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X-WR-CALDESC:Events for Housmans Bookshop
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DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20251106T190000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20251106T203000
DTSTAMP:20260404T160107
CREATED:20251013T200720Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251015T141522Z
UID:72034-1762455600-1762461000@housmans.com
SUMMARY:BOOK LAUNCH: Free Gifts: Capitalism and the Politics of Nature with Alyssa Battistoni (in conversation with Helen Hester)
DESCRIPTION:Housmans are very excited to welcome Dr Alyssa Battistoni to the shop to discuss her vital work of political theory\, Free Gifts: Capitalism and The Politics of Nature. Capitalism is typically treated as a force for relentless commodification. Yet it consistently fails to place value on vital aspects of the nonhuman world\, whether carbon emissions or entire ecosystems. In Free Gifts\, Alyssa Battistoni explores capitalism’s persistent failure to value nature\, arguing that the key question is not the moral issue of why some kinds of nature shouldn’t be commodified\, but the economic puzzle of why they haven’t been. To understand contemporary ecological problems from biodiversity collapse to climate change\, she contends\, we have to understand how some things come to have value under capitalism—and how others do not. To help us do so\, Battistoni recovers and reinterprets the idea of the free gift of nature used by classical economic thinkers to describe what we gratuitously obtain from the natural world\, and builds on Karl Marx’s critique of political economy to show how capitalism fundamentally treats nature as free for the taking. This novel theory of capitalism’s relationship to nature not only helps us understand contemporary ecological breakdown\, but also casts capitalism’s own core dynamics in a new light. \n\n\n\nBattistoni addresses four different instances of the free gift in political economic thought\, each in a specific domain: natural agents in industry\, pollution in the environment\, reproductive labor in the household\, and natural capital in the biosphere. In so doing\, she offers new readings of major twentieth-century thinkers\, including Friedrich Hayek\, Simone de Beauvoir\, Garrett Hardin\, Silvia Federici\, and Ronald Coase. Ultimately\, she offers a novel account of freedom for our ecologically troubled present\, developing a materialist existentialism to argue that capitalism limits our ability to be responsible for our relationships to the natural world\, and imagining how we might live freely while valuing nature’s gifts. \n\n\n\nWe are delighted to also welcome to Housmans Professor Helen Hester\, author of\, among other brilliant titles\, shop favourite\, Xenofeminism\, to interview Alyssa.  \n\n\n\nOUR SPEAKERS \n\n\n\nAlyssa Battistoni is assistant professor of political science at Barnard College. She is the coauthor of A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal. Her writing has appeared in The Nation\, The Guardian\, Boston Review\, n+1\, Dissent\, The New Statesman\, Jacobin\, and New Left Review. \n\n\n\nHelen Hester is Professor of Gender\, Technology and Cultural Politics at the University of West London. Her research interests include technofeminism\, social reproduction\, and theories of work\, and she’s a member of the international working group Laboria Cuboniks. Her books include Beyond Explicit: Pornography and the Displacement of Sex (SUNY Press\, 2014)\, Xenofeminism (Polity\, 2018)\, and Post-Work (Bloomsbury). \n\n\n\nThe two will talk for around 45 minutes-1hr followed by an open discussion and book signing.  \n\n\n\nAs always\, tickets are priced on a sliding scale. If you are unable to pay for a ticket please choose the ‘unwaged’ option. \n\n\n\nIf you choose ‘book + entry’\, your copies of the book will be available to collect on the evening. If you would like to collect it earlier\, or arrange for delivery\, please contact us (postage is £2.95). Telephone 020 7837 4473 or email shop@housmans.com. \n\n\n\nDoors Open at 6:45pm\, Event Starts 7:00 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nShare this:\n				Share on X (Opens in new window)\n				X\n			\n				Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)\n				Facebook\n			\n				Share on Insta (Opens in new window)\n				Insta\n			Like this:Like Loading...
URL:https://housmans.com/event/book-launch-free-gifts-capitalism-and-the-politics-of-nature-with-alyssa-battistoni-in-conversation-with-helen-hester/
CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk,Discussion group,In Store,Literary Event
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/avif:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/9780691263465.avif
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20251119T190000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20251119T203000
DTSTAMP:20260404T160107
CREATED:20251023T134405Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251105T161023Z
UID:72798-1763578800-1763584200@housmans.com
SUMMARY:BOOK LAUNCH: FERAL CLASS with Marc Garrett
DESCRIPTION:Untamed\, Unheard\, Unstoppable… a moving memoir about being a working-class artist… Art on the Margins\, Life Without Permission \n\n\n\nFeral Class is Marc Garrett’s deeply personal and thought-provoking exploration of his early years\, chronicling his journey as a working-class artist navigating a world that often rejects them. Through humorous\, vivid storytelling and incisive critique\, Garrett explores how his upbringing shaped his identity\, forging a path that defied societal expectations. How can one survive\, let alone thrive\, as part of what Garrett describes as the feral class: a group of individuals who\, like him\, exist outside traditional institutions and thrive in the margins\, using resourcefulness and rebellion to carve out their own artistic spaces? \n\n\n\nWeaving together personal memories\, political reflections\, and the struggles of working-class artists\, Feral Class challenges the elitism of the art world. It celebrates the radical potential of those who refuse to conform. Garrett’s narrative is both an intimate self-portrait and a rallying cry for artists who refuse to be tamed. Passionate\, unfiltered\, and insightful\, this book is an essential read for anyone interested in the intersections of class\, creativity\, and resistance. \n\n\n\nBio: Marc Garrett’s life and work embody the intersection of art\, technology\, and social change\, shaped by his working-class upbringing and a commitment to challenging institutional hierarchies. Growing up in Southend-On-Sea\, he explored creative expression through street art\, pirate radio\, and early online activism before co-founding Furtherfield in 1996 with Ruth Catlow\, an artist-led community resisting the commercialisation of the art world. Despite personal challenges\, including a cancer diagnosis in 2022\, Garrett continues to focus on ideas and questions that acknowledge and engage working-class and feral-class contexts as a springboard for more extensive dialogues on creating conditions for social change across art\, technology\, and ecology. \n\n\n\nMarc will be joined in conversation with the imitable Cassie Thornton. Cassie is an artist and activist who makes a “safe space” for the unknown\, for disobedience\, and for unanticipated collectivity. She uses social practices including institutional critique\, insurgent architecture\, and “healing modalities” like hypnosis and yoga to find soft spots in the hard surfaces of capitalist life. Cassie has invented a grassroots alternative credit reporting service for the survivors of gentrification\, has hypnotized hedge fund managers\, has finger-painted with the grime found inside banks\, has donated cursed paintings to profiteering bankers\, and has taught feminist economics to yogis (and vice versa). Her 2020 book\, The Hologram: Feminist\, Peer-to-Peer Health for a Post-Pandemic Future\, is available from Pluto Press. \n\n\n\nAs always\, tickets are priced on a sliding scale. If you are unable to pay for a ticket please choose the ‘unwaged’ option. \n\n\n\nIf you choose ‘book + entry’\, your copies of the book will be available to collect on the evening. If you would like to collect it earlier\, or arrange for delivery\, please contact us (postage is £2.95). Telephone 020 7837 4473 or email shop@housmans.com. \n\n\n\nDoors Open at 6:45pm\, Event Starts 7:00 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nShare this:\n				Share on X (Opens in new window)\n				X\n			\n				Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)\n				Facebook\n			\n				Share on Insta (Opens in new window)\n				Insta\n			Like this:Like Loading...
URL:https://housmans.com/event/book-launch-feral-class-with-mark-garrett/
CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk,Discussion group,In Store,Literary Event
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