ASN members secure £250k research grant from the ESRC. See here
Rowman & Littlefield Int publish two book series by ASN members Saul Newman and Ruth Kinna
Welcome to the Anarchist Studies Network website
This is the official website for the Anarchist Studies Network a Political Studies Association (UK), Specialist Group for the Study of Anarchism.
Conveners: Ruth Kinna (Loughborough) and Uri Gordon (Loughborough)
Treasurer: Alex Christoyannopoulos (Loughborough)
To join this group, and to be signed up to the group's email list, please contact the membership secretary Benjamin Franks: benjamin.franks@ glasgow.ac.uk.
ASN members receive a £5 discount on the academic journal Anarchist Studies. Just ask Benjamin for more details.
12-14 September 2018 // Loughborough University, U.K.
Central theme: Decolonize
The fight against domination and destruction continues under heavy clouds. A global wave of resistance has once again been met with reaction, as elites turn to barefaced nationalism, racism and misogyny. For the world's majority, such oppression is neither surprising nor new, given the enduring legacy of colonialism and by-now-established forms of neo-colonial exploitation. Meanwhile, hegemonic discourses show a frustrating capacity to co-opt and neutralise: converting anti-capitalism into welfare-populism, ecological resistance into green consumption, and militant intersectionality into liberal identity politics. Anarchist literature and organising are not automatically immune to these problems; posing ideas and practices that are radically free from domination requires critical reflection on assumptions and truths, including one’s own. Despite challenges, anarchists have sustained and grown multiple sites of resistance as well as constructive projects, while boldly spearheading the confrontation with the far right. Confident that the tide will turn again, the flame remains kindled. In these uncertain times, the elaboration of anarchist analysis bridging theory and practice, scholarly rigour and the insights of social movements, is as necessary as ever.
ASN conferences aim to breach new frontiers in anarchist scholarship, and encourage cross-pollination between disciplines. The central theme for this conference is DECOLONISATION, which we hope will inspire many of the presentations and panels. The purpose is twofold: to stimulate discussion of colonialism and racism as forms of oppression that anarchists oppose, but which continue to be felt in anarchist organising; and to welcome individuals, groups and communities who have not previously participated in ASN events. By recognising the legacy of non-western and anti-colonial thought and action in the anarchist tradition, we want to strengthen the ties between contemporary anarchists and decolonial theory and practice in the struggle against oppression, and to use the recognition of racist and Eurocentric practices and mind-frames to open up the event to marginalised groups.
We are delighted to announce that CAS has teamed up with Manchester University Press to publish the latest work in anarchist studies that bridges the scholar activist divide. The new series website can now be found here
Previously published titles are still available through Bloomsbury Press, here
In 2016 we are delighted to be publishing The autonomous life?: Paradoxes of hierarchy and authority in the squatters movement in Amsterdam, by Nazima Kadir.
The following titles are forthcoming too:
Anarchy in Athens: An ethnography of militancy, emotions and violence by Nicholas Apoifis (coming Autumn 2016)
Cooking up a revolution: Food Not Bombs, Homes Not Jails, and resistance to gentrification by Sean Parson (coming Autumn 2016)
Black flags and social movements : A sociological analysis of movement Anarchism by Dana M. Williams (coming Autumn 2016)
Call for proposals
Launched in 2010, Contemporary Anarchist Studies is the first peer-reviewed monograph series in anarchist studies by a university press. The series promotes the study of anarchism as a framework for understanding and acting on the most pressing problems of our times, showcasing research that exemplifies cutting edge, socially engaged scholarship, bridging theory and practice, academic rigour and the insights of contemporary activism.
All books published in the series are widely promoted and distributed internationally, in the United States by Oxford University Press, and published under a Creative Commons (2.0) License, which ensures that permission for non-commercial reproduction of the books is granted by the publishers free of charge to voluntary, campaign and community groups. The general format of the series is simultaneous hardback and paperback publication, with the latter priced affordably to reach as large an audience as possible.
The series editors welcome book proposals on a wide variety of subjects including, but not limited to the following: anarchist history and theory broadly construed; individual anarchist thinkers; anarchist-informed analysis of current issues and institutions; and anarchist or anarchist-inspired movements and practices. Proposals informed by anti-capitalist, feminist, ecological, indigenous, and non-Western or global South anarchist perspectives are particularly welcome. So, too, are projects that promise to illuminate the relationships between the personal and the political aspects of transformative social change, local and global problems, and anarchism and other movements and ideologies. Above all, we wish to publish books that will help activist scholars and scholar activists think about how to challenge and build real alternatives to existing structures of oppression and injustice.
All proposals are evaluated strictly according to their individual merits and compatibility with the aims of the series. In accordance with this policy, we welcome proposals from independent scholars and new authors as well as from those with an institutional affiliation and publishing record. Titles accepted for publication in the series are supported by an engaged and careful peer review process, including impartial assessments by members of an international editorial advisory board consisting of leading scholars in the field.
We are currently seeking book proposals that fit the description above. Please send proposals (following the MUP guidelines, which you can find here to one or more of the series editors:
Laurence Davis, University College Cork ldavis@ oceanfree.net Uri Gordon, Loughborough University u.gordon@ lboro.ac.uk Nathan Jun, Midwestern State University nathan.jun@ mwsu.edu Alex Prichard, Exeter University a.prichard@ exeter.ac.uk
We also welcome more informal inquiries.
Anarchism and Moral Philosophy by Benjamin Franks and Matthew Wilson
This ground-breaking collection of anarchist philosophy is now available from Palgrave
Post-Anarchism: A Reader by Duane Rousselle and Süreyyya Evren
Bringing together both previously published key texts and new material exploring the overlaps and affinities between anarchism, poststructuralism and postmodernism, this collection is now available from Pluto
Anarchism & Sexuality: Ethics, Relationships & Power by Jamie Heckert and Richard Cleminson
Now available from Routledge.
Anarchist Studies Initiative, SUNY Cortland
The Anarchist Studies Initiative at SUNY Cortland is the first center dedicated to the study of anarchism in higher education. Anarchist Studies Initiative comes out of SUNY Cortland’s commitment to cutting edge innovative liberal arts and professional public education.
Anarchist Research Group, Loughborough University
The ARG is based in the Department of Politics, History and International Relations at Loughborough University. Its aims are:
To facilitate the study of anarchism across scholarly disciplines in the University To help raise the profile of anarchist studies in the wider academic community To promote international collaborative work on anarchism To provide a centre for postgraduate researchers working on aspects of anarchist history and politics To encourage the exploration and analysis of anarchist ideas and practices in the local community
What constitutes "anarchist studies," and where did it come from?
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, and with it, of an entire world order based on the tension between American and Soviet power, a number of intellectuals announced (once again) that the age of "ideologies" had ended; liberal democracy and capitalism had won, and no other political or economic options remained credible as contenders for the future. Energy had drained from most of the "New Social Movements" that had come to such prominence in the sixties and seventies; having since been institutionalized, accommodated within the system, environmentalism and the various forms of "identity politics" were no longer to be seen as radical challenges to the status quo, much less as forming part of a revolutionary "Movement."
Two decades later, this cozy perception of the world is in shambles. Nearly a third of the world's population lives in "failed states"; international systems of law and order are in serious disarray; strains on the planetary ecosystem are increasingly hard to ignore; the global marketplace lurches between "irrational exuberance" and crisis. The institutional managers of this world order now cannot meet without major police and military protection; everywhere they go, angry crowds appear. Many in these crowds speak not of a Movement, but of a "movement of movements," that cannot be accommodated within the present order. It has become a common observation that, notwithstanding the novelty of this force, it cannot be understood without reference to another, older political tradition, one that had gone into an historical eclipse around the time of the Russian Revolution and the first victories of the women's suffrage movement, that had long since become something less than a memory, a mere epithet: anarchism.
It is deeply ironic that there are now arguably more people outside of the academy than inside it who possess any intellectual context for this tradition; one is hard pressed to find a few scattered, often uninformed references to anarchism in the most advanced realms of scholarly discourse. Nonetheless, over the last two decades, academics have slowly begun to rediscover the historical significance of anarchism, which, as Benedict Anderson recently had to remind his fellow historians, was for a time "the main vehicle of global opposition to industrial capitalism, autocracy, latifundism, and imperialism." Scholars have started to study the influence of anarchism on early Korean and Filipino national liberation struggles, movements for birth control from Barcelona to Boston, Latin American labor history, Jewish immigrant life, the development of modern sociology and geography, the French Resistance, debates over eugenics and Social Darwinism, modern art and Modern Schools, avant-garde film and popular music, revolutions from Mexico to China to Russia itself.
There has even been some interest in revisiting the theoretical documents left in the wake of anarchist movements, dusting off the old ideas in search of new perspectives. Far from having been anti-intellectual "primitive rebels," anarchists produced a rich critical discourse on every facet of life and knowledge, from economics to linguistics, from social history to aesthetic theory, from urban planning to ontology -- a counter-institutional archive that has barely begun to be investigated. Amid a widespread increase in doctoral theses and academic publications directly engaged with the anarchist archive, some researchers have begun to draw inspiration from it, to see their work as an extension of anarchist theory and practice. For a number of us, what we are calling "anarchist studies" no longer necessarily takes anarchism as its object of study but as a standpoint from which to study the world. Anarchist contributions to thought are making a reappearance in a number of fields, challenging established orthodoxies. Perhaps, against all odds, we are witnessing the emergence of a new anarchist paradigm in academia.
more: About Us
The research network is formally affiliated to Anarchist Studies.
Anarchist Studies is an inter-disciplinary journal of scholarly research into the history, culture and theory of anarchism, edited by Ruth Kinna at Loughborough University. It publishes papers on three broad themes:
the re-evaluation of the anarchist record, considering issues of culture, philosophy and political action the potential future of anarchism as a current of critical political action the application of anarchist ideas as an instrument of research.
Recent highlights include special issues on sexuality, and on science fiction, and articles on Tolstoy, Daoism, Locke and post-structuralism.
'There has been a remarkable surge of interest in anarchist thought and practice in recent years. Anarchist Studies has played an important part in this revival with serious and constructive inquiries into anarchism's historical experience and animating ideas, and valuable contributions to enriching and deepening them' Noam Chomsky
'Many academic journals are interchangeable, but Anarchist Studies is full of material you will discover nowhere else' Colin Ward "
More details, a full table of contents and a submissions 'style guide' can be found here
The R.A. Forum provides the most comprehensive online bibliography and database of anarchist texts in English, French, Italian and numerous other languages. It is a global portal of the most up-to-date work on anarchism. It also contains regular updates about upcoming events and links to a vast array of information.
The Anarchy Archives is an online encyclopaedia of newly transcribed and scanned documents. An Invaluable source of primary materials.
The Institute for Anarchist Studies is an nonprofit and independent organisation that promotes the re-investigation of anarchism as political and economic praxis. The Institute funds research projects and publishes its own magazine 'Perspectives on Anarchist Theory'.
The Anarchist FAQ is a huge repository of essays, definitions and opinions on everything anarchist. It includes links to hundreds of other websites and has a huge English-language bibliography - all web-based.
AK Press is the world's leading anarchist press. A worker-run cooperative, it has been publishing anarchist writings for years. The website also contains a wealth of material on anarchist writers accross the world. It's British distribution website can be found here.