This Sunday, Left Bank Books, one of the small businesses you should not take for granted, is hosting a reading and talk by one of the liveliest, sharpest, and erudite cultural theorists in the US, Joshua Clover. His mode is historical materialism, and the subject of his new book is the reemergence of riots in our period, which is defined by an economic/social crisis that began in the first years of the 1970s.

Before this period of riots, there was the period of strikes, which began in the first half of the 19th century. Before that, riots were the ruling "form of struggle" for common people. But the first age of riots is not the same as the current one. Something has changed. What is it? For one, the recent riots "took the form of blocking the nearest available freeway." Why? And one also has to ask: How did the age of strikes come to an end? These questions and more, which are addressed at length in his new book, will be discussed at this event.