READING ANARCHISM: THEORY AND HISTORY
This course will be a facilitated reading group that will explore several periods of anarchist history through an engagement with theoretical texts alongside historical analyses. We will begin with the early anarchist theorists including Bakunin, Malatesta, and Kropotkin, as well as reading some historical materials on political struggles at the time for contextualization. Next, we will read theoretical and political writings by anarchists such as Emma Goldman, analyses concerning the Haymarket Affair from anarchist perspectives, and writings produced during or on the Spanish Civil War. Finally, we will explore post-WW2 anarchisms paying special attention to the articulations between traditional anarchist concerns with the State and capital and more recent theories and practices concerning ecological, counter-globalization, and identity politics. In each section of the course the facilitators have chosen a few basic texts, but there is also space for participants to suggest other works to the group that they especially want to read and discuss. Our primary goal in faciliatating this course is to deepen our understanding of anarchist history and theory, and to discuss what this history and theory means for our present practice and projects.
Week I (6/16): Introduction
David Graeber. The New Anarchists In New Left Review, Jan/Feb 2002.
Peter Kropotkin. Anarchism , from The Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1910. http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/kropotkin/britanniaanarchy.html
Suggested/optional readings:
“Anarchism”, Wikipedia entry
Week II (6/23): Classics 1
Mikhail Bakunin. The Capitalist System 1871 (?).
Eric Chase. The Brief Origins of May Day
Paul Thomas. Karl Marx and the Anarchists. Introduction. 1980.
Suggested/optional readings:
R. Scalapino and G.T. Yu. The Chinese Anarchist Movement 1961.
Week III (6/30): Classics 2
Emma Goldman. Anarchism: What it Really Stands For 1910.
Emma Goldman. Anarchy and the Sex Question 1896.
Errico Malatesta. Anarchy (A Pamphlet). 1891.
Suggested/optional readings:
Howard Zinn. Sacco and Vanzetti
Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman. Sacco and Vanzetti 1929.
Week IV (7/7): Revolutionary Years (the early-mid 20th century ones)
Murray Bookchin. Introduction , The CNT in The Spanish Anarchists: The Heroic Years, 1868-1936. 1977.
Rudolph Rocker. The Evolution of Anarchosyndicalism 1989.
Aileen O’Carroll. Mujeres Libres
Suggested/optional readings-viewings:
Film “Red Years, Black Years.” Prologue available here
Nestor Makhno. Anarchist Revolution
Nestor Makhno. In Memory of the Kronstadt Revolt
Chaz Bufe. Introduction “Cuban anarchism : the history of a movement” by Frank Fernández.
Week V (7/14): Ecologists, Federalists, and Organization
Murray Bookchin. Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism:An Unbridgeable Chasm “Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism: An Unbridgeable Chasm.”
Suggested/optional readings:
Feral Faun. The Anarchist Subculture: A Critique 1991
Murray Bookchin. Introduction , Post-Scarcity Anarchism in Post-Scarcity Anarchism. 2004.
Peter Kropotkin. Our Riches (Ch. 1) or Food (Ch. 5) from The Conquest of Bread 1906.
Aims and Principles of Anarchist Federation (UK).
Week VI (7/21): Insurrection and Autonomy
George Katsoaficas. From 1968 to Autonomy ; Italian Autonomia ; Sources of Autonomous Politics in Germany In Subversion of Politics: European Autonomous Social Movements And The Decolonization Of Everyday Life. 2006.
Suggested/optional readings:
Wayne Price. Libertarian Marxism’s Relation to Anarchism 2007.
Bob Black. The Abolition of Work 1985.
Week VII (7/28): Primitivists and Representation
David Graeber. Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology 2004.
Discussion on racism and representation
Week VIII (8/4): Anarchy and Identity Politics
Lorenzo Komboa Ervin. Why am I an Anarchist? from Anarchism and the Black Revolution. 1993.
Gavin Brown. Mutinous Eruptions: Autonomous Spaces of Radical Queer Activism 2007.
Miriam and Ali. Listen Anarchist! Sexism in the Movement
Marta Kolarova. Gender in the Czech Anarchist Movement 2004.
Chris Crass. Going to Places That Scare Me 2003.
