In Pursuit of Revolutionary Love: Precarity, Power, Communities

by Joy James

Violence is arrayed against me because I’m Black, or female, or queer, or undocumented. There is no rescue team coming for us. With that knowledge, we need a different operational base to recreate the world. It is not going to be a celebrity savior. Never was, never will be. If you’re in a religious tradition that is millennia-old, consider how the last savior went out. It was always going to be bloody. It was always going to be traumatic. But there’s a beauty to facing the reality of our lives. Not our lives as they’re broken apart, written about and then sold back to us in academic or celebrity discourse. But our lives as we understand them. The most important thing is showing up. Showing up and learning how to live by and with others, learning how to reinvent ourselves in this increasing wasteland. That’s the good life.

Foreword by Da'Shaun L. Harrison

Afterword by Mumia Abu-Jamal

Genres: Nonfiction, Philosophy, Theory, Love, Politics, Feminism, Activism

360 pages, Paperback

Published March 15, 2023

About the author

Joy James is the John B. and John T. McCoy Presidential Professor of Humanities and College Professor in Political Science at Williams College. She is the author of Resisting State Violence: Radicalism, Gender, and Race in U.S. Culture, and her edited works on incarceration and human rights include States of Confinement: Policing, Detention, and Prisons and Imprisoned Intellectuals: America's Political Prisoners Write on Life, Liberation, and Rebellion.

Reviews

[Zach Carter · Rating 5 out of 5]

What I appreciate most about Dr. James' scholarship is that it forces an interrogation into the quotidian manifestations of our social relations/functions. She's the first to call out her own contradictions as an academic, which leads to a really interesting discussion about the social function of academics and guerrilla intellectuals in the imperial zone. I also found this to be the most comprehensive and rigorous account of the Captive Maternal. When I first read The Womb of Western Theory I was admittedly caught up with a lot of the philosophical context of the social function of the Captive Maternal. But by breaking it down into its four stages, I feel much better equipped at applying the concept. In particular, by focusing on the '71 Attica Rebellion, I think she opens up a really interesting discussion on what it means to secure human rights (particularly at the center of the fascist state) - it's a declaration of war. As the ultimate expression of the maroon stage of the Captive Maternal, all rules of engagement on the side of the imperial state are out the window - the white guards get shot at too, because no one can be meant to survive. The same is applied to Jonathan Jackson - the judge gets killed too, because Jonathan crossed the threshold from movement to maroon.

As always, James' intervention in state feminisms and academic abolitionisms remains prescient and critical. At a time when these (neo)radical ideological formations are increasingly co-opted and commoditized - why is Black Lives Matter producing millionaires? - at some point, these critiques are going to have to become much more socialized and contended with.

I didn't always agree with her analysis, and sometimes I wished she would expound on certain topics more. I think maybe the greatest weakness of this book is that is a collection of interviews and essays that share a great deal of overlap. An (admittedly much larger) academic effort would be to take this and synthesize it into a more cohesive and expansive work. But there is no denying the power that her writing has on me - her scholarship is one of the greatest examples of being in dialogue with text that I've experienced.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall it’s well done, but i enjoyed the interview transcripts a lot more than the written pieces. Joy James writing feels like it’s gesturing towards something profound but never manages to actually get there. The interviews are a lot more direct and i appreciated Jame’s perspective on the current state of abolition, black feminism, and the black bourgeoisie. Her also being a theologian brought a perspective on political love/ agape in relation to black struggle that I never really considered before

I think my favorite essays/ transcripts are: “How the University (De)radicalizes students”, “On Airbrushing Revolution for the Sake of Abolition”, “Captive Maternals, the Exonerated Central Park Five, and Abolition”, “ Angela Davis was a Black Panther: Pragmatism vs. Revolutionary Love”, and “The Agape of Peaches”. Most if not all of these are available online for free

[shemauky · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Peaches rejects the cynicism and the “luxuries” of bourgeois living because she has decided to "serve the people” as an expression of her political will, agape.— her political will to serve the people is an expression of divine spirit. The highest form of love and beauty, agape rejects distracting games and chooses political will in which love and sacrificial labor shape the revolutionary.” pg. 295, 299 [excerpt]

Is loving inherently spiritual? Can a revolutionary or radical love exist without attachment to Spirit/spirit realm? - asks @theconflictedwomanist

Reflections to questions as these, for me, both trail and guide the revolutionary. The revolutionary, not shaped by heroism, charisma, or post-mortem dreams and dying wishes. But, the revolutionary, shaped by commitment, curiosity, and compassion unto cause and camaraderie.

In Pursuit of Revolutionary Love stitches together a people’s quilt, comprised of movement grounded or movement-adjacent contributors in conversation with Joy James on such topics.

Like 19-year old Black Panther Party member, Renee Moore (Peaches) knew: revolutionary love calls us to be clear about what and who we are fighting for, and why it is of importance to the conditions we each face today.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

- it’s a shame that descriptors like “vital”/“urgent”/“necessary” are so overused—and on such unimportant books—that appending them to the work of joy james, which actually *is* those things, feels cheap. she’s amazingly clearsighted about the two things that most evade political theorists, especially the ones located in academia: political violence and political love.

- brings her influences to the table and lets them speak for themselves, which is so refreshing

- the first nonfiction book to make me cry in a very long time (at the end of the interview with rebecca a. wilcox)

- it’s a pretty loosely edited collection, so expect some repetition in themes/wording, but i didn’t mind bc it’s all stuff that bears repeating

[Stella ☆Paper Wings☆ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Worldview-shaping.
Review to come

[Jack · Rating 5 out of 5]

i come back to this so often. challenges and deepens everything i think i know about this topic. a slow read given the density of james’s ideas, but soooo worth it

[Xavier · Rating 5 out of 5]

James proves once again to be a profound critic and dreamer, noting her structural limitations, the work that needs to be done, and disentangling theories from neoliberal co-optation (e.g. state feminism).

[myuh · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Sure, I could go out and hold any job I desire. Have all the luxuries in life, get set, and die of “natural” death. But to me there is more life than that. There are the people. People who need to be helped and loved. Not stepped on, used, and misled as “we” have been for so long.” - “Peaches”

[Amal Omer · Rating 5 out of 5]

wow :,)

[Matthew Molinaro · Rating 5 out of 5]

joy james is a truthteller!