Disruption has been critical to the emergence of new subjects and subjectivities. Here you will find documents by subjects who rejected their given roles, descriptions, and functions in order to redefine themselves on new terms.
All
Black
Students
Colonized
Queer
Latino
Indigenous
Women
Workers
Subjects Redefined
All
Pre-Modern
1700-1830s
1840-1945
1946-1989
1990-2010
2011-Present
The Black Power Mixtape (1967-1975)
THE BLACK POWER MIXTAPE 1967-1975 mobilizes a treasure trove of 16mm material shot by Swedish journalists who came to the US drawn by stories of urban unrest and revolution. Gaining access to many of the leaders of the B…
Proclamation to the Great White Father and All His People – Alcatraz Proclamation (1969)
Between November 20, 1969 and June 11, 1971, a group of Indigenous people – led by the group Indians of All Tribes (IAT) – occupied Alcatraz Island. The last of the occupiers were removed by the United States government.…
Miss America Protest Songs
The 1968 protest against the Miss America Pageant utilized many disruption tactics, the most well-known of which was a “Freedom Trash Can” used for burning items that the protestors deemed as oppressive to women. Another…
The Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1968)
This 1968 book by Brazilian author Paulo Friere is considered one of the pillars of the critical pedagogy movement, which aimed to apply critical theory to the study of culture. The methodology in the text aims to empowe…
I Am Your Sister: Black Women Organizing Across Sexualities (1985)
In 1985, feminist, civil rights activist, and librarian Audre Lorde published “I Am Your Sister: Black Women Organizing Across Sexualities”. The essay was centered around organizing black women in the fight against patri…
FLARE UP! Niger Delta Women Take on Oil Companies – (2002)
This article, written by an American journalist under a pseudonym, details the actions taken by indigenous intertribal women of Nigeria against US oil companies ChevronTexaco and Shell. These oil companies, among others,…
Voice of the Women’s Liberation Movement (1969)
As the Women’s Liberation Movement widened its scope and began to see involvement in all corners of the country, it became increasingly more important to maintain a certain degree of connectedness between chapters, so as…
Dalit Panthers Manifesto (1973)
As the quote below indicates, the Dalit Panthers were a group shaped after some of the ideologies of the Black Panthers. Dalits are know as untouchables and they are at the very bottom of the caste system. They were resi…
The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House (1984)
In 1984, In 1985, feminist, civil rights activist, and librarian Audre Lorde published “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House”. The essay argued for the dismantling of the current system, alluding to…
Newsletter by the Free Speech Movement (November 2, 1964)
The Free Speech Movement (FSM) was a student protest which took place during the 1964–65 academic year at the University of California, Berkeley. Students protested the ban of on-campus political activities and asserte…
Hong Kong 2014 Umbrella Movement
In 2014 in Hong Kong, the Umbrella movement began after Beijing ruled against universal suffrage, prompting tens of thousands of activists to occupy main roads in the city for weeks on end. Protesters built barricades, s…
Port Huron Statement (1962)
The Port Huron Statement was published in 1962 at a United Workers Retreat in Port Huron, Michigan. It was the first time Students for a Democratic Society gathered from across the nation, and became the group’s manifest…
The Social General Strike – Stephan Naft (1905)
The social general strike will completely interrupt production in the whole country, stop communication and consumption for the ruling classes long enough to totally disorganize the capitalistic society
Young Lords Community Education
Education Lieutenant Carlos Aponte discusses the colonization of Puerto Rican education. The Young Lords refuted this erasure of history by setting up their own educational programs to aid younger generations in learning…
“A cop sleeps inside each one of us. We must kill him.” The graffiti of the French May 1968 Uprising
A collection of slogans spray-painted on the walls and halls of Paris – May 1968.
Surrounding the Spanish Parliament: Occupy Congress & The M15 Movements
In this video, Maria Carrion reports live from Madrid on the increased anger of Spaniards as they’re driven to hunger and poverty due to the bank repossessing their homes, while the tenants still have to pay the debt, wh…
Workers, Students! – Paris (May 1968)
This document, written during the events in Paris during May 1968, calls for students and workers to continue the resistance, continue the occupations, and keep their power.
Luddites Protest (1812)
During the Industrial Revolution in England, textile workers protested against the rise of machinery that took their jobs and reduced their wages. The factory heads and upper class started to push workers out and as a re…
Palestinian Children: The Generation of Liberation (1970)
“Palestinian Children: The Generation of Liberation” is a sociological study by Bassem Sirhan, published by the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) research center in 1970. The study focused on the liberation tacti…