On July 19, 14 years ago, the Rojava Revolution broke out: a star in the night of capitalist modernity, burning with intensity and lightening up the whole world.
Academy of Social Science
@the-academy.bsky.social
Meeting, researching and creating towards a sociology of freedom. academyofsocialscience.org
In "Silent Scream" Aslı Filiz describes the process and meaning behind the realization of the beautiful artwork for the cover of Issue number 1 of Democratic Modernity. The article is now available online! academyofsocialscience.org/2026/07/10/s...
Silent Scream
by Asli Filiz This work is an intimate and deeply charged artistic testimony a visual space where I confront the historical traumas, cultural endurance, and resilient spirit of Êzîdî women. I did n…
academyofsocialscience.org
JOIN THE NEW RESEARCH COMMUNE - DEMOCRATIC CONFEDERALISM AND PREFIGURATION Read the full call on our website and register to participate! academyofsocialscience.org/democratic-c...
Democratic Confederalism and Prefiguration
This commune proposes that we can and must make revolutionary change, now, by changing patterns of everyday life and popular participation rather than waiting to take state power and then transform…
academyofsocialscience.org
David Graeber's "Öcalan as Thinker: On the Unity of Theory and Practice as Form of Writing", published on Issue 01 of Democratic Modernity, is now available online! academyofsocialscience.org/2026/07/03/o...
Öcalan as Thinker: On the Unity of Theory and Practiceas Form of Writing
by David Graeber I want to write a few words on the status of Abdullah Öcalan as a thinker. He has written voluminous works; but outside the Kurdish movement, the world appears to have had a very d…
academyofsocialscience.org
"Democratic Confederalism: a Non-State Political Governance" by Abdullah Öcalan, from Issue 01 of Democratic Modernity, is now available online! academyofsocialscience.org/2026/06/29/d...
Democratic Confederalism: A Non-state Political Governance
by Abdullah Öcalan The democratic confederalist system is democratic modernity’s counterpart of the nation-state, the main state form of official modernity. We can define this as a form of non-stat…
academyofsocialscience.org
✍️New Article Published! "Imagining Freedom in the Kurdish Women's Freedom Movement" by Nazan Üstündağ, from Issue 01 of Democratic Modernity, is now available online! academyofsocialscience.org/2026/06/22/i...
Imagining Freedom in the Kurdish Women’s Freedom Movement
by Nazan Üstündağ This article aims at thinking together with the Kurdish Women’s Freedom Movement about how an anti-colonial form of freedom can be imagined by women. The slogan Jin Jiyan Azadi (W…
academyofsocialscience.org
✍️New Article Published! "A Different Kind of Academy" by Reimar Heider, from Issue 01 of Democratic Modernity, is now available online! academyofsocialscience.org/2026/06/20/a...
A Different Kind of Academy
by Reimar Heider The establishment of a new academy like the Academy of Social Science raises all sorts of questions: What is an academy? Why another academy? Do we need academies? And if so, what …
academyofsocialscience.org
JOIN THE NEW RESEARCH COMMUNE - PEACE CONCEPT OF ABDULLAH ÖCALAN A new Research Commune is estabilished to explore Öcalan's ideas in peace! academyofsocialscience.org/peace/
Peace Concept of Abdullah Öcalan
The number of wars is increasing at an unprecedented rate, with devastating consequences such as bombings, destruction, famine, displacement, genocide, femicide, ecocide, and massive cuts to social…
academyofsocialscience.org
✍️New Article Published! "Women, Knowledge, Life, Freedom" by Laura Fantone, from Issue 01 of Democratic Modernity, is now available online! academyofsocialscience.org/2026/06/16/w...
Women, Knowledge, Life, Freedom
by Laura Fantone Let us say that we are making several revolutions at the same time: the social revolution, the revolution of a democratic nation, the women’s freedom revolution and the revolution …
academyofsocialscience.org
✍️New Article Available! "For the peoples in movement to overcome the current state of things, it is imperative to recuperate the type of world, society, or “values” that the system has cornered and intends to destroy."
Listen to what cannot be heard, look for that which cannot be seen, be attentive to that which overflows from the categories: is this the sociology of freedom? Truth has its basis in the really-existing practices and dreams of everyday communising...
If we are to be truly realistic then we must demand the “impossible.” To refuse reality is to confront a crisis deeper than politics, economy, or society, for even our language itself must be recovered and relearned — so that we may finally write the words that speak.
JOIN THE NEW RESEARCH COMMUNE - DEMOCRATIC FOODWAYS: BIOCULTURAL LANDSCAPES AND CUISINES This research commune aims to focus on existing and past experiments in autonomous foodways.
"Food and Social Nature: Foundation for Democratic Modernity" by Harriet Friedmann, from Issue 01 of Democratic Modernity, is now available online!
Without hope we are paralyzed, unable to create. But what hope is possible in today's world? "On Democratic Modernity; Or, To Hope in the Aftermath" by Nik Matheou, from the First Issue of Democratic Modernity, is now available online! academyofsocialscience.org/2026/05/08/o...
On Democratic Modernity; Or, To Hope in the Aftermath
By Nik Matheou Hauntings of Capitalist Modernity I start from the principle of hope.1 Hope is the very stuff of our ability to create meaningful bonds, relationships, lives and worlds. Why commit t…
academyofsocialscience.org
"Power lies not only in institutions but in how people make sense of their world; hegemony is a political and cultural process. Art, in its most valid form, is a powerful force for change." ✍️ Benedetta Argentieri academyofsocialscience.org/2026/04/20/a...
Art Under Capitalism
By Benedetta Argentieri On Monday morning, April 26, 1937, in the small Basque town of Guernica, women and children — the only inhabitants left since all the men were fighting in the Spanish Civil …
academyofsocialscience.org
On April 1st we will be in Milano! Havin Guneser and Anna Clara Basilicò will introduce the Academy of Social Science, its communes, and the journal Democratic Modernity as a collective platform for anti-oppressive, decolonial, bottom-up learning, research, and political education.
We are excited to take part in the 2 day conference "The Kurdistan Freedom Movement at a Crossroads" on the 26th and 27th of March at the University of Torino.
Il tour di presentazioni continua! Presto saremo in Italia per presentare l'Accademia di Scienza Sociale, la rivista Democratic Modernity e per condividere un invito a partecipare alle comuni di ricerca. Maggiori informazioni saranno presto disponibili!
The tour of talks continues! We will soon be in Italy to present the newly founded Academy of Social Science, the journal Democratic Modernity and to make a call to join research communes. More information will soon be available!
The article "Defending Society is Defending Life" by Havin Guneser, from the first issue of the Journal Democratic Modernity, is now available online! academyofsocialscience.org/2026/03/12/d...
Defending Society is Defending Life
By Havin Guneser James Ussher was an Anglican bishop and the Archbishop of Armagh in the seventeenth century. Ussher is famous for calculating the creation of the world based on genealogies in scri…
academyofsocialscience.org
Some pictures from the talks in Berlin on February 20th and 21st. The presentations took place at Humboldt University, moderated by Alice von Bieberstein, and at the Kurdish Community Center.
Some pictures from the presentation and talk held by Harriet Friedmann and Havin Guneser on the 13th of Feburary at the University of Toronto.
JIN JIYAN AZADÎ HÊVÎ JI BO SEDSALA 21'EMÎN 21.02.2026 16.00-18.00 Komel Berlin (Residenzstraße 53-54, 13409 Berlin)
WOMEN LIFE FREEDOM HOPE FOR THE 21ST CENTURY 21.02.2026 16.00-18.00 Kurdish Community Center (Residenzstraße 53-54, 13409 Berlin)
WOMEN, LIFE, FREEDOM, HOPE FOR THE 21ST CENTURY February 24, 2:30-4PM D492 Loeb Building, Carleton University, Ottawa
WOMEN, LIFE, FREEDOM, HOPE FOR THE 21ST CENTURY 13 Feburary, 3-5 PM BA 2135, Bahen Building, 40 St George Street, Toronto
The Editorial of issue 01 of Democratic Modernity, written by Patrick Huff and the Editorial Collective, is now available online!
WOMEN, LIFE, FREEDOM, HOPE FOR THE 21ST CENTURY 20 February, 16:00-18:00 Lichthof Ost, Humboldt University, Berlin This talk, moderated by Alice von Bieberstein, will introduce the Academy of Social Science, its research communes, and the Journal Democratic Modernity.
The workers of @pmpress.bsky.social share a message of solidarity with Rojava: "More than 125 years ago, the rallying cry of the international working class, and their opposition to capitalism, nationalism, imperialism and war, was "The Workers of the World Have No Country".