We live in a time when many are asked to survive what can only be called monstrous: authoritarianism, war, state violence, environmental destruction, economic insecurity, forced displacement, attacks on civil rights, and the everyday cruelties of systems built to dehumanize.
But monsters are not only figures we fear. They live in our stories, our myths, our politics, our histories, and our imaginations. They are used to mark some of us as dangerous, disposable, foreign, criminal, or less than human. Sometimes the monster is the system. Sometimes the monster is the story we have inherited. Sometimes we are the ones made into monsters in someone else’s version of the world.
This year’s theme, A Time of Monsters: A Time to Fight, invites us to ask: Who names the monster, and for what purpose? What are we being taught to fear? What forms of violence are normalized? What old monsters are returning under new names, and what new ones are being produced by technology, empire, capitalism, borders, policing, and ecological collapse?
And crucially, how do we fight back?
Across history, ordinary people have confronted fascism, exploitation, racism, militarism, patriarchy, colonialism, surveillance, and repression. They have resisted not only through protest and direct action, but also through education, art, mutual aid, labor organizing, storytelling, music, community care, and the stubborn act of imagining a different world.
We invite panelists, writers, organizers, artists, educators, students, workers, and community members to explore the monsters of our time and the movements rising to meet them. What must be challenged, transformed, or dismantled? What fears must be unlearned? What solidarities must be strengthened? When do we need to be the monster? What can history teach us about resisting cruelty without losing our humanity?
At a time when so much is designed to isolate, divide, and exhaust us, the Howard Zinn Book Fair offers a space to think together, learn together, and remember that the fight for justice is also a fight for imagination, connection, and collective life.
We can’t wait to gather with you in San Francisco on Sunday, December 6, 2026.
Session applications will open soon.
This is a curated event. To propose a panel for the Howard Zinn Book Fair, please fill out this form. The Coordinating Committee looks for panels and talks that will spark congenial debate, promote grassroots struggles, are inclusive and examine the People’s History. We will not approve panels designed to scapegoat marginalized communities. Priority proposal deadline August 1, 2025. Acceptance letters will be sent out in early September.
Vendor applicaitons will open soon.
The Howard Zinn Book Fair welcomes about 2500 readers each year. Our volunteer Coordinating Crew could use your help!
Howard Zinn was a historian, writer and activist most famously known for a People’s History of the United States. His work popularized the practice of telling a “history from below” of workers, women, immigrants, racialized people, LGBTQ+ people, dissidents and radicals. To learn more about his legacy visit our friends at the Zinn Ed Project and HowardZinn.org.
Masks required and provided.
Panelists may choose to remove them while presenting.
Using a Disability Justice lens, this year we scheduled 30 minutes between sessions instead of 15 minutes. This allows everyone attending to have the opportunity for a physical, emotional, and intellectual break between sessions. This break also allows folks who need more time to move from room to room not to feel rushed or enter the room after the session has started.
Please avoid driving to the Howard Zinn Book Fair. The Mission Campus of City College of San Francisco is at 1125 Valencia Street; two blocks from 24th Street BART. Nearby MUNI lines are the 14, 14R, 49, and 48.
Childcare is provided by the Early Childhood Education Department of City College of San Francisco. The childcare facilities can be found in the courtyard.
