985: Philly police bombed MOVE org + two city blocks. Tree (12) & Delisha (14) Africa’s remains still used in classes at UPenn & Princeton

Now: tanks, Cop Cities, ICE human traffic ops. Authoritarian violence starts w/ poor, Black, Indigenous, disabled folks—& expands if we refuse witness

IDing and voicing the difference btwn need, wants, expectations and “would likes” is such hard work! Glad he has you to really listen and reframe together

This reminds me of one of my nephews ❤️‍🩹 Was he eventually able to say what’s underneath it in his eyes, or did something else click for you?

(For me it’s partly the way serious [non-US] COVID lockdown came at a crucial part of his development + coincided w/ intro to manosphere-adjacent stuff…)

tearing the phrase “emoluments clause” out of my vocabulary like a spurned Oscar nominee’s acceptance speech