Join Another Story Bookshop and Fernwood Publishing for the In Person Toronto Launch of Abolitionist Intimacies, by El Jones With special guests Desmond Cole, Beverly Bain and Kyon Ferril Thursday, Nov 3rd at 7pm Location: 1RG 1 Roof Garden Lane (northeast corner of Bloor and Dovercourt, in a laneway. The building will have event signs). Access info: There is a ramp via the garage for wheelchair access. Main floor bathroom. In Abolitionist Intimacies, El Jones examines the movement to abolish prisons through the Black feminist principles of care and collectivity. Understanding the history of prisons in Canada in their relationship to settler colonialism and anti-Black racism, Jones observes how practices of intimacy become imbued with state violence at carceral sites including prisons, policing and borders, as well as through purported care institutions such as hospitals and social work. The state also polices intimacy through mechanisms such as prison visits, strip searches and managing community contact with incarcerated people. Despite this, Jones argues, intimacy is integral to the ongoing struggles of prisoners for justice and liberation through the care work of building relationships and organizing with the people inside. Through characteristically fierce and personal prose and poetry, and motivated by a decade of prison justice work, Jones observes that abolition is not only a political movement to end prisons; it is also an intimate one deeply motivated by commitment and love. El Jones is a poet, journalist, professor and activist living in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She teaches at Mount Saint Vincent University, where she was named the 15th Nancy’s Chair in Women’s Studies in 2017. She was Halifax’s Poet Laureate from 2013 to 2015. She is the author of Live from the Afrikan Resistance!, a collection of poems about resisting white colonialism. Her work focuses on social justice issues, such as feminism, prison abolition, anti-racism and decolonization. Since 2016, she has co-hosted a radio show called Black Power Hour, on CKDU-FM where listeners from prisons call in to rap and read their poetry, providing a voice to people who rarely get a wide audience. Beverly Bain is a Black queer radical feminist anti-capitalist scholar and Professor. She teaches on Black queer diaspora, feminism, anti-racism and decolonialism, diasporic sexualities and gender and police violence in Women and Gender Studies, in the Department of Historical Studies at the University of Toronto/ Mississauga Campus. Bain frequently delivers lectures on Gender, anti-Blackness, Sexuality, abolition, and liberation nationally and internationally. She is interviewed regularly in the media on Black queer organizing, and on policing and abolition. Bain is published in numerous books and journals including Queerly Canadian 2nd edition, We Still Demand: Redefining Resistance in Sex and Gender Struggles, Canadian Women’s Studies, Fireweed and the Conversation. Bain is the co-creator of Scholar Strike Canada (SSC) virtual platform and co-founder of No Pride in Policing Coalition. (NPPC) Desmond Cole is a journalist, radio host, and activist. His debut book, The Skin We’re In, won the Toronto Book Award and was a finalist for the Forest of Reading Evergreen Award and the Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize. It was also named a best book of 2020 by The Globe and Mail, NOW Magazine, CBC, Quill & Quire, and Indigo. Cole’s writing has appeared in the Toronto Star, Toronto Life, The Walrus, and the Ottawa Citizen, among others. He lives in Toronto. Kyon Ferril grew up in the West-end of Toronto. He loves food and trying all different cuisines. He listens to R&B and EDM all the time.
