January-April 2026 “Militant Kindergarten” from the Center for Especifismo Studies

Posted on December 4, 2025 - December 4, 2025 by Orange

Militant Kindergarten 2025 - CES While ‘Victoria’ Anarchist Reading Circle is still on hiatus, we want to bring special attention to the Center for Especifismo Studies (CES), who for their free online Militant Kindergarten course, each Sunday 9AM PST from Jan 11 – April 19 2026 takes inspiration from the Anarchist Federation of Rio de Janeiro (FARJ, which we have studied before) and their Social Anarchism and Organisation (2008).

According to the CES:

Militant Kindergarten is a 15-week seminar
Combining radicalizing and radicalized people into a shared learning space
Studying especifismo, a revolutionary current of anarchism coming from Latin America
Reading Social Anarchism and Organisation by the FARJ (the Anarchist Federation of Rio de Janeiro) and the abridged CES version, “104 Steps to Recovery of the Social Vector”
Refining and developing our understanding of anarchist theory, strategy, and militancy
Discussing specific passages, concepts, and theories
Aiming to create a dependably safe and welcoming environment for learning

*All the organizers have already attended this seminar at least once, and at the end, we’ll invite anyone interested to join us in organizing future Militant Kindergartens.

Click here to learn more about or sign up for CES’ Militant Kindergarten.

August 17: Anarchist Commitment, Responsibility and Self-discipline

Posted on July 22, 2025 - August 13, 2025 by Orange

GET THE READING HERE: SCREEN, ZINE, AUDIO, CAMAS BOOKS’ FREE BOX, or EMMA’S FREE LIBRARIES AROUND TOWN.

Facilitators should note the Facilitation Guide.

We close our circle with a reflection of Thoughts on Commitment, Responsibility and Self-discipline (2014) by the Anarchist Federation of Rio de Janeiro (FARJ.) Commitment, Responsibility, and Self-discipline emphasizes the importance of continual self-discipline and sustained militancy for anarchists. Critiquing the authoritarian socialist understanding of discipline “from above” as a doctrine, it suggests anarchists must seriously make their positions viable and grounded with clear goals in mind. The text suggests the importance of anarchists to commit to their actions and have follow-through on tasks with procedural frameworks for mutual and self-reinforcement.

The piece reflects on historical conversations between, and the lessons learned by, anarchist revolutionaries Nestor Makhno, an anarchist-communist who helped organized the Ukrainian anarchist Makhnovschina which at its height saw a population of 7.5 million people, and Errico Malatesta, an insurrectionary-turned-syndicalist anarchist who breathed life into dozens of protests, general strikes, and uprisings. The piece aims at showing how these lessons can be applied to members of the FARJ and the wider anarchist tradition.

This is our last VARC for a while as the Circle goes into hiatus. Please write and bring notes. We meet at Camas Books, 2620 Quadra Street, on Lekwungen Territory. Our meeting is Sunday August 17 @ 6:30PM.

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PS: Our friends at the Anarchist Network of “Vancouver Island” have put together a list of anarchist and adjacent projects on the territory. If you are looking to involve yourself in anarchist activism, look at their trifold! Particularly, Food not Bombs serves free vegan food for revolution every Sunday 4-6PM at Spirit “Centennial” Square and have been facing increasing harassment tied to the gentrification of the Square. Come show up to eat! They also need help from volunteers.

June 22: Dykes Nation & Victoria Tenants Union Collaboration The Battle of Tuntenhaus and the Fight to Abolish Rent

Posted on May 25, 2025 - June 4, 2025 by Orange

GET THE READING HERE: ZINE OR SCREEN, CAMAS BOOKS’ FREE BOX, or EMMA’S FREE LIBRARIES AROUND TOWN.

Facilitators should note the Facilitation Guide.

In collaboration with Dykes Nation and the Victoria Tenants Union, we will be reading Chapter 1: Rent is the Crisis ahead of time, from Tracy Rosenthal and Leonardo Vilchis’ Abolish Rent: How Tenants Can End the Housing Crisis (2024) as a primer for the movie The Battle of Tuntenhaus (1991) by Juliet Bashore, which we will be watching together at Camas.

Abolish Rent is from two co-founders of the largest tenants union in the “United States,” and is a deeply reported account of the resurgent tenant movement centres poor and working-class people who are fighting back, staying put, and remaking the city in the process.

The Battle of Tuntenhaus is a documentary film following the inhabitants of the Tuntenhaus, (“house of queers”) a gay and drag queen squat on Mainzer Strasse in East Berlin. The film takes place during the Automon movement.

As always, we meet at Camas Books, 2620 Quadra Street, on Lekwungen Territory. Our meeting is Sunday June 22nd@ 6:30PM.

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PS: Our friends at the Anarchist Network of “Vancouver Island” have put together a list of anarchist and adjacent projects on the territory. If you are looking to involve yourself in anarchist activism, look at their trifold! Particularly, Food not Bombs serves free vegan food for revolution every Sunday 4-6PM at Spirit “Centennial” Square and have been facing increasing harassment tied to the gentrification of the Square. Come show up to eat! They also need help from volunteers.

June 8: Abolishing the Family Again, A Manifesto for Care and Liberation

Posted on May 23, 2025 - June 4, 2025 by Orange

GET THE READING HERE: ZINE OR SCREEN, CAMAS BOOKS’ FREE BOX, or EMMA’S FREE LIBRARIES AROUND TOWN.

Facilitators should note the Facilitation Guide.

Next time, we will be reading selections from Sophie Lewis’ Abolish the Family: A Manifesto for Care and Liberation (2022). We will be discussing Chapter 2: Abolish Which Family? and Chapter 3: A Potted History of Family Abolitionism

As always, we meet at Camas Books, 2620 Quadra Street, on Lekwungen Territory. Our meeting is Sunday June 8th @ 6:30PM.

—

PS: Our friends at the Anarchist Network of “Vancouver Island” have put together a list of anarchist and adjacent projects on the territory. If you are looking to involve yourself in anarchist activism, look at their trifold! Particularly, Food not Bombs serves free vegan food for revolution every Sunday 4-6PM at Spirit “Centennial” Square and have been facing increasing harassment tied to the gentrification of the Square. Come show up to eat! They also need help from volunteers.

May 25: The Formation of Local Councils

Posted on April 27, 2025 - April 27, 2025 by Orange

GET THE READING HERE: ZINE OR SCREEN, AUDIO, CAMAS BOOKS’ FREE BOX, or EMMA’S FREE LIBRARIES AROUND TOWN.

Facilitators should note the Facilitation Guide.

“We are not less than the workers of the Paris Commune… They lasted 70 days and we are still here since a year and a half.” – Omar Aziz

Next time, we will be reading The Formation of Local Councils: To Live in Revolutionary Time (2012) by the martyred Syrian anarchist Omar Aziz. This foundational, strategic proposal inspired Local Councils in large swathes of Syria during the Syrian revolution against the Assad regime. Local Councils provides insights relevant to all anarchists and anti-authoritarians organizing for a more just society.

“Our hope is that by translating and distributing this text to make more visible the Syrian revolution, which has so often been denied or conflated with the armed groups that share its territories. Often leftists who support the Assad regime or anarchists who support the YPG/PYD will ask things like, “Are there really liberatory groups in these areas? What are their names? What are their ideas?” as if the organization of daily life needed a name, a website, and an English-language spokesperson to exist.” – Translator’s Introduction

You can learn more about Omar Aziz and his legacy here.

As always, we meet at Camas Books, 2620 Quadra Street, on Lekwungen Territory. Our meeting is Sunday May 25th @ 6:30PM.

—

PS: Our friends at the Anarchist Network of “Vancouver Island” have put together a list of anarchist and adjacent projects on the territory. If you are looking to involve yourself in anarchist activism, look at their trifold! Particularly, Food not Bombs serves free vegan food for revolution every Sunday 4-6PM at Spirit “Centennial” Square and have been facing increasing harassment tied to the gentrification of the Square. Come show up to eat! They also need help from volunteers.

April 27: Peacebuilding and Conflict Resolution in Rojava

Posted on April 3, 2025 - April 26, 2025 by Orange

GET THE READING PORTION HERE: ZINE OR SCREEN, CAMAS BOOKS‘ FREE BOX, or EMMA’S FREE LIBRARIES AROUND TOWN.

ALSO LISTEN (35:00-end, 20m) and WATCH (14m)

Facilitators should note the Facilitation Guide.

We will be discussing the Peacebuilding and Conflict Resolution methods and praxis of Rojavan revolutionaries in the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria.

VARC-goers are expected to read Peacebuilding in a Conflict Setting: Peace and Reconciliation Committees in De Facto Rojava Autonomy in Syria (2017) by Dr. Yasin Duman, listen to The Women’s War podcast episode 5 Grandma Law And Revolutionary Sacrifice, (2020) and watch the SubMedia video The Fall of the Regime (2025) ahead of time for our discussion.

As always, we meet at Camas Books, 2620 Quadra Street, on Lekwungen Territory. Our meeting is Sunday April 27th @ 6:30PM.

—

PS: Our friends at the Anarchist Network of “Vancouver Island” have put together a list of anarchist and adjacent projects on the territory. If you are looking to involve yourself in anarchist activism, look at their trifold! Particularly, Food not Bombs serves free vegan food for revolution every Sunday 4-6PM at Spirit “Centennial” Square and have been facing increasing harassment tied to the gentrification of the Square. Come show up to eat! They also need help from volunteers.

April 13: Care Pod Mapping Workshop

Posted on April 1, 2025 - April 1, 2025 by Orange

OPTIONAL READING HERE: ZINE OR SCREEN, CAMAS BOOKS‘ FREE BOX, or EMMA’S FREE LIBRARIES AROUND TOWN.

Next time, we will be hosting a Pod Mapping Workshop led by community activists and abolitionists Audrey and Corina.

Care Pod Mapping is a concept developed by disability activist Mia Mingus as a part of creating stronger and more interdependent liberatory community. A care pod is a network of people who you can seek support from to if violence, harm, or abuse has happened to you, if you caused harm, if you have witnessed harm, or if you are just seeking more support in your life.

We will also discuss related concepts of Relationship Anarchy, with two small optional primer readings: The short instructional manifesto for relationship anarchy (2006) by Andie Nordgren and Ideal Care Menus conceptualized by Ndeye Oumou Sylla.

As always, we meet at Camas Books, 2620 Quadra Street, on Lekwungen Territory. Our meeting is Sunday April 13th @ 6:30PM.

PS: Our friends at the Anarchist Network of Vancouver Island have put together a list of anarchist and adjacent projects on the territory. If you are looking to involve yourself in anarchist activism, look at their trifold! Particularly, Food not Bombs serves free vegan food for revolution every Sunday 4-6PM at Spirit “Centennial” Square and have been facing increasing harassment tied to the gentrification of the Square. Come show up to eat! They also need help from volunteers.

March 30: Beyond the Screen, the Stars

Posted on March 12, 2025 - March 15, 2025 by Orange

GET THE READING HERE: ZINE OR SCREEN, AUDIO, CAMAS BOOKS‘ FREE BOX, or EMMA’S FREE LIBRARIES AROUND TOWN.

Facilitators should note the Facilitation Guide.

We will be discussing the contents of Beyond the Screen, the Stars (2023) by Anonymous; (published by Ungrateful Hyenas Editions) an intervention on cell phone use and normalization in anarchist spaces.

As technological expansion hurtles forward at an increasingly dizzying pace, the presence of smartphones threatens to become normalized across the anarchist space; in many places, this presence has already been normalized for a long time. […] What would it look like to propose that anarchists ditch the technologies we have become increasingly dependent on and addicted to for over a decade, that have come to mediate so much of our lives, relationships, and forms of struggle?

As always, we meet at Camas Books, 2620 Quadra Street, on Lekwungen Territory. Our meeting is Sunday March 30th @ 6:30PM.

PS: Our friends at the Anarchist Network of Vancouver Island have put together a list of anarchist and adjacent projects on the territory. If you are looking to involve yourself in anarchist activism, look at their trifold! Particularly, Food not Bombs serves free vegan food for revolution every Sunday 4-6PM at Spirit “Centennial” Square. They need help from volunteers.

March 16: Accounting for Ourselves: Sexual Assault, Abuse, and Accountability

Posted on February 21, 2025 - March 15, 2025 by Orange

GET THE READING HERE: ZINE OR SCREEN, AUDIO, CAMAS BOOKS‘ FREE BOX, or EMMA’S FREE LIBRARIES AROUND TOWN.

Readers should note that this reading deals heavily with triggering and upsetting topics. Facilitators should note the Facilitation Guide.

We will be meeting to discuss Accounting for Ourselves: Breaking the Impasse Around Assault and Abuse in Anarchist Scenes (2017) by Jason Cortez.

“Sexual assault and abuse continue to plague anarchist circles and spaces. In response, we’ve developed processes to hold each other accountable outside of the state. But why can’t we seem to get them right? This essay examines the context in which these community accountability models emerged and analyzes the pitfalls we’ve encountered in trying to apply them. To move beyond the impasse around sexual violence within our scenes, we need to challenge the idea of community itself and take our resistance in new directions.”

As always, we meet at Camas Books, 2620 Quadra Street, on Lekwungen Territory. Our meeting is Sunday March 16th @ 6:30PM.

PS: Our friends at the Anarchist Network of Vancouver Island have put together a list of anarchist and adjacent projects on the territory. If you are looking to involve yourself in anarchist activism, look at their trifold! Particularly, Food not Bombs serves free vegan food for revolution every Sunday 4-6PM at Spirit “Centennial” Square. They need help from volunteers.

March 9: Community Control of the Poor Community

Posted on February 3, 2025 - February 21, 2025 by Orange

GET THE READING HERE: ZINE OR SCREEN, AUDIO (note multiple parts), CAMAS BOOKS‘ FREE BOX, or EMMA’S FREE LIBRARIES AROUND TOWN

Facilitators should note the Facilitation Guide.

Note that we have moved VARC to March 9th to accommodate the Anarchism Across the Arts Conference at University of ‘Victoria,’ which is free for everyone to attend. Next time, we will be meeting to discuss Community Control of the Poor Community: An Organising Manual for Community Activists (2008 edition) by Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin, a former Black Panther turned Black anarchist. This pamphlet is an extract out of the book called Anarchism and the Black Revolution and has been slightly edited to be more contextually relevant to the conditions of South Africa.

As always, we meet at Camas Books, 2620 Quadra Street, on Lekwungen Territory. Our meeting is Sunday March 9th @ 6:30PM.

PS: Our friends at the Anarchist Network of Vancouver Island have put together a list of anarchist and adjacent projects on the territory. If you are looking to involve yourself in anarchist activism, look at their trifold! Particularly, Food not Bombs serves free vegan food for revolution every Sunday 4-6PM at Spirit “Centennial” Square. They need help from volunteers.

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