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Renewing the Anarchist
Tradition
Archive:
Summer Conference 2005
Saturday, September 24th
- 9:15 to 10:30 pm
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Sustaining the
Struggle: Anarchist Reflections on Building
Lasting Cultures of Resistance
Helen Hudson
What sustains
social struggle in the moments when movements
seem to fade, organizations disintegrate
and lose focus, and individuals grow increasingly
inactive as a result of state repression
or burnout? This workshop grew out of a
panel discussion held during Montreal's
Festival of Anarchy this past May that dealt
with the same question, during which many
audience members expressed an interest in
furthering the discussion. After a brief
presentation, participants will share ideas
about the sorts of movements, institutions,
and practices anarchists and anti-authoritarians
might nurture in order to contribute to
the creation of lasting cultures of resistance
able to sustain the struggle for freedom
and justice over many years. The presentation
will address the question from an "internal-to-the-movement"
perspective: What challenges do we face?
What skills can we build? What internal
discussions do we need to have? What structures
do we need to put in place within our formal
organizations, as well as in our "movement
communities"?
Helen
has been organizing in urban Canada for
a little over a decade. Although committed
to the frontline struggles and campaigns
she has been involved inÐincluding political
prisoner support work, migrant solidarity,
antisexism, and queer liberationÑher real
focus has been internal to the movement,
such as facilitating workshops, organizational
development, and peer counseling. She is
currently pursuing a degree in nursing.
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Global Resistance
and Inter-Power Rivalry
Kolya Abramsky
We are currently
witnessing increased rivalry between the
United States, the European Union, and China.
In parallel, important international realignment
processes are underway. Social (class) struggle
within the states contesting for hegemony
is also intensifying. These dynamics are
likely to increase in the future, raising
important questions for global anti-capitalist
struggles. How do social conflict and interstate
conflict interact with each other? How should
movements in the European Union and Asia
relate to their regions "becoming strong"?
How should movements in the United States
react to that state's decline? How can class
struggles in the different regions mutually
support each other and the worldwide circulation
of struggle rather than seeking protectionist
solutions that further exacerbate the competition
between the regions? Finally, could there
ever be another global war between major
powers at some point in the future? How
did radical social movements respond to
inter-power rivalry in the past? This presentation
aims not to answer these questions but rather
to initiate collective discussion on the
issues raised.
Kolya
has been active in international anti-authoritarian
anti-capitalist networks in Western Europe,
most recently Spain. He is currently researching
the interrelationship between global anti-capitalist
struggles, interstate conflict, and energy
politics at Binghamton University.
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Sidesteps toward
a Theory of Anarchism
Howard J. Ehrlich
Is there
a body of propositions that could be called
an "anarchist theory"? What would
it look like? How would an anarchist theory
inform anarchist practice and vice versa?
How do we build an anarchist practice that
will get us from here to there? How will
we know when we arrive? What are the obstacles
to an anarchist practice? How does our theory
and practice lead us to cope with the pathologies
of U.S. society, including war, poverty,
the concentration of wealth, racism, sexism,
andÑyour entry here? How do we know we are
doing the right thing? We'll explore some
of the provocations.
Howard
made his way around the track as a ladies
shoe salesman, sports writer, bread baker,
sociologist, social psychologist, health
and safety executive, author, radio producer,
and today, editor of Social Anarchism. He
is also a Baltimore IndyMedia collective
member and the coordinator of an antiracist
think tank known as the Prejudice Institute.
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Palestine and International
Activism: Are "We" Most Effective
at the Margins of Empire?
Ben
Certainly
we can be effective working within our own
communities, but does international activism
offer an extra effectiveness worthy of the
resources needed to be physically present
with communities in struggle in places like
Palestine? This talk will include a framing
of Palestine as dual struggleÑanti-colonial
(vs. Israel) and anti-imperialist (vs. the
United States)Ña brief update on current
on-the-ground resistance, and a discussion
of these and related questions.
Listen
to this presentation courtesy of A-Infos
Radio
Ben is
a founding member of BostontoPalestine,
which sends internationals on solidarity
delegations to the West Bank and also to
actually join indigenous nonviolent resistance
to the occupation. Returning activists inform
others of what they learned from their experience
in order to activate their home communities.
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Preserving Anarchist
History
Adam Roark
Like any
ideology, anarchism's longevity is dependent
on its rich history of success and failure.
Contemporary anarchism is shaped largely
by our memory of this history. How well
has anarchist history been preserved through
years of mutation and repression? The North
American anarchist movement in particular
inherited a wealth of knowledge from the
early twentieth-century radical labor movement
and the Spanish Civil War. In the meantime,
other inspiring events fade into obscurity.
The lingering uncertainty of "what
do we do now?" is symptomatic of collective
amnesia in a movement that needs to preserve
and distribute as much of its history as
possible in order to maintain versatility
and relevance.
Adam
is the cofounder of zinelibrary.net. He
is an activist and writer, involved in a
variety of side projects at any given time.
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- 10:45 am to 12:00 pm
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Anarchy at the
Border? We Wish
Rich Macgurn and Jacobo Blumenfeld
As migration
becomes the "specter haunting empire,"
it is critical for anarchists to take part
in the struggle for freedom of movement.
The o.r.g.a.n.i.c. collective is a no-border
anarchist collective located at San Diego
and elsewhere, confronting the rising wave
of against immigrants embodied publicly
by the Minutemen and structurally by the
border itself. We will show video clips
from our recent actions at the border confronting
the Minutemen, and then critically reflect
on it in relation to migration, white supremacy,
vigilantes, the war on terror, and anarchism.
We want to discuss positive and negative
ways anarchists think about borders/race/migration,
asking, How is the border a perpetual "state
of exception" in the war on terror?
What is the meaning of freedom of movement,
and how is the autonomy of migration possible?
How can we move toward a radical no-border
movement in the United States? How is the
struggle against borders critical to overthrowing
capitalism?
Listen
to this presentation courtesy of A-Infos
Radio
Rich
is a San Diego anarchist with the o.r.g.a.n.i.c.
collective, which has been organizing against
the Minutemen, triple fence, and border
for two years now. His collective recently
organized a No-Border Encuentro in San Diego.
Jacobo
has worked with radioActive sanDiego, San
Diego Indymedia, and the o.r.g.a.n.i.c.
collective. He recently spent some time
in Chiapas and Mexico City with the Centro
de Medios Libres.
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Derrida's Radical
Reimaginings
Nina Belmonte
Radical thinkers
often seek philosophical grounding for their
analysis in the work of Michel Foucault
and other traditional neo-Marxists. This
presentation offers the critical "deconstruction"
of Jacques Derrida as a more productive
theoretical base for radical thought by
virtue of its critique of the age-old conspiracy
of Being and Oneness, and a consequent reimagining
of democracy that has its roots in Marxist
critical theory, but takes us beyond it.
Nina
is an independent scholar with degrees from
Georgetown University, Boston College, and
Stony Brook University. She teaches and
writes on critical theory and the history
of philosophy, and maintains a passionate
interest in literature and film. Her current
project is a book on Derrida and Critical
Theory.
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Taking Play Seriously:
Space, Culture, and Critique
Charlie Clements
From Emma
Goldman's dancing to the bicycle plans of
Holland's Provo movement, anarchism has
been concerned with more than simply the
economic activity of the individual. In
the last decades, however, anarchists seem
to be taking fun more seriously. Carnivals
against capital, street parties as protest,
and political parody bring new meanings
to issues of space, prefigurative politics,
and propaganda by deed. Yet there is another
strand in this thinking: the individualist
"fun for fun's sake" of CrimethInc
springs from all angles. This presentation
hopes to point toward an understanding of
play that surpasses an econo-centric understanding
of human life as well as that of today's
nar-do-well liberationistsÑone that arises
from the work of Henri Lefebvre, Johan Huizinga,
and the Situationists. This view will do
more than simply direct us to burn all our
possessions in an orgy of "freedom"
and hit the road; it will show how a politics
of enjoyment, adventure, and play has the
potential to form community, develop space
outside of capitalism, and function as an
active critique of all that anarchism stands
opposed to.
Charlie
lives in New York, and is trying to finish
a degree and figure out what to do with
himself.
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Jane WTO: Jail
Solidarity, Direct Action, and the Global
Justice Movement
Beverly Yuen Thompson
The Global
Justice Movement has reinvigorated its tactical
repertoire to include continued protest
inside the jails and courts. This presentation
is based on interviews with direct action
participants, arrestees, and legal workers.
Since Seattle, in response to mass arrests
at demonstrations outside the WTO, IMF,
and World Bank summits, we have seen the
use of "jail solidarity" achieve
results ranging from mass release from jail
with the charges dropped to increased police
brutality behind bars. This presentation
exhibits the voices of the global justice
movement as they recount their stories of
protest, arrest, imprisonment, court cases,
and ultimately success in fighting for justice.
Beverly
has earned degrees in political science,
women's studies, and sociology, and is currently
completing her doctorate on the topic of
this talk. She is a student of sociology
at the New School University in New York
City.
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Against Apocalyptic
Anarchism
Mark Lance
Many anarchists
see the goal of anarchism to bring about
the "Big Revolution." Both classical
theorists like Bakunin and Kropotkin, as
well as many contemporary anarchists, take
this to be almost a matter of definition.
I believe that working for the Big Revolution
is, to borrow an insult from Lenin, infantile.
Intellectually, it ignores our best understandings
of the nature of freedom and aliena-tion.
Strategically, such a focus is inevitably
elitist and vanguardist. Emotionally and
psychologically, it encourages some of the
worst elements of religious superstition.
We divert our attention from concrete creative
activity, toward a faith in an all-things-changing
event, not unlike the Christian rapture.
This in no way denies that anarchism must
remain radical, striving for fundamental
social and political change. There is a
very real danger that our work will devolve
into mere reform. Much of the discussion
of this session will focus on how to understand
the difference between reformist and radical
work, while at the same time understanding
that this distinction has little to do with
revolutions.
Mark
is professor of philosophy as well as justice
and peace at Georgetown University, and
a board member of the Institute for Anarchist
Studies. He has also been an activist for
over twenty years on a wide range of social
justice and peace issues. This talk is drawn
from his book-in-progress, tentatively titled
Awakening Reason: Toward a Constructive
Anarchism.
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- 2:00
to 3:30 pm
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Political Action
in the Age of Advertising: Anarchist Influences
on Cultural Organizing
Dara Greenwald and Josh MacPhee
We will discuss
how recent U.S. cultural practices have
been rooted in or influenced by anarchist
ideas of both social and political organization.
We will argue that anarchists would benefit
from thinking deeper about how to influence
our visual and social landscapes, two possible
locations of struggle often dismissed for
being not political enough. We will draw
from our experiences working with/on the
Autonomous Territories of Chicago, the Department
of Space and Land Reclamation, LadyFest
Midwest, Pilot TV, the Pink Bloque, and
StreetRec, among others.
Listen
to this presentation courtesy of A-Infos
Radio
Dara
is an artist who recently relocated to Troy,
New York. She has been committed to participating
in collaborative, political cultural work
for many years.
Josh
is an artist and activist who had his first
book, Stencil Pirates, published in 2004,
and is currently coediting a collection
of writings on art and anarchism for AK
Press. He also runs a radical art distribution
system called Just Seeds.
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Why Nietzsche?
On the Conjunction of Friedrich Nietzsche
and the Anarchist Tradition
Spencer Sunshine
The collapse
of the classical anarchist movement also
meant the collapse of the anarchist theoretical
tradition. Since anarchism's revival after
the 1960s, much of its theoretical scaffolding
in the United States has been an either
an outgrowth of or borrowing from various
strains of Marxism (for example, primitivism,
social ecology, white privilege theory,
the pro-Situs, attitudes toward nationalism
and imperialism, and theories of labor and
class). For those wishing to make a fundamental
break with the Marxist paradigm, it makes
sense to look to Nietzsche, perhaps the
most radical critic of the modern capitalist
world. Some of Nietzsche's themes that are
of potential interest to anarchists include
his views on history, Christianity and morality,
creativity and negation, nationalism, the
state, hostility to authority and the market,
and the "transvaluation of values."
But appropriating Nietzsche raises problems
as well, such as his misogyny, elitism,
and acceptance of violence and domination.
If there's time, we'll look at the way that
anarchists (such as Emma Goldman, Rudolf
Rocker, and Frederica Montseny) have historically
used Nietzsche's thought.
Spencer
is the associate editor of I Am Not a Man,
I Am Dynamite! Friedrich Nietzsche and the
Anarchist Tradition (Autonomedia, 2004),
a member of the Fifth Estate editorial collective,
and a librarian at the ABC No Rio Zine Library
in New York City. He lives in Brooklyn.
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New
Autonomous Social Movements: Is the Anarchist
Framework Appropriate?
Marina Sitrin and Andrej Grubacic
This panel
will explore the politics of the various autonomous
social movements around the globe. We will
pay particular attention to the last ten years,
specifically looking at the Zapatistas in
Chiapas, the autonomous movements in Argentina
and Bolivia, the Conaie in Ecuador, and aspects
of the global justice movement in Europe.
Each presenter will examine the politics as
people in movements articulate them, focusing
on the new social relationships they are creating,
and want to create. We will also attempt to
place these movements in a theoretical framework
based on their commonalities, such as ideas
of autonomy, self-organization, other concepts
of power, and horizontality. Then, we will
then look at where these ideas and relationships
overlap with anarchist ideas and practices,
and where they do not. We will ask why these
movements do not explicitly identify as anarchist
and if it would be useful. Marina is a New
York City activist, teacher, student, and
writer. She has recently completed an oral
history of the autonomous movements in Argentina,
Horizontalidad: Voices de Poder Popular en
Argentina, with an English version out with
AK Press in the spring. She has recently returned
from Argentina and Bolivia. Andrej, a historian
and social critic who has authored books and
many articles, works with Planetary Alternatives
Network, Z Communications, and Peoples Global
Action, and was active in a post-Yugoslav
movement coalition of anti-authoritarian collectives.
Due to his political activism, was forced
to leave the University of Belgrade and move
to SUNY Binghamton. |
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The Multitude Disrupts
Downtown: The Recent History and Possible
Future of Mass Action in Financial Centers
Carwil James
What happens
when mass direct action moves from targeting
institutions to disrupting a city, from
targeting decision makers to the political
system itself? Where can the daily fabric
of our compliance be torn, so that it can
begin to unravel? These are not questions
of theory but of experiment and practice.
I will look at the global justice movement,
and the San Francisco and Spanish state
antiwar movements as arenas where this shift
tentatively happened. For a glimpse of larger-scale
possibilities, I turn to the growing creation
of grassroots power in Bolivia, Ecuador,
and Argentina: trajectories that have led
from rural base building to disruption to
changing national political life. These
episodes combine several forms of power.
Public anger physically interrupts "information-based"
financial capital. As these interventions
multiply, more autonomous and often more
diverse, decentralized, and participatory
forms of organization are given space to
grow. And by interrupting daily life and
effectively creating public holidays and
(re)claiming public space, these efforts
sketch out a constituent power that can
set its own priorities.
Carwil,
an Oakland-based activist, researcher, and
educator, participated in Direct Action
to Stop the War, a directly democratic resistance
effort committed to uprooting the system
behind war and empire. He worked for two
years at Project Underground, supporting
indigenous resistance to oil exploitation.
Some of the ideas pursued in this presentation
appear in a self-published chapbook, Shattering
Consensus and Disrupting Downtown (2005).
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Toward an Anarchist
Theory of Women's Human Rights Activism
Christina LaRose
Human rights
activists generally concur that a legalistic
framework is necessary to advance women's
human rightsÑactivists lobby to ensure that
domestic violence is criminalized in national
penal codes; that domestic violence is included
in the international definition of torture;
and that governments allocate funds for
survivor services and shelters. In addition,
international human rights conventions such
as the UN CEDAW treaty mandate signatory
states to implement "temporary special
measures" to advance women's human
rights in political, economic, social, cultural,
and family life. Conspicuously absent from
theoretical discussions of women's human
rights activism, however, is the question
of whether it is desirable for states to
implement measures to advance women's human
rights. As anarchists, should we embrace
human rights discourse for its ability to
document state violations of women's human
rights, or should we condemn any attempt
to utilize the state system as a patriarchal
protector of women's human rights? By seeking
to answer these questions, this talk will
advance an anarchist theory of women's human
rights activism.
Christina
is a student activist at the University
of Michigan in Dearborn, where she researches
the intersections between international
relations, human rights, gender, and anarchist
theory. She is active in the women's human
rights movement as a Stop Violence against
Women campaign coordinator for Amnesty International,
a volunteer for the Michigan Battered Women's
Clemency Project, and a mentor at Robert
Scott Women's Correctional Facility in Plymouth,
Michigan.
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- 4:00
to 5:30 pm
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Class in Contemporary
Capitalism
Max Lavine, Charlie Clements,
and Wayne Price
Class has
come under renewed questioning in the last
half-century. With the supposed" postmodernization"
of capitalism, or perhaps as an effect of
globalization, class may include a "multitude"
or it may no longer exist, or perhaps nothing
has changed. Things may be the same, and
all apparent changes are the effects of
ideology or the mires of bourgeois postmodern
caprice. This panel will continue to question
the category of class, hoping to clarify
a somewhat contentious issue, and maybe
unmask an enemy.
Max attends
high school and lives in Chicago, where
he tries to carve out enough time to occasionally
read or write something interesting as well
as participate in the anarchist community.
Charlie
lives in New York, and is trying to finish
a degree and figure out what to do with
himself.
Wayne
is a member of the Northeastern Federation
of Anarchist-Communists. He writes for the
Northeastern Anarchist, the Utopian, and
the international Anarkismo Web site.
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The Canadian State
and Its Relation to Empire: Changes, Challenges,
and Resistance
Mostafa Henaway, Megan Hope, and
Liisa Schofield
This workshop
will examine Canada's role as a state in
empire, and some of the strategies taken
on by anti-imperialists and anarchists to
challenge the Canadian state. The Canadian
antiwar movement did not provide any avenues
to challenge Canada's role in imperialism
because demands were placed onto the U.S.
government while Canada was viewed as a
peace maker for not officially waging war
against Iraq. In many cities across Canada,
anti-imperialists began to confront and
expose the role of Canadian corporations
in war and occupation. Corporations such
as SNC Lavalin and the Canadian Commercial
Corporation unofficially represent Canadian
foreign policy as they invest and profit
from war and occupation. The analysis of
this trend, the work around it as well as
the shifting of the Canadian state to take
on a more prominent role in imperialism
with troops in Afghanistan and the occupation
of Haiti will be explored.
Listen
to this presentation courtesy of A-Infos
Radio
The panelists
are all members of the Toronto Solidarity
Project/June 30th Organizing Committee.
Mostafa and Liisa are also involved in the
Ontario Coalition against Poverty.
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Perspectives on
David Graeber's Fragments of an Anarchist
Anthropology
Alejandro de Acosta
David Graeber's
Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology
is clearly meant as a challenge to anthropology
and academic disciplines generally in their
presumptive political neutrality. How can
we creatively expand Graeber's proposals
so as to rethink anarchist theory in and
out of the academy? How can we further realize
an anarchistic intellectual activity that
is critical of, yet not separate from, movements
and peoples? What can anarchist theory and
practice contribute to ideals of multiculturalismÑor
"multinaturalism"?
Alejandro
teaches philosophy at Southwestern University
in Georgetown, Texas. His interests are
in Latin American philosophy (especially
questions of language, territory, history,
and cosmology), and the theoretico-practical
intersection of anarchist theory, experimental
therapeutic practices, and assorted "limit-experiences".
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Queering the X:
James Baldwin, Malcolm X, and the Third
World
Kazembe Balagun
This talk
is an intellectual intervention in the debates
over gender, race, and sexuality. By promoting
an intertextual dialogue between Malcolm
X and James Baldwin, the talk will foreground
the queer influences in both men's analysis
of racial oppression. It will also show
how both Malcolm and James's vision of a
just society included aspects of the erotic,
shifting much of the rhetorical essentialism
from both men's work and illustrating means
in which radical/revolutionary activists
can use both in an anti-authoritarian framework.
Kazembe
is a black/queer/writer/educator engaged
in the ancient art of revolutionary Afro-hermeneutics.
He studied philosophy/Africana studies from
Hunter College, where he was a member of
the Student Liberation Action Movement.
He is a member of Estaci—n Libre (a people
of color organization in solidarity with
the people of Chiapas), a staff writer with
the NYC Indypendent, and a contributer to
Left Turn.
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Intentional Aesthetics:
Anarchist Media and Movement Building
Kyle Harris
Anarchists
have a long history of using art to terrorize
audiences. Our performances frequently represent
our most aggressive, guttural, and fragmentary
tendencies. From Antonin Artaud's Theatre
of Cruelty to Indymedia documentaries about
Anti-Facist Action, we depict our madness,
aggression, victimization, and self-destruction.
Our wild media production has the potential
to excite and activate audiences, yet frequently;
our careless approach to aesthetics, form,
and narrative interferes with our ability
to movement build. Through this presentation,
I would like to consider aesthetic strategies
for maximizing outreach by cultivating intentional
aesthetics rather than accidental rants
that demoralize, embarrass, and fragment
our movement. Ultimately, I would like to
propose strategies for improving anarchist
video production by cultivating intentional,
crafted anarchist aesthetics informed by
both classical and radical theories of narrative,
poetics, and craft.
Listen
to this presentation courtesy of A-Infos
Radio
Kyle
is currently programming documentaries at
Free Speech TV and completing postproduction
on The Patriarchs, his queer-anarcho-eco-epic
movie reinterpreting Plato's Symposium
against a backdrop of graffiti, AIDS politics,
and direct action. He has shown his short
videos internationally at festivals, galleries,
and community centers, and lectured on topics
such as aesthetics, history of animation,
and queer militancy.
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- 7:45
to whenever we feel like
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- A couple of the panelists
had to cancel at the last minute; and Jaggi
couldn't participate because he was denied
entry from Canada to the United States at
the border -
Anarchist Praxis:
Organizing Dilemmas, Strategy, and Vision,
or How Do We Get from Here to There
facilitated by Camilo Viveiros;
with Jaggi Singh, Mostafa Henaway, Rafael
Mutis, Jason Winston, Tanya Waters, Caty
Simon, and Matt Feinstein.
Do you feel
frustrated by the lack of anarchist strategy
and organizing? Do you think a fundamental
shift in contemporary anarchist organizing
methodology is needed? Panelists will explore
what we might learn from various organizing
models, community struggles, and diverse
political movements as well as the obstacles
to applying anarchist theory. Following
the presentations, we will have a discussion
on the intersections between anarchist theory
and organizing strategy, and the gaps between
vision and practice. Share your experiences
with the limits of academic activism and
organizing issues from your community. We
hope to have a constructive dialogue about
the tensions between mass-based work and
explicitly radical political efforts. This
includes the ways mass movements, community
organizing, and traditional trade unionism
can dismantle and repress the potential
for radical change, and the way "radical"
sectarianism can contribute to the demobilization
of the growth of broad-based movements.
Listen
to this presentation courtesy of A-Infos
Radio
Jaggi
will draw some reflections from recent organizing
around immigrant rights as part of No One
Is Illegal and Solidarity across Borders
in Montreal, Canada.
Mostafa
will speak about the role of anarchists
in his work with the Ontario Coalition against
Poverty, and in the Muslim community through
taxi driver organizing and youth organizing
in Toronto, Canada.
Rafael
is a member of Critical Resistance New York
City and the lead organizer for the Seven
Neighborhood Action Partnership working
to repeal the Rockefeller Drug Laws.
Jason
and Tanya are cofounders of the Vermont
Workers' Center. Jason has been a union
organizer, community organizer, and activist
for twenty years. Tanya is currently focusing
her energies on women's health and reproductive
rights.
Caty
is active with the Freedom Center and Arise
for Social Justice in western Massachusettts,
and is an economic justice activist working
on psychiatric survivor support issues and
toward the decriminalization of prostitution.
Matt
works with the Worcester Global Action Network
on community safety and police violence
and a harm-free zone, and with youth and
community gardeners toward food justice.
Camilo
has focused on community, youth, and tenant
organizing toward economic and environmental
justice.
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From Exodus to
Complementary Antagonisms
Stevphen Shukaitis and Jack Z.
Bratich
Since the
publication of Hardt and Negri's Empire,
new attention has been brought to a previously
ignored current of revolutionary theory
and practice, namely that of autonomist
Marxism. A great majority of readings of
Negri have tended to neglect the vast wealth
of engaged theoretical reflection contained
within the history of autonomist thought
and organizing. How do anarchism and autonomism
converge and diverge over matters of power,
the state, and subjectivity? The panel will
explore the future behind our backs, focusing
on issues such as class composition analysis,
spatial articulations and enclosures, mobility
and exodus, social production and reproduction,
affective labor, and the overlaps and complementaries
between autonomist Marxism and anarchist
thought and practice.
Stevphen
is a PhD student at the University of Leicester,
where he studies the relationship between
forms of globalization and cultural discourses
around worker self-management. He is a member
of the Ever Reviled Records Worker Collective
and the Autonomedia Editorial Collective.
Jack
is an assistant professor of journalism
and media studies at Rutgers University.
He has written articles that apply autonomist
thought to such topics as audience studies,
reality TV, secession, and popular secrecy.
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The Take,
and Social Movements in Argentina Today
Graciela Monteagudo
Graciela
will show The Take (87 minutes) by Avi Lewis
and Naomi Klein. The film viewing will be
followed by an open-ended dialogue about
the social movements in Argentina today.
Graciela,
coordinator of the Argentina Autonomista
Project, is an Argentine human rights activist
and community artist. She holds an MFA from
Goddard College and has recently started
doctoral studies in anthropology at UMass
Amherst. She has worked internationally
with diverse communities both on her own
and with Bread and Puppet Theater. Some
of her work has included coordinating puppet
and street theater actions in Latin America
and throughout the United States.
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Cardboard Teck
Institute
Professor Matchstick and T-Cel
Professor
Matchstick shows "Impossible Box Toy
Theater Presents," in which naughty
children set fire to the whole institute!
T-Cell tells "The Language of the Tecknitions,"
in which swallows, snails, and creatures
fantastic spin their gory tales.
Prof.
M atchstick, CTI technikxon, has worked
with Bread and Puppet and the bicycle circus.
T-Cell,
CTI tactixion, is a Black Sheep Books collective
member and investigator of tall tales.
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Psycho-Motor Retardation
Anicka Yi, Will Weikart, and Ben
Florencio
A seven-to-ten
minute musical performance and electronic
improvised noise.
Anicka,
an artist living and working in New York
City, is a coordinating member of New York
City Social Forum.
Will
lives in Brooklyn, and enjoys bicycle riding
and noise/music/sound.
Ben is
a musician and editor, living and working
in New York.
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Never Ever Work
Curated by Erika Biddle
This hour-and-a-half,
give or take, cinematic sampling will focus
on the site of work/nonwork and great depressions.
It will include the noirish urban scapes
of Blood of Abraham's Eyedollartree and
its stark critique of consumer culture,
a vast collection of historical events captured
in Harun Farocki's Arbeiter verlassen die
Fabrik (Workers Leaving the Factory), a
moment of slapstick relief from Charlie
Chaplin in Modern Times, idiosyncratic musings
and machinations on Art Strikes by Gustav
Metzger, Jean Vigo's nostalgia for his assassinated
anarchist father in Zero de Conduite, and
the regeneration (obliteration) of an old
working-class London neighborhood in Year
Zero's The Occupation.
Erika
is a founding member of the collective Artists
in Dialogue, which is committed to the coarticulation
of art and politics; and works with radical
book publisher Autonomedia, May Day Books
Collective, the multimedia magazine Arcade
Project, the Siyahi Editorial Collective,
and Fifth Estate, among others. She's also
a new board member of the Institute for
Anarchist Studies.
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The Voice of Authority
and the Soundscape of Unfettered Being
Orchestrated by Lex Bhagat
A two-hour
concert-in-the-dark of contemporary sound
artworks as well as historical sound poetry
and cinema sound recordings. The program
will include works as diverse as horspiel
(in English) from the 1960s by the Swedish
sound poet Ake Hodell, to the helicoptor
siege scene from Apocalypse Now, to Gregory
Whitehead's Project Jericho, a mock-umentary
about the Jericho Institute, where the U.S.
Army is researching sonic weapon applications
of the Voice of God. All this war dissolves
at the end into a Siberian soundscape that
should transition us back into Vermont nicely.
Lex is
dedicated to the destruction of authorship
and authority through the cultivation of
new forms for polyvocal sound, promiscuous
conversation, and never-ending correspondence.
He is coeditor, with Gregory Gangemi, of
Sound Generation (forthcoming from Autonomedia),
and serves on the board of the Institute
for Anarchist Studies.
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back to Friday
the 23rd / on to Sunday
the 25th
or, back to main
menu for Summer Conference 2005
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