Around the World in Our October Newsletter
“What’s really important about such festivals is that they kept the old spark of political self-consciousness alive. They allowed people to imagine that other arrangements are feasible, even for society as a whole, since it was always possible to fantasise about carnival bursting its seams and becoming the new reality.”
David from From the Dawn of Everything
The 5th Carnival for David
We celebrated the 5th Carnival for David on 20th of September 2025. Many people joined in after having participated in ‘make them pay’, a major climate strike in London and the London anarchist book fair at the waterloo graffiti tunnel. In a way, together with these events, the carnival for David was a bold declaration of our refusal to surrender our imaginations to the dull, dreary, cruel, business-as-usual. The carnival was designed as a playground for Remaking Worlds. It started with workshops to “Make. Unmake. Remake”. Whether hat making, costume making, writing, dancing, sculpting, or chalking on the pavements, each workshop promoted the spirit of imagination, playfulness and the collective power of communities. At dusk, we emerged as a procession of puppets, as spirits of the carnival marching as gift economies, as dancing and singing spirits, as clowns or in our usual day garb. Some of us were holding glow sticks, making our exuberance impossible to miss in the growing darkness as we walked down Rowley Way. Together we brought a “tiny act of freedom disguised as play” to fruition.
Nika Dubrovysky, one of the main organisers and David’s widow, adds, “ Here’s the thing about carnivals – they can’t fail. Concerts can fail, exhibitions can fail, book launches can fail. But a carnival? It’s made by everyone participating at once, so it just is what it is – full of contradictions, chaos, and real life defeating death..” Nika shares more of her thoughts on the carnival here.
We thank our collaborators, LEAP Lab Cambridge, all those who conducted the workshops, participants in the workshops and procession, people of Rowley Way and all the curious standerbys. Thanks also to Jarvi Kotkas and Michael Reinsborough for sharing their experiences for this text.
Visual Assembly Vienna
On October 4th, Barış Eser facilitate the visual assembly in Vienna, as a part of the Transition to a (more) socially and environmentally just future conference organised by Josef Mühlbauer, Thomas Stölner, Utta Isop, Michael Wissgott and Uwe Bittlingmayer. The theme of the conference was on anti-authoritarian and anti-hierarchical structures to get to a just future.
The visual assembly gathered seven participants to contrast two future scenarios—one utopian, one dystopian—both rooted in looming ecological collapse, shrinking populations, and the aftermath of state violence. In the utopian track, they built a 2070 free community of interconnected homes, gardens, and democratic spaces, eventually moving underground to escape nuclear meltdowns. In the dystopian track, they designed a nomenklatura‑run society sustained by nuclear power and strict labor, confronting a space‑pirate drug crisis with militarized measures. Linking the worlds, a utopian mineral cured the dystopian addiction while dystopian science offered radiation‑proof construction expertise, sparking collaboration, tension, and emerging social movements that illustrate how hopeful and bleak futures might co-exist.
What’s Next?
Upcoming Public Talks
We continue to bring more lectures, discoveries, and encounters to everyone all over the world. Below is our list of upcoming talks as well as information about new lecture series, we hope to launch soon!
All our talks will be streamed live on the DGI Youtube channel. Don’t forget to subscribe to get the notification when we go live.
Michael Hudson, Ann Pettifor and Steve Keen on Debt Empire and the Future
This week, on October 17th, 2025, 4 PM UK time ( 3 PM, UTC),
Michael Hudson will be joined by Steve Keen and Ann Pettifor as part of our ongoing dialogues on Debt, Empire and the Future. Together, they will discuss:
- How the legacies of imperialism and debt continue to shape the world order;
- What true economic sovereignty for the Global South could look like;
- Practical strategies for rethinking value, debt, and care in a changing world.
These dialogues continue Graeber’s and Hudson’s shared commitment to exposing injustice and imagining new possibilities for global solidarity and economic transformation. Here is the link to the live stream.
Tim Ingold on Sharing time: the work of art in a possible world
“In the world of possibilities, every work begins with an idea in mind, and ends in its realisation. This is work that cuts across. But the creativity of the possible world is like the wind: it carries on through. Its creativity is no less than that of life itself.”-Tim Ingold
Tim Ingold redefines art not as a finished product, but rather as an active process of creative exploration of the world, which inspires people to engage with it and with each other in a world of fluid possibility rather than fixed outcomes. Our projects at DGI, such as the Visual Assembly and the Carnival, are an attempt to explore this concept.
We are thrilled to have him join us and talk about ‘Sharing Time: the work of art in a possible world’ on the 30th October 2025, 6 PM London time ( 5 PM, UTC)
Bakhtin’s Adventure, with Benjamin Paloff
In keeping with the spirit of the carnival, Benjamin Paloff will join for an online lecture on the 14th of November 2025, 4PM UK time (3 PM UTC). Benjamin is a writer and academic whose latest book, Bakhtin’s Adventure: An Essay on Life without Meaning, examines Bakhtin’s thought, linking narrative, ethics, and freedom through the lens of “adventure.” Benjamin’s talk will help us dive back into Bakhtin together and explore how his thought resonates with our current moment. We hope this mix of lecture and collective reading will make the group more alive and open — a space to think, read, and imagine together.”
New lecture Series
Colonial histories
The idea for the series on colonial histories arose to address the limitations of our fragmented understanding of these histories and their entanglements. To understand how colonialism has shaped and continues to shape the current geopolitics, one must examine what happened in the past. That’s why we have been busy contacting experts worldover with a deeper understanding of the colonial histories of specific countries and regions. We are thrilled that Boris Kagarlitsky, Francois Verges, Radha D’Souza, Suchitra Vijayan, Yvonne Adhiambo Owour, and Kadija George who have shared their interest in partcipating and we are in contact with many others. We are currently sorting out the scheduling and will be sharing it soon. We aim to host our first lecture on November 20th 2025, at 6 PM UK time (5 PM UTC), but we will publish details soon on our website.
As always, our lectures will be streamed online. But this year, we also hope to create in-person gathering points — local spaces where people can come together to watch the talks and then join a 20-minute discussion with the speakers. If you have access to a space — a bookstore, cultural/community center, or art venue — and would like to host one of these gatherings, please get in touch at info@davidgraeber.institute
While all the lectures will be in English, we realise this limits the breath of our discussions and scholarship. If you have ideas as to how we could facilitate multilingual discussions in real time, get in touch!
Architecture-Archaeology Forum Series
This will be a new monthly series by the David Graeber Institute and Human Bridges exploring how the design of past societies shaped the way we live — and how it can inspire the future. From ancient cities to modern habitats, we’ll bring together archaeologists, architects, and anthropologists to ask: How do spaces shape societies — and how can they help us rethink what comes next? We will start with the first lecture on 9th January 2026, 6 PM UK time (5 PM UTC). Details will follow soon.
The David Graeber Institute in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Our trip to Saint Vincent will take place from December 5–12, 2025 and we plan to carry out very practical work — building a spirulina farm inside the prison and bringing a 3D printer together with our partners.
All the art actions connected to the Survival Kit Collection and the Museum of Care are now being organized, and everyone interested in joining the discussion is warmly invited to contact us — we’d love to collaborate. Our next trip will be to Nairobi, Kenya and we’d be happy to invite along those who would become part of our first pilot program in the Caribbean.
DGI at Chaos Communication Congress (CCC)
Our Institute has just applied to take part in the Chaos Communication Congress (CCC) — an annual symposium and hacker gathering where thousands of hackers, tech enthusiasts, artists, and utopians come together in Hamburg between Christmas and New Year to share knowledge, connect, and celebrate.
Nika Dubrovsky presented the Anthropology for Kids project there in 2016, and David Graeber participated in 2019.
This year, we’ve proposed to present our Survival Kit Collection together with a discussion on Poetic Technologies and a Visual Assembly that will take place both at the Congress and in other locations simultaneously.
We really hope to join this inspiring event!
Updates to the music library
The music library project is growing, and more and more tracks can be listened on the library page. Take a look at the working-class music collection from the 1970s! Please get in touch (help@davidgraeber.org) if you wish to help us link the tracks!
Updates to davidgraeber.org
David Graeber archive on the davidgraeber.org webpage is updated to include recently published reviews, interviews and articles. All books have now table of contents and we are constantly in the process of growing the multilingual database. Please get in touch help@davidgraeber.org if you know that there are materials in your language not yet represented on our website. The international conference “David Graeber between Anthropology and Philosophy” took place from October 6-8, 2025, in Bologna, Ravenna, and Reggio Emilia, exploring themes from Graeber’s work on human nature, self-governance, and the concept of value.
“The Ultimate Hidden Truth of the World… ” was published in German in August 2025. Ursula Weidenfeld discussed the book on the Deutschlandfunkkultur.de on 1 Sept 2025. Michael Hesse wrote in Frankfurter Rundschau on Oct 12, 2025, that this collection of essays is a good way of diving into the thinking of David Graeber.
Tommaso Bregani’s article on the anthropology of money references Graeber’s view on social obligation and reputation as the foundation of economic life.
Chris Hedges revisited Graeber’s 2012 open letter in his September 2025 article.
Thomas P. Lambert discussed Graeber’s concepts of bullshit jobs and bureaucracy, noting he books by David Graeber – Possibilities, Direct Action, Debt, Bullshit Jobs, The Utopia of Rules, The Dawn of Everything – are among the few genuinely popular Left-wing texts of our time.
The topic of bureaucracy in the light of the ideas by David Graeber is also addressed by Yavor Tarinski.
“Bullshit Jobs” which was translated into Chinese a few years ago has resonated with young workers, as highlighted by Mia Chong in 2025. Additionally, reviews for “Anarchy – In a Manner of Speaking” and “Possibilities” were added, and Girish Shukla included Graeber’s “The Dawn of Everything” in a list of most impactful non-fiction. Volunteers have also identified radio broadcasts featuring Graeber’s ideas from Andrej Grubačić on the Final Straw Radio in January 2022, Shawn and Franz on SRSLY Wrong in June 2024 and Matthew Syed on BBC audio in March 2023.
Many thanks to our volunteers Bryan, Maria Alejandra, Kayla, Sethu, Pere and Nathan for their research work.
Call for collaborators to brainstorm “Archival Assembly”
We are always thrilled to receive new ideas for projects at the DGI. Arielle Lawson wants to start a new project through the model of visual assemblies.Arielle is a PhD student working in the UK, working with social movement materials, focusing in particular on 1970s NYC and London, as well as more tangentially Manchester . Inspired by the examples of the Visual Assembly events and methodologies, she wants to explore these same practices within a more historical and archival context. While she has organised various archival history film nights and events, she’d love to explore what a more creative practice or project of “Archival Assembly” might look like. She is also interested in how these archival materials can mobilise or connect to an expanded political imagination or horizon today. Think collaging or zine-making? Or mapping past and present? If anyone would like to join this discussion or brainstorm, don’t hesitate to get in touch with Arielle: Arielle.lawson@manchester.ac.uk
Call for Volunteers
Interested in jumping in and helping us out? Here is a list of tasks we are currently looking for help:
Public talks on colonial histories: If you would like to host a local gathering for our public talk on colonial histories get in touch at info@davidgraeber.institute
Survival kit collection: if you have ideas to collaborate on the survival kit collection write to us on info@davidgraeber.institute
David Gareber Music library: To help us link new tracks to the library, please get in touch at help@davidgraeber.org
David Graeber Archives: To help us grow the multilingual database of the David Graeber Archives. Please get in touch help@davidgraeber.org
This list is just a tasting. If you are interested in any of our projects, or have ideas you want to share, collaboration you want to start, or worlds you want to build, we are always eager to hear from you help@davidgraeber.org
Support DGI
Inspired by David Graeber’s work, our mission is to unite students, scholars, and local communities in collaborative learning through our public events, talks and community initiatives like the Museum of Care.
Hop aboard with DGI and let’s rock the ship of the status quo. Arrr!