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
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Episodes
Monday Aug 09, 2021
Monday Aug 09, 2021
In this essay, Ruth Kinna discusses Peter Kropotkin's defence of communism. Exploring his idea of 'well-being for all' she argues that libertarian communism entails re-thinking economic principles and tailoring productive activity to mutual aid.
Ruth Kinna is a founder member of the Anarchism Research Group. She has taught a variety of courses in political theory and the history of ideas, including anarchism, at Loughborough University since 1992.
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 26, 2021
Monday Jul 26, 2021
In this essay, Jon Bigger sets out the case for an anarchist ‘exploration’ of the BBC TV drama Doctor Who.
Jon tutors in A-Level Government and Politics in the UK, regularly contributes to anarchist newspaper Freedom and can be found on twitter @DrJonBigger or at his website https://jonbigger.uk/
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 12, 2021
Monday Jul 12, 2021
In this essay, about the islands of southern Vanuatu, which presents an alternative to the traditional Western Civilisation narrative, James Flexner explores the ways that a 5,000 year history of domestication, island colonisation, and agricultural practices contributed to the anti-hierarchical nature of Island Melanesian societies. Chiefly status in southern Vanuatu derived from mass gifting of agricultural surpluses during competitive feasting events, which limited possibilities for the establishment of permanent hierarchies.
James Flexner is senior lecturer in historical archaeology at the University of Sydney. He is a member of the Black Trowel Collective group of anarchist archaeologists. His books include Archaeologies of Island Melanesia (co-edited with Mathieu Leclerc, and Community-Led Research: Walking New Pathways Together (co-edited with Victoria Rawlings and Lynette Riley), which are both available as a free download/Open Access.
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 Jun 28, 2021
Monday Jun 28, 2021
In this essay, Sky Croeser reflects on her experience attempting to make anarchist interventions into university teaching, including teaching online. She suggests some ways in which university teachers might work to undermine hierarchies, rethink assessment, encourage collaboration, and help students to imagine radical change.
Sky Croeser lives and works on Noongar Boodja, and is Senior Lecturer in Internet Studies at Curtin University. Sky’s research focuses on understanding how people use and change the technologies of everyday life. You can find out more about her research and teaching at skycroeser.net
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 Jun 14, 2021
Monday Jun 14, 2021
In this essay, Lauren Golder looks at gendered interpretations of free love and sex radicalism through the life of American anarchist-feminist Voltairine de Cleyre (1866-1912). During the Gilded Age, anarchist men often interpreted free love as a path to personal fulfillment and sexual liberation, while anarchist women saw it as a way to achieve reproductive freedom and bodily autonomy. De Cleyre believed that anarchist free love was women's best hope for freedom from patriarchal oppression, a position which was reinforced by her experience of unwanted pregnancy and encounters with misogyny both within and outside of the anarchist movement.
Lauren Golder teaches History and Gender Studies at Santa Monica College and Victor Valley College in California. Her research explores the intersections of American anarchism, gender, and intimate life, and she is working on a book tentatively titled Intimate Experiments: Free Love, Domesticity, and Feminism in the American Anarchist Movement, 1880-1920. For more information, see https://laurengolder.com/
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 May 31, 2021
Monday May 31, 2021
In this essay, Alexander Aston investigates the relationship between urban ecology, social cognition and the emergence of the Paris Commune of 1871. He considers how an anti-cartesian process-anarchism might inform strategies for social transformation by examining self-organising dynamics of people, artefacts, and institutions during the Commune.
Alexander lectures on Anthropology and Archaeology at Keble College, Oxford. His research explores how material culture shapes the evolution and development of human social cognition. His most recent publications are, How the Cycladic Islanders Found Their Marbles: Material Engagement, Social Cognition and the Emergence of Keros and Metaplasticity and the boundaries of social cognition: exploring scalar transformations in social interaction and intersubjectivity.
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 May 17, 2021
Monday May 17, 2021
In this essay, Anders Sandström explores the history of accounting and argues for the need for accounting and bookkeeping also in a future anarchist economy without private capital owners.
Anders Sandström is a trained accountant with a degree from Uppsala University and the author of Anarchist Accounting (Routledge 2020).
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 May 03, 2021
Monday May 03, 2021
In this essay, Deaglán Ó Donghaile discusses Oscar Wilde’s interest in and support for anarchism. Anarchism influenced Wilde’s literary writings enormously, yet he is still regarded by many readers as an apolitical writer. Drawing on research carried out for his next book, Revolutionary Wilde, Deaglán contextualises these works by relating them to Wilde’s openly professed radical beliefs, as expressed in his public lectures and now-forgotten newspaper writings.
Deaglán Ó Donghaile is a British Academy Research Fellow based at Liverpool John Moores University. His latest book is Oscar Wilde and the Radical Politics of the Fin de Siècle.
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 Apr 19, 2021
Monday Apr 19, 2021
In this essay, Craig Clark explores the incompatibility of publishing that hopes to shape events and the publishing industry – and some anarchised alternatives.
Craig Clark is a member of the Dog Section Press workers’ cooperative and an editor of DOPE Magazine. This essay draws on his experience of several years of involvement in various attempts to spread propaganda, with varying degrees of success.
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 Apr 05, 2021
Monday Apr 05, 2021
In this essay, Jack Saunders explores our complex relationship with the NHS, its staff and its history.
Jack Saunders is Lecturer in modern British history at University College London. He is author of Assembling Cultures: Workplace Activism, Labour Militancy and Cultural Change in Britain's Car Factories, 1945-82 (2020) and has published widely on the history of work in post-war Britain. This essay draws on his research for the People's History of the NHS project, some of which will published in the forthcoming edited volume by Jenny Crane and Jane Hand, Posters, Placards and Prescriptions: Cultural Histories of the NHS.
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