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Renewing the Anarchist
Tradition
Archive:
Summer Conference 2005
Sunday, September 25th
- 9:30 to 10:45 am
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- cancelled -
Maggots and
Men
Ace McArleton
Join Ace,
one of the actors in Maggots and Men, as
he screens the new trailer/short for this
upcoming anarchist, independent, queer/trans
film. In the style of a Soviet propaganda
film a la Sergei EisensteinÕs Battleship
Potemkin (1925), director Oakie TreadwellÕs
Maggots and Men recounts the tragic events
of the Kronstadt uprising, where anarchist
sailors fought for freedom under the oppressive
Bolshevik government. Maggots and Men is
a project that brings anarchist revolutionary
history into the present, combining authentic
historical portrayal with a reworking of
the themes through a current-day young anarchist,
transgender, queer lens. This is anarchist
history at its sexiest, most relevant, and
not to be missed.
Ace, a transgender
butch who is active in the transgender,
genderqueer, and queer movements toward
liberation, is interested in articulating
the connections between these and movements
for political and social freedom. He works
with youth on trans and queer issues as
a facilitator with Outright VT; is a collective
member of Black Sheep Books and the Free
Society Collective; and gives talks on gender
and politics.
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The New Anarchism
Cindy Milstein and Andrej Grubacic
Over the
past few years, anarchism has emerged as
one of the most compelling currents within
todayÕs anti-capitalist milieu. With its
emphasis on participation and prefigurative
politics, anarchism has contributed to diverse
experiments in horizontal organization as
well as social power, alongside or in solidarity
with a variety of anti-authoritarian movements
worldwide. It has also brought a refreshing
wave of utopian thinking to a tired Left.
And perhaps for the first time in its own
history, anarchism is all that much more
relevant and even workable in this era,
variously labeled the network society, the
information age, or simply globalization.
This panel and discussion will explore the
outlines of whatÕs been called Òthe new
anarchism,Ó including whether itÕs new at
all, against the backdrop of the present
moment. We encourage people to bring their
own ideas about the Ònovelty,Ó for better
and worse, of contemporary anarchism.
Listen
to this presentation courtesy of A-Infos
Radio
Cindy
is a RAT co-organizer, Institute for Anarchist
Studies board member, and a collective member
of both Black Sheep Books and Free Society
Collective. Her written work appears in
anti-authoritarian periodicals and several
recent anthologies, including Globalize
Liberation (City Lights, 2004), Confronting
Capitalism (Soft Skull, 2004), and Only
a Beginning (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2004).
Andrej,
a historian and social critic, works with
Planetary Alternatives Network, Z Communications,
and Peoples Global Action, and has been
active in the post-Yugoslav movementÑa coalition
of anti-authoritarian collectives called
DSM! He has also authored books and numerous
articles. Due to his political activism,
he was forced to leave the University of
Belgrade and move to SUNY Binghamton.
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Balancing Justice
and Freedom: Accountability in Anarchist
Networks
Andrew Willis, Sarah Wald, and
Ben Grosscup
As activist
denizens of loosely defined communities,
anarchists frequently are called to respond
to events or episodes that challenge the
principles around which our networks are
constructedÑallegations of sexual assault
or other kinds of abuse, or less tangible
improprieties, such as manipulation of collective
processes. Informal anarchist networks and
groups are often particularly deficient
when it comes to processing such difficult
and polarizing issues, rarely taking the
time to define relational accountability
in any collective setting. Accountability
in this context is understood to be a responsibility
to practices associated with nonexploitative
relationships and rational community generally.
This panel discussion will chart a tradition
of accountabilityÑor lack thereofÑand identify
strategies for collective action to guarantee
justice in projects and social milieus oriented
in some way in opposition to exploitative
social relationships.
Andrew
is a Washington, DC, activist currently
working on affordable housing and community-owned
property campaigns as well as in action
medical and radical childcare collectives,
and is beginning a project to document ways
anti-authoritarians organize themselves
to anticipate routine challenges of collective
process and horizontal relationships generally.
Sarah
has been active in Pacific Northwest forest
defense communities since 1997. She currently
works with the Cascadia Rising Eco-Defense
Network, collaborating on regional organizing
and outreach projects.
Ben is
an alumni of the Institute for Social Ecology,
a former community organizer and intern
with the ISE Biotechnology Project, and
a Òsupporting memberÓ of the Free Society
Collective. He is now finishing his BA in
the anthropology of science and technology
at Hampshire College.
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- Jaggi was scheduled
to join Jeannette, but he was denied entry
from Canada into the United States at the
border and thus couldnÕt participate in
this presentation -
No One is Illegal:
The Threat of Detentions and Deportations
Jeannette Gabriel and Jaggi Singh
This panel
will discuss the ideology of anti-immigrant
policies and discourse looking at the three
waves of government policies since 9/11Ñfirst,
the sweeping detention and deportations
of Muslims and South Asians, then the deportation
of visa violators and the registration program,
and now the widespread round-up of ÒcriminalÓ
immigrants. We will consider how the latest
strategy threatens the civil rights of everyone
in society. In addition, we will analyze
government and employer repression of radical
organizing, and how this connects to the
economics of migration and immigrant workersÕ
rights. We will also consider how anti-border
organizing is of particular concern to anarchists,
along with the motivations and challenges
of actually organizing from a Òno one is
illegalÓ perspective.
Jeannette
is an organizer with New Jersey Civil Rights
Defense Committee, a group that formed in
early 2002 in solidarity with hunger striking
detainees. NJCRDC organized the March against
Fear in Paterson, and more recently held
a march for civil and labor rights with
day laborers Freehold. Jeannette teaches
immigrant worker history in alternative
schools and has been active with immigrant
workers centers for many years.
Jaggi
is a member of No One Is Illegal-Montreal,
and an organizer with Solidarity across
Borders, a migrant rightsÕ network based
in Montreal. He has organized actively against
deportations and detentions since 2001.
This past June, he helped to organize, and
participated in, the No One Is Illegal March
on Ottawa, a one-week refugee rights march
from Montreal to Ottawa.
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The Struggle of
Anarchist Texts: Can Books and Zines Change
Anything?
Sandra Jeppesen
Within anarchism,
there is a privileging of action over writing.
Actions can clearly make radical change,
whereas the impact of texts and textual
production is less clear. Nonetheless, anarchists
do produce texts related to their struggles,
whether they are manifestoes, zines such
as Our Culture, Our Resistance, autobiographies
like Ann HansenÕs Direct Action, academic
anthologies and journals such as Anarchist
Studies, magazines such as Zmagazine, Arsenal
and Green Anarchy, comix like Seth TobocmanÕs
War in the Neighborhood, and CDs such as
Anarchism: Freedom on the Air. Why and how
do we do this? In this workshop, we will
discuss some of the struggles in producing
anarchist texts, in terms of both what we
write as well as the process of production
and distribution. Moving beyond the simple
notion of co-optation, we will look at the
complex relationship of textual production
to capitalism and ways in which anarchists
challenge cultural power structures. We
will examine some of the productive tensions
in the relationship between anarchist textual
production and action.
Sandra
Jeppesen is a Toronto-based anarchist activist
and writer.
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- 11:00
am to 12:15 pm
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The Critical Art
Ensemble and Artistic Repression: Or, Artists
Who Have Been Fucked by the System
Erika Biddle
As Marcel
Duchamp wrote in 1961, ÒThe great artist
of tomorrow will go underground.Ó Of course,
artistic repression has a long history that
contains the plight of innumerable artists
working in all types of mediums, in all
kinds of societies around the world. Whether
in the visual arts, film, literature, or
music, the ability to appeal directly to
the aesthetic sensibility makes art a potent
form of political expression. Working with
the belief that art can be an effective
force for social change, this talk will
focus on contemporary, U.S.-based artists
working under the conditions of a displaced
Òwar against terrorÓ and the various forms
of artistic repressionÑcensorship, denials
of funding, federal indictment, assassination(?!)Ñthat
have occurred with increased vigor in the
recent past, and continue without an apparent
end. Specific attention will be given to
the charges of bioterrorism brought against
Steve Kurtz of the Critical Art Ensemble.
A group discussion on what the future may
hold for outlawed artists is welcome.
Erika
currently lives in New York City; 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. SheÕs also
a new board member of the Institute for
Anarchist Studies.
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Lessons from the
Movement against the Vietnam War
Wayne Price
There is
much that can be learned from looking at
the anti-Vietnam War movement, a major part
of the last period of radicalization. This
is highly relevant to building a movement
against the Iraq war today. Should anarchists
support the nationalist resistance? How
do anarchists relate to liberals, or to
Stalinists? How can a movement be built
that is both large and militant? Will the
working class and oppressed racial groups
participate in the movement? How can we
influence the U.S. government to end its
aggression?
Wayne
was an activist in the anti-Vietnam War
movement. He is a member of the Northeastern
Federation of Anarchist-Communists (NEFAC),
and writes for the Northeastern Anarchist,
the Utopian, and the international Anarkismo
Web site. In the New York City teachers
union, he participates in an opposition
caucus and an antiwar group. Currently,
he is trying to get a book published, titled
The Abolition of the State: Anarchist and
Marxist Perspectives.
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It's All Lies!
Israeli Anarchism in the Context of Zionism,
Nationalism, and the Palestinian Struggle
Aaron Lakoff
The left
wing in Israel is a broad yet divided movement.
Socialism in Israel could be at best described
as a cruel experiment, resulting in racist
laws and land expropriations to build communal
farms, or kibbutzim. For a long time, there
was never much of an alternative to a Zionist-led
leftist movement in Israel. Then, in 2003,
anarchism burst into the public scene in
Israel, largely due to the direct actions
of the Anarchists against the (Apartheid)
Wall. The AAW started out as an ad hoc group
of anarchists and anti-authoritarians working
against the occupation, and quickly become
a significant and not-to-be-ignored force
in Israel/Palestine politics. While 2003
was by no means the birth of anarchism in
Israel, it did represent a very public awakening
to anarchist ideas and anarchist actions.
This presentation will examine Anarchists
against the Wall, their emergence on the
political scene in Israel/Palestine, and
the relationship between Israeli anarchism
and the Palestinian struggle for self-determination.
Listen
to this presentation courtesy of A-Infos
Radio
Aaron
is an independent journalist with CKUT radio
in Montreal, and a member of Solidarity
across Borders and the International Solidarity
Movement (ISM). He traveled to Israel/Palestine
in December 2004 with Birthright Israel
(a pro-Zionist free tour of Israel for Jewish
youth), and then worked for two months with
the ISM in the West Bank.
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Critical Mass,
War Machine: Anarchy on Wheels? (or, What
the Left Can Learn from a Bunch of Bicyclists)
Will Weikart
On August
27, 2004, just before the anti-RNC protests,
the New York City Critical Mass bike ride
reached its largest numbers here and possibly
anywhere worldwide (an estimated 5,000 plus).
Nearly 300 were arrested. This also marked
the beginning of an New York Police Department
crackdown against the monthly bike phenomenon
and now discourse, itself, about the ride.
The presenter will give some background
on the Critical Mass phenomenon (globally,
but mainly locally, via his participation
in NYC-CM). Why it is that NYC-CM has been
the object of so much concern by local law
enforcement? WillÕs thinking here is influenced
by theories of affect, Deleuze and GuattariÕs
notion of nomadic war machine and smooth/striated
space, and Eugene ThackerÕs article ÒNetworks,
Swarms, Multitudes.Ó He will go on to theorize
Critical Mass-type movement (relatively
leaderless, spontaneous, and joyous) as
an invaluable tool for Left tactics and
praxisÑone not characterized negatively
by lack. The constant cry of Òwe need more
organization!Ó is challenged and the inverse
is argued: that we need more willful disorganization
and ÒnoiseÓ to open the spaces of radical
potential.
Will
is a sociology student at CUNY Grad Center.
Focusing on critical theory and cultural
studies, his anarchism finds inspiration
in Deleuze and Guattari, Nietzsche, Spinoza,
Hardt and Negri, Marx and Foucault, among
others. He lives in Brooklyn, and enjoys
bicycle riding and noise/music/sound. He
currently is a dog walker, which pays about
twice as much as teaching two CUNY classes
as an adjunct.
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Hurricane Katrina:
Anarchist Accusations and Anarchist Practices
Ken Estey
We all have
read with dismay the use of the word ÒanarchyÓ
in connection with the aftermath of Hurricane
Katrina. This facilitated discussion calls
on participants to be prepared to discuss
media accusations of ÒanarchyÓ in light
of any experiences or accounts of anarchist
practices from autonomous groups, self-described
anarchists, self-organized and self-managed
organizations, or affinity groups in the
sorry wake of ÒofficialÓ and ÒorganizedÓ
response and rescue efforts. Participants
are invited to discuss the positive resources
that anarchism offers in the face of natural
disasters. A discussion of those in the
afflicted areas who do not consider themselves
anarchists but nonetheless acted in ways
associated with the best moments of anarchist
practice could also be pursued.
Ken is
a professor of political science at Brooklyn
College, works with the May Day Books and
Infoshop collective in New York City, and
also serves on the editorial collective
of the Grassroots Economic Organizing (GEO)
newsletter.
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back to Friday
the 23rd / Saturday
the 24th
or, back to main
menu for Summer Conference 2005
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