Essay #77: Nolan Bennett, ‘Alexander Berkman’s Anti-Prison Anarchism’

In this essay, Nolan Bennett traces through Alexander Berkman's 1912 Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist an unresolved tension between two approaches to the prison: advocacy for political prisoners and advocacy against the politics of prisons. Berkman's ambivalence between these approaches amid his memoirs and later activism signify the book's importance and point toward enduring tensions in contemporary prison politics.

Nolan Bennett is a political theorist and assistant professor of Democracy and Justice Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. Nolan's most recent publications are "The Ambivalence of Alexander Berkman's Anti-Prison Anarchism" and "George Jackson's Perfect Disorder."

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