A really compelling online offering from Kirkridge Retreat and Study Center for 2026.

Apocalyptic Reading Group

First Sundays of every month from 4-5:30pm ET/1-2:30pm PT

Apocalypse means “revelation.” Certainly we are living through apocalyptic times, but what exactly is being revealed?

If the systems of US empire are collapsing, and it seems they are, what will we build in the gaps that empire leaves behind? How will we avoid replicating harmful ways, when those are all many of us have known?

With this book discussion series, we’ll look for wisdom in books. Chosen in conversation with folks whose lives they’ve changed, these books have the power to upend our assumptions, spark our imaginations, and point us toward possible liberatory futures. 

These will not be solely intellectual conversations. We’ll weave in grounding moments, personal sharing (always optional!), and inspiration from a variety of sources to keep us encouraged.

We will meet the first Sunday of each month from 4-5:30pm ET/ 1-2:30 PT. Because these are rich, sometimes demanding books, there is no expectation that you will attend all sessions. That would be a lot of reading! We suggest you look through the list, pick the titles that are most interesting to you, mark your calendars, order the books now, and start reading! Please consider purchasing books from an independent bookstore, possibly our own online Book Nest! Every purchase made there contributes a small amount to Kirkridge.

Note: Several of these books are written by folks who will be holding retreats at Kirkridge this year. When applicable, that is mentioned at the end of the book description.

Find registration pages for each month here: https://kirkridge.org/online-programs/ 

We’ll send a zoom link out when you register for the given month.

This series is offered free of cost, and a donation ask will be part of every session. 

We can’t wait to be in conversation with you!

January: Read This When Things Fall Apart is a care package for activists and organizers building power under fascistic, demoralizing conditions. It’s an outstretched hand, offering history lessons, personal anecdotes, and practical advice about how to navigate the woes of justice work. A survival guide for the heart, this is a book for activists to keep close, and to share with co-strugglers in need.

Personal, reflective, and hopeful, Read This When Things Fall Apart harnesses the writers’ individual moments of despair into living, breathing wisdom that chips away at the supposed inevitability of fascist life. Restorative like a letter from a trusted friend and invigorating like a story from a mentor, the book is an indispensable companion for all of us navigating challenging times. Featuring letters from Mariame Kaba, Ashon Crawley, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Eman Abdelhadi, Brian Merchant, and more.

Register here: https://kirkridge.org/programs-container/1232/apocalyptic-reading-group-january/ 

Bonus January Session on Sunday, January 25: Damned Whiteness: How White Christian Allies Failed the Black Freedom Movement by David F Evans. The memory of the long civil rights movement often celebrates white Christians who drew on their religious faith to support Black demands for racial justice. However, the visions and actions of these leaders and their organizations often conflicted with those of Black leadership. While Black activists fought for a broad vision of freedom, white allies focused more narrowly on cultivating interracial friendship, marching in parallel to Black movement leaders rather than alongside them.

Damned Whiteness offers an unflinching history of white-led efforts at interracial organizing gone astray. Considering the examples of Dorothy Day, cofounder of the Catholic Worker Movement; Clarence Jordan, spiritual father of Habitat for Humanity; and Ralph Templin, a Christian missionary who studied nonviolence in Gandhi’s India, David F. Evans reveals how religious white progressives inherited strategies that remained disconnected from the ideas and actions of Black communities. These disconnects have often been cloaked as disagreements over religious doctrine and practice, but Evans reveals how they stem from refusals to acknowledge Black leaders’ philosophies and freedom dreams. Though these patterns persist, Evans offers a way out of this legacy of white allyship and into a future where freedom is possible.

Register for the online conversation here: https://kirkridge.org/programs-container/1249/apocalyptic-reading-group-bonus-session-damned-whiteness/ 

David Evans will lead a retreat at Kirkridge on the subject of the book February 27-Mar 1.

February: Practicing New Worlds: Abolition and Emergent Strategies by Andrea Ritchie takes readers on a journey of learning, unlearning, experimentation, and imagination to dream the worlds we long for into being. It explores how principles of emergence, adaptation, iteration, resilience, transformation, interdependence, decentralization and fractalization can shape organizing toward a world without the violence of surveillance, police, prisons, jails, or cages of any kind, in which we collectively have everything we need to survive and thrive.

Drawing on decades of experience as an abolitionist organizer, policy advocate, and litigator in movements for racial, gender, economic, and environmental justice and the principles articulated by adrienne maree brown in Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds, Ritchie invites us to think beyond traditional legislative and policy change to create more possibilities for survival and resistance in the midst of the ongoing catastrophes of racial capitalism–and the cataclysms to come. 

Andrea Ritchie and Nichola Torbett will lead a retreat on practices inspired by this book May 8-10 at Kirkridge. Reading the book is a prerequisite for the retreat, so this session is a great opportunity to do that!

Register for the online reading group here: https://kirkridge.org/programs-container/1234/apocalyptic-reading-group-february/ 

March: Undoing Conquest: Ancient Israel, the Bible, and the Future of Christianity by Kate Common. This book is about how ​​a new understanding of the origins of the Hebrew people can help churches recognize and take responsibility for a history of violence and conquest, make reparations, and seek reconciliation.

In the last century, archaeologists of the Highlands Settlements north of Jerusalem uncovered evidence that reshapes traditional understandings of Israelite history and the Bible. This new history remains largely untold outside of specialized archeological and biblical studies contexts. In Undoing Conquest, Kate Common recovers the material evidence that challenges the theological imagination of conquest that has permeated Christianity.

Examining how biblical conquest narratives shaped Christian ideology, Undoing Conquest offers ways to incorporate the story the Highlands Settlements reveal into the life of the church to repair the harms of settler-colonialism and genocide, creating a more just future.

Kate Common will lead a retreat at Kirkridge June 5-7.

Register for the online  reading group here: https://kirkridge.org/programs-container/1235/apocalyptic-reading-group-march/ 

April: Rebellious Mourning: The Collective Work of Grief, edited by Cindy Milstein: 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.

“Rebellious Mourning uncovers 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 of Caliban and the Witch

Kirkridge will host a retreat on recuperating our grieving practices with Lenape tribal member Krista Nelson and keener Annie Wilson from June 19-21.

Register for the online reading group here: https://kirkridge.org/programs-container/1236/apocalyptic-reading-group-april/

May: Original Sins: The (Mis)Education of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism: If all children could just get an education, the logic goes, they would have the same opportunities later in life. But this historical tour de force makes it clear that the opposite is true: The U.S. school system has played an instrumental role in creating and upholding racial hierarchies, preparing children to expect unequal treatment throughout their lives.

In Original Sins, Ewing demonstrates that our schools were designed to propagate the idea of white intellectual superiority, to “civilize” Native students and to prepare Black students for menial labor. Education was not an afterthought for the Founding Fathers; it was envisioned by Thomas Jefferson as an institution that would fortify the country’s racial hierarchy. Ewing argues that these dynamics persist in a curriculum that continues to minimize the horrors of American history. The most insidious aspects of this system fall below the radar in the forms of standardized testing, academic tracking, disciplinary policies, and uneven access to resources.

By demonstrating that it’s in the DNA of American schools to serve as an effective and underacknowledged mechanism maintaining inequality in this country today, Ewing makes the case that we need a profound reevaluation of what schools are supposed to do, and for whom. This book will change the way people understand the place we send our children for eight hours a day.

Register here: https://kirkridge.org/programs-container/1237/apocalyptic-reading-group-may/ 

June: Taking the State Out of the Body: A Guide to Embodied Resistance to Zionism by Eliana Rubin is a guidebook in deconstructing nationalism through trauma-informed praxis.

Embedded in the political theory and practice of Jewish anti-Zionism, it invites readers of all backgrounds to build an embodied sense of safety that has the power to make militarized borders, policing, and nation-states obsolete. We need the resources offered in this book: from understanding geopolitical impacts of intergenerational trauma, to self-regulation in conflict, to transformative approaches to harm, to cultivating long-haul relationships, to building solidarity across our movements. The book’s framework is situated in the lineages of healing justice and politicized healers including many antifascist Ashkenazi Jewish practitioners in 1930s Europe.

Today, as the terms “somatics” and “trauma” have been mainstreamed, Taking the State out of the Body is a timely offer to move from individual awareness to collective action. Weaving anti-imperialist orientations to historical events with embodiment theory, each chapter opens with a connection to a plant or body part and closes with a guide to practices that fuel resistance and resilience. This book will equip you with the tools you need to move from rugged individualist models of self-help/preservation to liberatory frameworks of collective care and joint struggle.

Register for the online reading group here: https://kirkridge.org/programs-container/1238/apocalyptic-reading-group-june/ 

Eliana Rubin is expected to offer a retreat on this material in Fall 2026.

July: Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052-2072 by M. E. O’Brien and Eman Abdelhadi “charts dizzying, delightful new futures for science fiction, urban planning, and engaged social practice. I spent 15 years as a community organizer and never dreamed of seeing something that so bravely, brilliantly combines liberational nonfiction and radical documentary with the exuberance of the best speculative storytelling,” says Sam J. Miller.

Joining a long line of speculative writing that helps us to understand worlds not yet existing  An Oral History of the New York Commune will appeal to readers of Octavia Butler, Ursula LeGuin, Kim Stanley Robinson, Ian M. Banks, Samuel Delaney, and China Mieville among others.

Register here: https://kirkridge.org/programs-container/1239/apocalyptic-reading-group-july/ 

August: The Future Is Disabled: Prophecies, Love Notes and Mourning Songs by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha asks provocative questions: What if, in the near future, the majority of people will be disabled–and what if that’s not a bad thing? And what if disability justice and disabled wisdom are crucial to creating a future in which it’s possible to survive fascism, climate change, and pandemics and to bring about liberation?

Building on the work of her game changing book Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice, Piepzna-Samarasinha writes about disability justice at the end of the world, documenting the many ways disabled people kept and are keeping each other–and the rest of the world–alive during Trump, fascism and the COVID-19 pandemic. Other subjects include crip interdependence, care and mutual aid in real life, disabled community building, and disabled art practice as survival and joy.

Written over the course of two years of disabled isolation during the pandemic, this is a book of love letters to other disabled QTBIPOC (and those concerned about disability justice, the care crisis, and surviving the apocalypse); honor songs for kin who are gone; recipes for survival; questions and real talk about care, organizing, disabled families, and kin networks and communities; and wild brown disabled femme joy in the face of death. With passion and power, The Future Is Disabled remembers our dead and insists on our future.

Register here: https://kirkridge.org/programs-container/1240/apocalyptic-reading-group-august/ 

September: Rehearsals for Living by Robyn Maynard and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson “is a profound and sublime work of memory, witnessing, refusal, dreaming. In the trenchant tradition of Black and Indigenous feminisms, this brilliant book moves us away from the language of crisis or victimhood to the precise and intimate encounters of kinship and liberation. The letters between Maynard and Simpson magnificently shapeshift and engage on multiple levels, and in doing so, rigorously demand an accounting for horrific violences while illuminating lives and worlds anew. A masterclass in literary form, ethical orientations, and collective futures” writes Harsha Walia, author of Border and Rule.

Articulating abolitionist and anti-colonial presents and futures, Rehearsals for Living asks what it means to get free.

Register here: https://kirkridge.org/programs-container/1241/apocalyptic-reading-group-september/ 

October: Enemy Feminisms: TERFs, Policewomen, and Girl Bosses Against Liberation by Sophie Lewis: In recent years, “white feminism” and girlboss feminism have taken a justified beating. We know that “leaning in” won’t make our jobs any more tolerable and that white women have proven to be, at best, unreliable allies. But in a time of rising fascism, ceaseless attacks on reproductive justice, and violent transphobia, we need to reckon with what Western feminism has wrought if we have any hope of building the feminist world we need.

Sophie Lewis offers an unflinching tour of enemy feminisms, from 19th century imperial feminists and police officers to 20th century KKK feminists and pornophobes to today’s anti-abortion and TERF feminists. Enemy feminisms exist. Feminism is not an inherent political good. Only when we acknowledge that can we finally reckon with the ways these feminisms have pushed us toward counterproductive and even violent ends. And only then can we finally engage in feminist strategizing that is truly antifascist.

At once a left transfeminist battlecry against cisness, a decolonial takedown of nationalist womanhoods, and a sex-radical retort to femmephobia in all its guises, Enemy Feminisms is above all a fierce, brilliant love letter to feminism.

Register here: https://kirkridge.org/programs-container/1243/apocalyptic-reading-group-october/ 

November: We Will Be Jaguars: A Memoir of My People by Nemonte Nenquimo and Mitch Anderson: From a fearless, internationally acclaimed activist comes an impassioned memoir about an indigenous childhood, a clash of cultures, and the fight to save the Amazon rainforest

We Will Be Jaguars is an astonishing memoir by an equally astonishing woman. Nenquimo is a winner of TIME magazine’s Earth Award, and MS. magazine named this book among the Most Anticipated Feminist Books of 2024.

Born into the Waorani tribe of Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest–one of the last to be contacted by missionaries in the 1950s–Nemonte Nenquimo had a singular upbringing. She was taught about plant medicines, foraging, oral storytelling, and shamanism by her elders. At age fourteen, she left the forest for the first time to study with an evangelical missionary group in the city. Eventually, her ancestors began appearing in her dreams, pleading with her to return and embrace her own culture. She listened.

Two decades later, Nemonte has emerged as one of the most forceful voices in climate change activism. She has spearheaded the alliance of indigenous nations across the Upper Amazon and led her people to a landmark victory against Big Oil, protecting over a half million acres of primary rainforest. Her message is as sharp as a spear–honed by her experiences battling loggers, miners, oil companies and missionaries.

In We Will Be Jaguars, she partners with her husband, Mitch Anderson, founder of Amazon Frontlines, digging into generations of oral history, uprooting centuries of conquest, hacking away at racist notions of indigenous peoples, and ultimately revealing a life story as rich, harsh, and vital as the Amazon rainforest herself.

Register here: https://kirkridge.org/programs-container/1242/apocalyptic-reading-group-november/ 

Ideas for 2027 and beyond: Please let us know your suggestions by emailing Nichola at nicholat@kirkridge.org.

The Overstory

Hospicing Modernity

Song for a Hard Hit People

Mutual Aid

Love In a Fucked Up World

Beyond Survival

Emergent Strategy

Becoming Rooted

Theory of Water

Becoming Kin

Undrowned

Braiding Sweetgrass

Care Work

Imagination: A Manifesto

We Do This Til We Free Us

The Smell of Rain on Dust

Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination