Anarchist Essays
Brought to you by Loughborough University’s Anarchism Research Group (ARG), Anarchist Essays presents leading academics, activists, and thinkers exploring themes in anarchist theory, history, and practice. For more on the ARG, please visit https://www.lboro.ac.uk/subjects/politics-international-studies/research/arg/ and follow us on Twitter at @arglboro
Listen on:
Episodes
Monday Dec 04, 2023
Monday Dec 04, 2023
In this essay, Benjamin Franks identifies the core principles that lead anarchists to reject participation in democratic elections. It then explores the occasions where anarchists have engaged in different forms of electoral engagement and showing the particular conditions that make some constitutional interventions compatible with anarchist principles.
Benjamin Franks is a Senior Lecturer in Social and Political Philosophy, School of Social and Environmental Sustainability, University of Glasgow. His most recent publications are: Anarchism, Postanarchism and Ethics (Rowman and Littlefield, 2020) and (2020) “Four models of anarchist engagements with constitutionalism”. Theory in Action, 13(1), pp. 32-69.
Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Twitter @arglboro.
Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns).
Artwork by Sam G.
Monday Nov 20, 2023
Monday Nov 20, 2023
In this essay, Carne explores the spiritual dimension of anarchism, which he once assumed was more a ‘political’ philosophy about how people make decisions and transact business. He concludes that there is indeed a vital spiritual element and moreover that anarchism centres love and human connection at its core.
Carne Ross is a writer. His most recent book is ‘The Leaderless Revolution: how ordinary people will take power and change politics in the 21st century’. His articles, films and other writing can be found at carneross.com.
Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Twitter @arglboro.
Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns).
Artwork by Sam G.
Monday Nov 06, 2023
Monday Nov 06, 2023
In this essay, William Marling asks why there seems to be so much rhetoric in/about anarchism. He digs for an answer in his recent book on Ammon Hennacy, finding an answer in the practice of "parrhesia," or speaking truth to power.
William Marling is Professor of American Literature and Film at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, USA. His most recent books are Christian Anarchist: The Life of Ammon Hennacy and Gatekeepers: The Emergence of World Literature.
Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Twitter @arglboro.
Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns).
Artwork by Sam G.
Monday Oct 23, 2023
Monday Oct 23, 2023
In this essay, Rhiannon Firth reads from an article published in DOPE Magazine issue 22, which is part 2 of a 2-part summary of her latest book, Disaster Anarchy: Mutual Aid and Radical Action, published by Pluto Press last Autumn. In it, she offers a response to the question: Do anarchist approaches to disaster relief have more to offer beyond state-friendly 'social capital', mopping up the failures of the austere neoliberal state? How do anarchists engaged in disaster relief stay radical, rather than just papering over the cracks in a failing neoliberal system?
Rhiannon Firth is Lecturer in Sociology of Education at IOE, UCL's faculty of Education and Society. Her most recent publication is Disaster Anarchy: Mutual Aid and Radical Action (Pluto 2022) and she is soon to publish the co-edited volume Utopian and Dystopian Explorations of Pandemics and Ecological Breakdown: Entangled Futurities (Palgrave, 2024).
Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Twitter @arglboro.
Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns).
Artwork by Sam G.
Monday Oct 09, 2023
Monday Oct 09, 2023
In this essay, Gabriele Montalbano considers the Italian-speaking anarchists of the end of the nineteenth century and their involvement and legacy in trade union movements and strikes in Tunis during the first decade of the twentieth century. This essay demonstrates the connection between diasporas, anarchism, and labour movements, and the place of Tunis in the global radical network.
For the English version of the talk: 00.41 - 16:07For the Italian version of the talk: 16.11 - 30.31
Gabriele Montalbano is Postdoctoral Researcher and Adjunct Professor in History of Colonial and Postcolonial Spaces and in History of Maghreb at the University of Bologna. His most recent publications are ‘Tunis in the Global Radical Web’ and Les Italiens de Tunisie.
Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Twitter @arglboro.
Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns).
Artwork by Sam G.
Monday Sep 25, 2023
Monday Sep 25, 2023
In this essay, Javier Sethness Castro presents a new, queer reading of Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy's life and art. By referencing homoeroticism in Tolstoy's diaries and comparing the anarchist writer's libidinal and political desires with historical and literary examples of uprisings and revolts, Sethness highlights the liberatory potential of queer anarchism and sexual revolution.
Javier Sethness Castro is a primary-care provider, author, and translator. His most recent publications are Queer Tolstoy: A Psychobiography and Eros and Revolution: The Critical Philosophy of Herbert Marcuse.
Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group. Follow us on Twitter @arglboro
Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns).
Artwork by Sam G.
Monday Sep 11, 2023
Monday Sep 11, 2023
In this essay, Ryan Essex considers what anarchy could do for health and healthcare. Drawing on a number of historical and contemporary examples he argues that anarchist thinking and praxis is too often overlooked and has the potential to radically alter how we approach health.
Ryan Essex is a Research Fellow at the University of Greenwich. His most recent publications include explorations into the intersections of healthcare and resistance and anarchy and health.
Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns).
Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group. Follow us on Twitter @arglboro
Artwork by Sam G.
Monday Aug 28, 2023
Monday Aug 28, 2023
In this essay, Clara Vlessing looks at the cultural memory of Louise Michel (1830-1905). The essay compares Michel’s domestic remembrance with her international afterlives to explore how an anarchist individual is adopted, appropriated or taken as the nominal leader for many different causes.
Clara Vlessing is a lecturer in comparative literature at Utrecht University. Her most recent article “Campaigns to Remember: Writing in the Afterlives of Sylvia Pankhurst” appears in Nineteenth Century Gender Studies. Her chapter "Scarcity in Visual Memory: Creating a Mural of Sylvia Pankhurst” is included in the newly published edited collection The Visual Memory of Protest (Amsterdam University Press).
Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns).
Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group. Follow us on Twitter @arglboro
Artwork by Sam G.
Monday Aug 14, 2023
Monday Aug 14, 2023
In this essay, Robert Leach discusses the gradual awakening of British radicals after the sleepy 1950s, especially some of the festivals that they mounted.
Robert Leach is former lecturer at Edinburgh and Birmingham Universities, freelance theatre director, and writer. His most recent works include the two-volume Illustrated History of British Theatre and Performance, the biography Sergei Tretyakov: A Revolutionary Writer in Stalin’s Russia, and the poetry collection Unraveled Knots.
Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group. For more information on the ARG, visit www.lboro.ac.uk/subjects/politics-international-studies/research/arg/ . You can follow us on Twitter @arglboro
Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Hear more at https://soundcloud.com/user-178917365
Artwork by Sam G: https://www.instagram.com/passerinecreations
Monday Jul 31, 2023
Monday Jul 31, 2023
In this essay, Chi Shing LEE discusses the relationship between anarchism and nationalism. He introduces the anarchist thought of Ng Chung-yin, an important anarchist figure in Hong Kong during the early 1970s, and elaborates how his anarchism exposes the contingency of the concept of national origin.
Chi Shing LEE is a PhD Candidate at Chinese University of Hong Kong. His most recent publication is "The utopian homeland: new left internationalism, diasporic Chinese nationalism, and anarchism in Hong Kong, 1969–1973.” The Global Sixties: An Interdisciplinary Journal 16 (1): 1-21.
Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns).
Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group. Follow us on Twitter @arglboro
Artwork by Sam G.