Public Dialogue: Abolitionist Histories/Speculative Futures
In this first installment of our Public Dialogues series, The Shape of Cities to Come Institute (SCCI) envisioned alternative futures for New York City by drawing on past and present models of liberation. Our conversation featured speculative fiction authors, people’s historians, and community organizers who will foreground queer, trans, antiracist, and transnational solidarity visions to reconfigure our city.
In conversation:
Eman Abdelhadi (she/her; Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052-2072) is an academic, activist and writer who thinks at the intersection of gender, sexuality, religion, and politics. She is an assistant professor and sociologist at the University of Chicago, where she researches American Muslim communities. She is co-author of "Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052-2072," a sci-fi novel published in 2022 with Common Notions Press. Her academic work has been published in numerous sociology journals and covered by press outlets such as the Washington Post, Associated Press, and NPR.
M.E. O’Brien (she/her; Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052-2072) writes and speaks on gender freedom and capitalism. She has written two books: Family Abolition: Capitalism and the Communizing of Care (Pluto Press, 2023) and a co-authored speculative novel, Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052–2072 (Common Notions, 2022). She also co-edits two magazines, Pinko, on gay communism, and Parapraxis, on psychoanalytic theory and politics. Her work on family abolition has been translated into Chinese, German, Greek, French, Spanish, Catalan, and Turkish.
Rosza Daniel Lang / Levitsky (they or she; City of Abolished Prisons) is a cultural worker, organizer, and agitator based at Brooklyn’s Glitter House: just another diasporist gendertreyf diesel fem mischling who identifies with, not as. Currently anchored in abolition feminist work with Survived & Punished NY, in antizionist solidarity work with Yidishistn Mit Palestine, and in a potpourri of performance projects. Always more at meansof.org
Van Xelo (she/her/they/them; Queer Detainee Empowerment Project) is a born and raised New Yorker who is passionate about social and environmental justice. They approach their radical and abolitionist work through a decolonial queer femme perspective. Van joined Queer Detainee Empowerment Project in February 2022 as an Organizer to help continue on coalition and partnership building with other organizations as well as strengthening and expanding the membership base. She is in the New School’s MS Program in Environmental Policy and Sustainability Management, and received their BA in Urban Studies with a minor in Culture in Media there.
