
Summer Book Sale!
25% off select titles and 10% off store wide on Saturday, July 5th! See you there!
COVID-19 SAFETY PROTOCOLS
Out of concern for everyone’s well-being in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, attendees are invited to wear masks during the event. We strongly recommend advance registration to our events so we can best prepare to host and accommodate everyone’s space needs [it is also a great way to support our progromming efforts].
Note: there are ample opportunities to receive a free COVID-19 test, vaccine, or booster in most neighborhoods, at walk-in clinics or by appointment. All of the COVID-19 vaccines are free. They are available to anyone in the United States. You do not need to provide identification to receive a vaccine. Visit phila.gov for latest info and please support the work of the Black Doctors’ COVID Consortium.
FREE AND BY DONATION
All of our events are accessible both free and by donation. Both options are available on our registration pages. This is the one and only way we ask our community for financial support for our ongoing programming, so please consider donating if you can.
ACCESSIBILITY
We are an ADA-accessible space on the ground floor. Our event setup is flexible and can accommodate the needs of everyone. Our bathroom is also ADA accessible with transfer rails (note: the door is not automatic). Note we are not a scent-free space. Pleases contact us with any questions or need specific accommodations.
IN-PERSON EVENTS
Please note, advance registration via our withfriends page is requested for all events, so we can plan for attendance and gather safely.
Event registrations will be honored until 15 mins after start time of the event; afterwards, availability will be on a first-come basis.
LIVESTREAMING
Occasionally, our events are livestreamed only. Those recordings of our events are hosted by Common Notions Press on their YouTube channel. Feel free to subscribe to that channel and spread the word!
Interested in working with us on an event at Making Worlds? Fill out this form and email the information along with a short introduction to info[at]makingworldsbooks.org. Note: we need full info sent via email in order to best consider your proposal.
25% off select titles and 10% off store wide on Saturday, July 5th! See you there!
Join climate activists Mikaela Loach and Wawa Gatheru for a conversation about the need for radical climate action that fearlessly addresses the issues at the root of the climate crisis and to celebrate the launch of Mikaela Loach's book It's Not That Radical.
Registration is required for this event. Register in advance here!
Please arrive 15 minutes early to register for the event and browse books. Buying a book before or after the event is a great way to support the Making Worlds project.
Registration is required to attend. Register before the event here.
Join South Philly Autonomous Cinema and Philly Socialists as we continue our series of Palestinian films, fundraising, and solidarity at Making Worlds Bookstore! We will be screening Elia Suleiman's The Time That Remains.
Registration is required to attend. Register before the event here.
Registration is required to attend. Register before the event here.
Join us on Saturday, July 19th at 5:00 PM for the book launch of Out Doing Science: LGBTQ STEM Professionals and Inclusion in Neoliberal Times with coauthors Tom Waidzunes and Ethan Czuy Levine in conversation.
Join Philly Socialists for a special June film club! We will be screening 40 Years a Prisoner (2020), a documentary that chronicles the 1978 Philadelphia police raid on the Black liberation group MOVE and the subsequent fight of Mike Africa Jr. to exonerate his parents. Following the film, Mike Africa Jr. will join us for a Q&A.
Registration is required to attend. Register before the event here.
Ayurvedic medicine is an ancient study of life that takes a holistic approach to healing. Join UC Green in learning how to create a routine for yourself that assists with reducing chronic pain.
Registration is required to attend. Register before the event here.
The liberal myth is that politics is when we change people's minds with words. But as this book demonstrates, people's minds are rarely changed by arguments alone (and "discourse" often serves as a legitimizing myth for those in power). Instead, we can change people's hearts and minds only when we change their lives--through building relationships and helping them take action. Let's stop talking about politics and create a new world instead.
Registration is required to attend this event. Register before the event here.
From short-term power outages to longer periods sheltering in place or boil water orders, its always important to make sure you and your family are prepared for any scenario.
Registration is required to attend this event.
Get inspired to take action and connect with a global movement! Watch How to Start a Revolution, a powerful film that explores how uprisings begin and what unites us across borders in the fight for justice. This thought-provoking documentary reveals the power of collective action and how we can create lasting change.
Join us for a three part study of Learning While Black and Queer: Understanding The Educational Experiences of Black LGBTQ+ Youth by Dr. Ed Brockenbrough.
Register here!
To get the book, sign up here.
Registration is required to attend. Register before the event here.
Bringing to light the suppression of the AIDS pandemic, Buddies (1985) was the first film to publicly discuss this global health crisis in the US. The film follows two gay men from different class backgrounds who come into contact through an in-hospital “buddies” program that pairs AIDS patients with a companion.
This event has been postponed! New date TBA
Join Philly Socialists for a special June film club! We will be screening 40 Years a Prisoner (2020), a documentary that chronicles the 1978 Philadelphia police raid on the Black liberation group MOVE and the subsequent fight of Mike Africa Jr. to exonerate his parents. Following the film, Mike Africa Jr. will join us for a Q&A.
From vacant downtowns to depressed wages, inner city pollution to poisoned rural groundwater, the concentration of corporate power has been profitable for a few executives but disastrous for working people and their communities. Written by a worker for the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, this zine documents the battles and triumphs of the growing antimonopoly movement, and shows how you, too, can fight against corporate control where you live and work.
In October 2020, Walter Wallace Jr. was killed by Philadelphia police while he suffered from a mental health crisis. Following his death, community members organized to implement Philadelphia’s first non-police mental health crisis response program. Join Amistad Law Project and community organizers for a screening of Care Team, a short documentary that follows two mobile crisis workers as they respond to mental health emergencies across the city.
Registration is required to attend. Register before the event here.
Join BAP Philly in a dismantling of the commodification of Juneteenth. We will engage the actual history of the holiday, its purpose, and why the state has found it useful to reframe it as a national holiday.
Please arrive 15 minutes early to register for the event and browse books. Buying a book before or after the event is a great way to support the Making Worlds project!
Please arrive 15 minutes early to register for the event and browse books. Buying a book before or after the event is a great way to support our project! Pre-register here.
The Philly No Appetite For Apartheid Campaign would like to invite interested member of the Community to learn about our No Appetite for Apartheid Campaign and how they can help promote the divestment from Israel in their local community! We are hosting a Community Crawl, where we canvass businesses, hang up flyers and posters in public areas and generally inform the public of the BDS campaign. This campaign will also spread Know Your Rights awareness posters as we also put up flyers directing people to immigrant resources and leave the Know Your Rights Red Cards at businesses we canvass
Register for this event here.
Please arrive 15 minutes early to register for the event and browse books. Buying a book before or after the event is a great way to support the Making Worlds project!
Who gets to move freely, and who is policed for simply existing? This workshop/lecture explores the politics of moving through space—who is granted access, who is restricted, who is punished, and who enforces these boundaries. From racialized incidents like the Amy Cooper case, where a white woman weaponized the police against a Black man in Central Park, to the everyday gendered dynamics of manspreading on public transportation, to age restrictive curfews, and trans bathroom discourse, power is constantly negotiated through space. Not only is the state an arbiter of where and when you can be, but individuals are able to invoke the state at their behest to enforce their will. Why and how do people deem themselves as the arbiters of space?
Registration is required to attend. Please register here!
Join us for a teach-in on imperial techniques for concealing material truth, from the Nakba to the Andes.
In partnership with BI-CO FSP and Juntos.
Registration is required to attend! Register here.
This course aims at creating a conceptual map of Silvia Federici’s theories and activism from her manifesto on wages for housework to the contemporary conception of the commons. We will do a close reading of her canonic texts to define strugglers, struggles, and localities. Each class meeting starts with a set of questions and ends with a set of conclusions drawn from the discussion. The goal is tracing a decolonial trajectory in her work and assessing its adaptability to our surroundings. For each meeting we’ll read one portion of Federici’s Caliban and the Witch plus a more recent article in a chronological order on the following topics: sexuality, housework, violence, and the commons.
Register for this event here!
Issue 2 of Long-Haul Magazine is OUT!
We’ll have copies of Issue 2 for sale, free drinks, and a few words to share about our project. Join us at Making Worlds for a few hours before we move down the street to Abyssinia. Catch us at the bar after 7PM if you can’t make it earlier!
Registration is required to attend this event. Register here!
Join Philly Socialists as we screen Here and Elsewhere, a 1976 essay film co-directed by Jean-Luc Godard. Incorporating footage of Palestinian freedom fighters from an unfinished documentary commissioned by the PLO, the film cuts between scenes in Lebanon, Jordan, and the West Bank and more abstract sequences filmed in France to critically reflect on the role of media, the filmmaking process, propaganda, and the responsibility of the artist.
Join us in celebrating the release of the Assata’s House Zine with a special screening of the Assata Shakur documentary, followed by a deep, liberatory conversation with the zine’s contributing writers. This event invites us to not only reflect on Assata’s life and ideology, but also to step into our own roles as freedom dreamers, world-builders, and active participants in collective liberation.
Register for this event here.
It never ended with us. Literary fiction has long shaped our cultural conversation around domestic violence. Since Colleen Hoover’s novel It Ends With Us and its recent film adaptation have set the spotlight once again on this evergreen issue, how has the conversation changed? Join us for a panel discussion featuring Natalie Adler, Kristen Martin, and Sarah Wang.
Register for this virtual event here!
Join a panel of organizers from The W.E.B. Du Bois Movement School and other leading abolitionist organizers and thinkers in reflecting back on the lessons of the rebellion five years ago, and what collective study and struggles means in our present moment.
Registration is required to attend! Register here.
This course aims at creating a conceptual map of Silvia Federici’s theories and activism from her manifesto on wages for housework to the contemporary conception of the commons. We will do a close reading of her canonic texts to define strugglers, struggles, and localities. Each class meeting starts with a set of questions and ends with a set of conclusions drawn from the discussion. The goal is tracing a decolonial trajectory in her work and assessing its adaptability to our surroundings. For each meeting we’ll read one portion of Federici’s Caliban and the Witch plus a more recent article in a chronological order on the following topics: sexuality, housework, violence, and the commons.
Please register for this event here!
This study group is an invitation for care workers and care practitioners to come together in the pursuit of understanding the structures that undergird our systems of care, specifically the medical-industrial complex.
The Inflamed Study Group is the second part of an ongoing series. New participants are always welcome!
Join us for a book talk with author Jillian Berman, Philly Council Member Kendra Brooks, and local activists Dr. Jalil Bishop and Justice Passé.
Cosponsored by Debt Collective.
In Sunk Cost, Jillian Berman uses interviews with borrowers, policymakers and historical research to show how a policy aimed at helping low- and middle-income Americans turned into one of the biggest consumer finance challenges of our time. One of the borrowers featured is Philadelphia’s own Kendra Brooks. Join Jillian, Councilmember Brooks and Philadelphia-based student debt organizers Dr. Jalil Bishop and Justice Passé to discuss the policies that got us to this point and how we can usher in a better future.
Registration is required to attend! Register here.
This course aims at creating a conceptual map of Silvia Federici’s theories and activism from her manifesto on wages for housework to the contemporary conception of the commons. We will do a close reading of her canonic texts to define strugglers, struggles, and localities. Each class meeting starts with a set of questions and ends with a set of conclusions drawn from the discussion. The goal is tracing a decolonial trajectory in her work and assessing its adaptability to our surroundings. For each meeting we’ll read one portion of Federici’s Caliban and the Witch plus a more recent article in a chronological order on the following topics: sexuality, housework, violence, and the commons.
Registration is required to attend! Please register here.
Join us for an evening of poetry, art, music, and conversation to celebrate the launch of Afuerismos, a poetry collection by Daniela Johannes. Blending poetic performance with live music, the author will read from her work and reflect on the creative and political roots of the book. The evening will feature a critical engagement by Cuban poet and scholar Jamila Medina (Brown University), and a conversation with the Chilean visual artist behind the book’s cover, Cristina Arancibia.
Registration is required for this event. Please register here!*
Join us at Making Worlds Bookstore in highlighting the interconnectedness of liberation struggles from Philly to Palestine. The event will fundraise for 2025 Black Mama’s Bail Out. A Librarians and Archivists with Palestine 2025 “One Book, Many Communities” event.
Donations made through this registration page support Making Worlds Bookstore & Social Center! Funds for Black Mama's Bail Out will be collected at the event. Donations to Making Worlds allow us to continue to provide affordable event space to the broader community and assist with our programming efforts.
Join us for the book launch of An Anti-Zionist Path to Embodied Jewish Healing with author Wendy Elisheva Somerson (Wes) in conversation with filmmaker Irit Reinheimer.
In a time when antisemitism is being weaponized and used to justify genocide against Palestinians, Wes's book is unapologetically anti-Zionist, firmly rooted in Jewish spiritual values, and presents a liberatory model for Jewish healing.
Registration is required to attend this event. Please register here!
Join us for the book launch of Secrets of the Killing State: The Untold Story of Lethal Injection with author Corinna Lain in conversation with Nicholas Kahn-Fogel.
Lethal injection is not what people think, and most Americans still have no idea what the government is doing in their name. It’s time they found out.
Registration is required to attend. Please register here!
Registration is required to attend! Register here.
This course aims at creating a conceptual map of Silvia Federici’s theories and activism from her manifesto on wages for housework to the contemporary conception of the commons. We will do a close reading of her canonic texts to define strugglers, struggles, and localities. Each class meeting starts with a set of questions and ends with a set of conclusions drawn from the discussion. The goal is tracing a decolonial trajectory in her work and assessing its adaptability to our surroundings. For each meeting we’ll read one portion of Federici’s Caliban and the Witch plus a more recent article in a chronological order on the following topics: sexuality, housework, violence, and the commons.
Please register for this event here!
This study group is an invitation for care workers and care practitioners to come together in the pursuit of understanding the structures that undergird our systems of care, specifically the medical-industrial complex.
The Inflamed Study Group is the second part of an ongoing series. New participants are always welcome!
We'd like to invite parents and caregivers (and anyone else who feels seen in this space) into a community conversation around abolitionist solutions to our current common parenting/caretaking struggles, with guidance from the book We Grow The World Together: Parenting Towards Abolition. The conversation will be led by our wonderful cooperative member, Evisa.
No pre-reading required. Just open minds and hearts.
Join short-story writer Gemini Wahhaj and Becky Tuch, editor of LitMag news for the book launch of Gemini's short-story collection Katy Family. Combining the powers of speculation of Kazuo Ishiguro and the sharp social critique of Aravind Adiga, this collection offers readers the ultimate experience of global fiction, stories bound and shaped by Katy, Texas, a place made by oil and capitalism. The stories weave between Bangladeshi characters experiencing the reality of the immigrant experience in America and those still in Bangladesh, wishing for the mythos of the American dream.
Join us for Independent Bookstore Day at Making Worlds! Saturday, April 26th from 12 PM - 7 PM.
We have an exciting lineup of authors visiting the space on Independent Bookstore Day to read from their favorite works, discuss the importance of indie bookstores, Q&A with the audience and sign books.
Registration is required to attend! Please register here.
This study group is an invitation for care workers and care practitioners to come together in the pursuit of understanding the structures that undergird our systems of care, specifically the medical-industrial complex. Over the course of four sessions, we will read sections of Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice, to understand the impact of racial capitalism on our social and collective bodies.