Featured Events in Oakland in July, 2025 (August Updated)

Oakland Roots & Oakland Soul SC will be hosting a 3 day camp for the community at UCSF Health Oakland Roots & Soul Performance Center. No guests allowed, only campers. Additional details and the required waiver will be emailed to participants once they have registered. DATE(S): Thursday, July 17th | 9 AM - 12 PM @ UCSF Health Oakland Roots & Soul Performance Center Friday, July 18th | 9 AM - 12 PM @ UCSF Health Oakland Roots & Soul Performance Center Saturday, July 19th | 9 AM - 12 PM @ UCSF Health Oakland Roots & Soul Performance Center Ticket Pricing: $279 prior to May 18th $300 on or after May 18th FAQs: What time does check-in start? 8:30-9:00 AM PT each day Can guests watch from the sidelines or enter the facility? No guests or parents are allowed to remain on the property during the camp. Are there age requirements? Open to all youth ages 5 to 12. *All campers must have their parent/guardian complete their waiver forms during the registration process.* What should I bring to the camp? Campers will need their own cleats, socks, gloves (goalkeepers), shin guards, water and your own soccer ball. What do I need to check-in at the camp? Please bring an ID, plus confirmation of registration (email receipt, printed ticket, or mobile ticket). What if it rains? Camp will take place rain or shine. Are there any scholarships available? As part of our commitment to making soccer accessible to the community we are offering a limited amount of scholarships for players with financial hardship or other reason for needing a fee waiver/discount. Please email info@rootssc.com by July 14, 2025 for more information. What is the refund policy? No refunds. What if I have more questions? Contact us at info@rootssc.com. Information Source: Oakland Roots SC | eventbrite

Please join us for a conversation between Jamie Hood and Elisabeth Nicula on Jamie's Trauma Plot: A Life at Womb House Books. Order your copy of Trauma Plot In the thick of lockdown, 2020, poet, critic, and memoirist Jamie Hood published her debut, how to be a good girl, an interrogation of modern femininity and the narratives of love, desire, and violence yoked to it. The Rumpus praised Hood’s “bold vulnerability,” and Vogue named it a Best Book of 2020. In Trauma Plot, Hood draws on disparate literary forms to tell the story that lurked in good girl’s margins—of three decades marred by sexual violence and the wreckage left behind. With her trademark critical remove, Hood interrogates the archetype of the rape survivor, who must perform penitence long after living through the unthinkable, invoking some of art’s most infamous women to have played the role: Ovid’s Philomela, David Lynch’s Laura Palmer, and Artemisia Gentileschi, who captured Judith’s wrath. In so doing, she asks: What do we as a culture demand of survivors? And what do survivors, in turn, owe a world that has abandoned them? Trauma Plot is a scalding work of personal and literary criticism. It is a send-up of our culture’s pious disdain for “trauma porn,” a dirge for the broken promises of #MeToo, and a paean to finding life after death. Jamie Hood is the author of how to be a good girl, one of Vogue’s Best Books of 2020, and regards, marcel, a monthly newsletter on Proust and other miscellany. Her essays and criticism have appeared in The Baffler, Bookforum, The Nation, Los Angeles Review of Books, The New Inquiry, The Drift, and elsewhere. She lives in Brooklyn. Elisabeth Nicula is an artist whose internet-based projects combine sculpture, photography, video, drawings, and text. Her essays about art and nature have appeared in Momus, Small Press Traffic’s The Back Room, SFMOMA’s Open Space, New Life Quarterly Magazine, PAPER Magazine, and elsewhere. She amassed over 100,000 photographs of two California scrub jays over a five-year period of deep observation and friendship. Smooth Friend is her ad hoc small press for publishing new short fiction and poetry online and in pamphlet-style books. San Francisco Review of Whatever is a second publication for critical writing on art and other subjects. She was born in Norfolk, Virginia and currently lives in San Francisco. Information Source: Womb House Books | eventbrite

Queer Canvas: A Sex-Positive Queer Art Market & Walk Step into a celebration of creativity, identity, and unapologetic queer expression at Queer Canvas, a vibrant art walk and marketplace featuring LGBTQ+ artists and vendors. From bold paintings to sensual sculptures, handmade fashion to boundary-pushing photography, this immersive experience showcases the powerful intersection of artistry and queerness. Browse stalls filled with one-of-a-kind creations that honor queer joy, desire, and self-expression. Meet the artists, support queer-owned businesses, and take home a piece that speaks to your soul. Interactive exhibits and live performances bring the event to life, inviting you to engage, connect, and celebrate the beauty of queer creativity in all its forms. Whether you're an artist, collector, or admirer, Queer Canvas is a space to explore, uplift, and revel in the power of sex-positive queer art. 📅 Date:July 12th -1:00pm-9:00pm 📍 Location: 51 Embarcadero Cove, Oakland, CA 🎟️ Tickets: Free! Information Source: eventbrite

Join us for a celebration and exploration of the American Girl doll-verse at Womb House Books with co-editor Justine Orlovsky-Schnitzler. After a conversation with WHB owner Jessica Ferri, Orlovsky-Schnitzler will answer questions from the audience and sign copies of the book. Order your copy now An American Girl Anthology: Finding Ourselves in the Pleasant Company Universe turns American Girl dolls—and the ever-growing ecosystem surrounding them—inside out. Editors Justine Orlovsky-Schnitzler and KC Hysmith, along with an expansive list of contributors across multiple disciplines and within different research areas, explore Pleasant Company (American Girl’s parent corporation) and the social and cultural impact the dolls and broader American Girl universe continue to have for generations of American consumers through thoughtful and fun essays. This collection serves as an ode to the democratizing power of the internet and the intoxicating power of nostalgia, while also looking toward the future as the eldest American Girl fans become parents themselves. It is also a critical account of the ways in which American Girl has shaped senses of self-worth and hopes for the future, securing a base of lifelong consumers, and also serves as a love letter to the kids we collectively used to be. Along the way, readers will take seriously American Girl’s influence and place within larger cultural conversations. They will find essays focusing on topics as diverse as food and historical recipes in American Girl publications, the advent of “tag yourself” memes, the struggle to find authentic and long-lasting Asian American representation within the pages of the American Girl catalog, and the enduring power of The Care and Keeping of You as a resource for finding joy in our bodies. Justine Orlovsky-Schnitzler is a writer and folklorist. She is a frequent contributor to Lilith magazine, and her work has also been featured in Southern Cultures, the Bitter Southerner, In geveb, and the New York Times. Information Source: Womb House Books | eventbrite

Join Bike East Bay for an interactive, hands-on workshop where we will review the basic process of fixing a flat and inner tube patching, as well as strategies to avoid flats. Bring your own flat tire or use one of our class demos! No prior experience is necessary to attend this class. — This class is made possible via funding from the Alameda County Transportation Commission. Information Source: Bike East Bay Education Program | eventbrite

Join us for a dyanmic evening with the editors and authors, movement communicators, cultural strategists, and scholars, who have not only contributed to the Radical Communicators Network anthology Liberation Stories: Building Narrative Power for 21st Century Social Movements (New Press, June 2025), but have actively shaped progressive and leftist narratives in some of the most important social movements of our time. Co-editors, Shanelle Matthews and Marzena Zukowska, along with co-authors Pamela Mejia, Amanda Cooper, Asha E DuMonthier and Olivia Blockerwill go behind-the-scenes of the six-year journey of creating the first anthology written by and for social justice communicators, explore the power of documenting movement work, offer a first reading of experts from the anthology and engage with co-authors in a participatory discussion on the future of narrative power. Constructing the world we envision, one story at a time.In Liberation Stories: Building Narrative Power for 21st Century Social Movements, today's foremost progressive and leftist communicators, organizers, artists, journalists, and academics share their collective insights in one powerful volume. Featuring in-depth case studies of both contemporary and historical movements, Liberation Stories distills successful theories, strategies, and tactics for anyone wanting to understand—and participate in—the diverse initiatives currently shaping our society. As far-right and conservative movements gain traction worldwide—attacking our books, our bodies, and our democracies—Liberation Storiesemerges as a vital resource for constructing the world we envision, one story at a time. Shanelle Matthews is the founder of Radical Communicators Network (RadComms), the former communications director for the Movement for Black Lives, and a former faculty member of Freedom Scholars at The New School. Today, she is a full-time Distinguished Lecturer at City College at the City University of New York in the Department of Anthropology and Interdisciplinary Studies. She lives in New York. Marzena Zukowska is an organizer, communications strategist, and co-founder of the immigrant rights organization POMOC. For a decade, they have developed narrative and organizing strategies for leading social and political movements in the US, UK, and Europe. They are the former media director for National Domestic Workers Alliance and former leadership team member of the Radical Communicators Network. They live in Liverpool, England. Diana Huynh has been a proud member of the Radical Communicators Network since 2018 and joined the Leadership Team in 2023. She is a communications worker with more than 20 years of experience in the fields of journalism, nonprofits, and philanthropy and on areas such as community collaborative research and data, education equity, and racial justice. While she currently lives in Seattle, she carries in her heart the Mekong Delta, her mother's home. Radical Communicators Network (RadComms) is a community of practice for emerging and experienced movement and communications workers. RadComms builds narrative power for a just and liberatory future. Information Source: Liberation Stories | eventbrite