M09bdb4d38d658c2a566e063ed79d3de41

Alan Sears is a writer and activist who teaches sociology at Ryerson. He is an editorial associate of New Socialist webzine and the co-author (with James Cairms) of The Democratic Imagination: Envisioning Popular Power in the Twenty-First Century (University of Toronto Press). His new book is The Next New Left: A History of the Future (Fernwood Publishing).

  • Magazine

    Who Speaks Socialism These Days?

    A lament for the loss of the language of socialism spurs a tribute to the other languages of freedom.

  • Online-only

    Tender thoughts on hockey and masculinity

    Is it possible to separate the pleasures of pro sports from a masculinity that is rooted in the degradation of women and queer people?

  • Online-only

    The Canadian Cult of the Entrepreneur

    Entrepreneurship holds no answers for the problems faced by young people today.

  • Online-only

    Season’s Hauntings

    What if instead of Scrooge, the ghosts of past, present, and future haunted his exploited clerk Bob Cratchit?

  • Online-only

    OKComrade

    Will you be my comrade? On comradeship and the relationships that sustain, nurture, and inform activism.

  • Online-only

    Generation War or Generational Justice?

    Generational justice will be key to any escape from the sinkhole of 3 decades of neoliberalism.

  • Online-only

    Passion capitalism on campus

    Last year, Ryerson University, where I teach, won a Passion Capitalist Award. When I first saw this posted on the university website, I thought the Ryerson public relations machine might be dabbling in satire. Sadly, this was real.

  • Online-only

    Anti-fascist fitness?

    The fitness industry and the obesity panic are two sides of the same coin, both signs of a serious contempt for the body – at least in its natural state.

  • Online-only

    Thomas Mulcair should drop acid

    I know it sounds desperate, but a hallucination or two might open up his mind a bit. Perhaps he’ll realize that he who plays good cop forges his own hand cuffs.

  • Magazine

    Turning the tide

    The Conservatives won a majority in the recent federal election with a very simple core message. On the basis of their economic agenda and tough-on-crime program, Stephen Harper presented his party as the safe choice in difficult times.