Rehearsing the Future - by Michael Doan (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A foremost contemporary theory of social change explained that shows us how the future must be built day by day.

Rehearsing the Future explores the work and legacy of James and Grace Lee Boggs, two of the most influential American radical thinkers of the twentieth century. Grace Lee Boggs earned a PhD in philosophy in the 1940s, though facing obstacles to an academic career as a young Chinese American woman, she left and became a political organizer in Detroit, where she met and married James Boggs, a Black autoworker and labor organizer from Alabama who had moved North during the Great Migration. Over the course of more than forty years of partnership and participation in labor, civil rights, Black Power, anticolonial, and feminist movements, the Boggses articulated a philosophy of long-term revolutionary strategy they called "dialectical humanism." Rejecting state socialism and traditional Marxism, dialectical humanism instead attributes social change to the conscious, collective activity of people engaged in place-based organizing with a view to transforming everyday life, with hallmark projects such as community gardens, daycare networks, and mediation programs. Above all, revolution is not a fixed program but must evolve as ideas, movements, and institutions are changed through collective practice.

Through their life work and publications, James and Grace Lee Boggs modeled how to do philosophy from within movements. In Rehearsing the Future, Michael Doan lays out the intellectual history of dialectical humanism, the far-reaching theory and practice that continues to guide movement-building around the world, inspiring forms of activism such as visionary organizing and emergent strategy. This book is for scholars and activists interested in the theoretical underpinnings of today's community movements.

Review Quotes

"For much of the twentieth century, Grace Lee and James Boggs made a way out of no way, in love and in struggle, in revolutionary Marxism, Black liberation, and other social movements of the time. Now in our time, how do we make a way out of Grace and Jimmy's ideas, commitments, conversations, and visions? How do we forge the reconstruction of society, build relationships to other bodies and many somebodies as to become somebody, love in a way that what we do today and tomorrow and the day after matters to the world we are creating anew? In Rehearsing the Future, the first full-length work on the thoughts and theories of the Boggses, Mike Doan eloquently answers and extends these questions into our own moment and for the next American revolution."--Kevin Van Meter, author of Guerrillas of Desire

"Rehearsing the Future is an extraordinary achievement. Michael Doan has given us a richly illuminating book that breaks new ground in our understanding of James and Grace Lee Boggs and their abiding call to create the next American revolution. Through its careful and critical excavation of their ideas, this book opens up space for us to learn from and with James and Grace Lee Boggs. The book shows how the Boggses came to their conception of revolution as a new stage in the development of humanity, and it gives us a way to see this vision of revolution at work today, in the continuing efforts of activists, organizations, and communities engaged in place-based, visionary organizing. Doan has done much to advance the legacy and lineage of James and Grace Lee Boggs." --Stephen M. Ward, author of In Love and Struggle: The Revolutionary Lives of James and Grace Lee Boggs

"Rehearsing the Future unearths the foundations of popular political tendencies of our time. If you are inspired by emergent strategies, visionary organizing, or the notion that we need to transform ourselves to transform the world, this exploration of their theoretical, political, and philosophical roots in the evolution of dialectical humanism offers both critical grounding and a portal beyond ossified debates between state and non-state strategies into approaches that put the power to shape society into our hands. Essential reading for anyone seeking a way through and beyond the contradictions of the current conjuncture." --Andrea J. Ritchie, author of Practicing New Worlds: Abolition and Emergent Strategies

"Rehearsing the Future is a light in dark times, an exhilarating and eye-opening book that beckons us toward a future that could be--and should be--but is not yet. Michael Doan excavates the thought and practice of two great American revolutionaries, James and Grace Lee Boggs, to illuminate an approach to struggle that is dynamic, generative, and entirely relevant for movement-makers today. Far from a program for a freshly-minted orthodoxy, dialectical humanism rejects both crude materialism and hollow, hallucinatory idealism, inviting us to become effective and energetic students of the future, acting on what the known demands of us now. Rehearsing the Future reminds us that we must change ourselves as we work to change the world, and that as human beings--and as a social justice movement--we are what we are not yet." --Bill Ayers, author of When Freedom Is the Question, Abolition Is the Answer

"This is an important book for anyone engaged in creating more just and joyful futures. It weaves together strands of history, philosophy, and ideology to show not only why ideas matter, but how ideas grow, mature, and change in relation to concrete practice and informed reflection. Readers are welcomed into a conversation with James and Grace Lee Boggs as they move through the social movements of the 20th century, probing how to advance our common humanity in a country that is economically and technologically overdeveloped and politically and socially underdeveloped. Their lives and the evolution of their thinking described here give us a firm foundation to explore the possibilities of new, creative ideas and actions that are critically needed if we are to secure a future for ourselves and our children." --Shea Howell, cofounder of Detroit Summer, the Boggs Center, and Riverwise Magazine

About the Author

Michael D. Doan is a Canadian-born father, educator, activist, and philosopher. He joined the James and Grace Lee Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership in 2016 and is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Oakland University.