Cactus Book Club with C21: Attensity!

C21’s Story Cart program invites you to join Katie Waddell, C21 Managing Director, for the April 2026 edition of the Cactus Book Club.

Cactus Book Club meets on the first Wednesday of the month from 5:30-7:30 in the back room at Cactus Club. Each month a different community organization, collective, mutual aid group, or business chooses a book and recommended bookseller, then leads the discussion. 

The April selection, Attensity! A Manifesto of the Attention Liberation Movement by The Friends of Attention, expands upon the attention activist manifesto championed by C21’s partners at the Strother School of Radical Attention, and offers an opportunity for the attention activism-curious to explore why our attention matters, how to choose attentional agency over digital enthrallment, and why awareness is even better with friends.

C21’s recommended bookseller is Boswell Book Company. Mention Cactus Book Club at checkout to receive a 10% discount!

Registration for this event is not required, however, the first TEN people to RSVP for this event will receive a FREE copy of Attensity! A Manifesto of the Attention Liberation Movement, compliments of C21. Register below.

We have THREE (3) books left to give away as of January 26!

About Attensity!: A Manifesto of the Attention Liberation Movement

“We all feel it: something is seriously wrong. Our attention—that essential ability to give our minds and senses to the world—is being trapped, gutted, and sold out from under us by an industry of immense technological and financial power. The heedless exploitation of this vital capacity by a handful of tech companies is harming us all, reducing our very selfhood to that which can be quantified, bought, and sold—and shaking the foundations of our democracy.

To push back against this “human fracking,” we need more than individual willpower or isolated efforts. We need a movement of collective resistance. Such a movement is beginning to bloom, and in this radical, first-of-its-kind guide, The Friends of Attention show us how to join the fight. We meet welders, nurses, poets, and surfers, all of whom are engaged in attentional practices. We learn to seek out sanctuaries—theaters and museums, houses of worship, dance parties—where together we can take refuge from the frackers. Attention Activism takes our apocalyptic present, turns it on its head, and reveals new vistas of human flourishing.

Drawing on a rich legacy of critical intellectuals and the creative wisdom of diverse traditions, Attensity! calls on us to come together to defeat the greedy dehumanizing forces of brute instrumentalization—and re-enchant the world.” Read on…

The Friends of Attention is a collective of activists, artists, and thinkers. Three editors and long-standing “Friends” helped Attensity! take shape: D. Graham Burnett is the Henry Charles Lea Professor of history of science at Princeton University. Alyssa Loh, a filmmaker, co-directed the short film “Twelve Theses on Attention.” Peter Schmidt is the Program Director of the Strother School of Radical Attention.

About Cactus Club

Cactus Book Club (CBC), organized by Cactus+, meets on the first Wednesday of the month from 5:30-7:30 in the back room at Cactus Club. Each month a different community organization, collective, mutual aid group, or business chooses the book and recommended bookseller, then leads the discussion. CBC covers sociopolitical fiction and non-fiction, with a focus on works by women, LGBTQ+, BIPOC, and/or otherwise under-published groups. Members don’t have to finish reading the book to attend. All book club meetings are free. Registration is not required. 18+.

About Story Cart: Attention

Story Cart is a mobile story collection program that travels to community spaces and engages Milwaukeeans in conversations about their lived experiences. Our Story Fellows craft questions related to the current C21 research theme, record participant responses to those questions, and add them to our Story Cart digital archive (forthcoming). Supported by the Wisconsin Institute for Citizenship and Civil Dialogue, Story Cart’s current run introduces Milwaukeeans to practices of radical attention. From September 2025 through May 2026, our community Story Fellows will lead workshop pop-ups throughout the city and will record discussions with participants about the experience of paying attention.