Portuguese/English/Spanish Book Series
"Zeferina" is the (in)famous 18th c. quilombo resistance leader who fought against slavery and the violent destruction of African people and communities. The title of this multilingual print and electronic publication series coedited by Joao Costa Vargas and Joy James acknowledges Zeferina as an ancestor and inspiration to contemporary struggles against slavery, racial/gender/sexual exploitation, colonialism, imperialism and capitalism.
The Zeferina book series emphasizes revolutionary, internationalist struggles, focusing on the Americas, Africa, and the African diaspora. The bilingual series is in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. Whenever possible we would provide texts in all languages. The series focuses on Black/Non-Black resistance to captivity, imperialism, colonialism, (proto)fascism and anti-Blackness
Zeferina references the historical past but centers on the contemporary moment. It emphasizes Indigenous/Black/ Non-Black actors, theorists, artists, land rights, community and spirituality, and marronage focused on radical or revolutionary liberation struggles. Issues of family, religion, health and well-being, culture, music, the arts, anti-police violence, and abolition are central in our work.
Zeferina curates,edits, and supports dialogues with revolutionary perspectives within and beyond the US. Addressing state, empire, integration, and multi-raciality, gender, and trans/queer identities, carcerality, we expand beyond US parameters and hegemonic discourse. Emphasizing alternative perspectives that bridge linguistic barriers and distances, Zeferina's multilingual publications push against the Anglophone hegemony present even in Black revolutionary thought.
Zeferina prioritizes contemporary politics and resistance cultures. Editors João Costa Vargas and Joy James are organizers and educators who have worked with international (non)academics, study groups, classes, conferences, NGOs, media platforms/podcasts. They have worked together for some twenty years as writers, editors, educators and organizers. João Costa Vargas’s work in Brazil, e.g., strategically aligns with the Landless Movement and other nonblack formations. Joy James focuses on gender/US Black feminisms/Captive Maternal Agency and political theory.
Reaching beyond academic studies, this Zeferina book series complements and contributes to a constellation of publications by political thinkers, ethicists, and activists that focuses on the struggles for freedom, sovereignty, and self-determination among Afrodescendent and Indigenous peoples around the world. However, it is likely one of the first book series to link the largest Black population in the Americas with the largest white nationalist empire in the Americas and throughout the globe.
The series includes non-Black texts that critique and reject anti-Black and anti-Indigenous agendas.
About the Editors
João H. Costa Vargas is Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Riverside, and the author of The Denial of Antiblackness: Multiracial Redemption and Black Suffering.
Joy James, Ebenezer Fitch Professor of Humanities at Williams College, is the author of New Bones Abolition: Captive Maternal Agency and the (After)life of Erica Garner. Her recent titles include In Pursuit of Revolutionary Love and Beyond Cop City. James’s numerous political theory articles on policing, prisons, abolitions, feminisms; and anti-Black racism include “The Womb of Western Theory,” an exploration of the Captive Maternal.
read texts in the inaugural collection by Joy James
Una Carta de Preocupación Para El Clero Negro Con Respecto A "Cop City"
O Útero da Teoria Ocidental: Trauma, roubo de tempo e a Cativa Materna
“Agindo De Forma Ética” Pensamento Crítico, Teorização e Vontade Política
La Guerra Urbana y Los Ejércitos Financiados Por Corporaciones: El Cop City De Atlanta Es Otro Capítulo En La Historia Larga De Colonialismo Basado En Los Estados Unidos
Ossatura Da Abolição: Agência Materno Cativa E O Legado De Erica Garner by Joy James [doc here]
