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Renewing the Anarchist
Tradition
Archive:
Summer Conference 2006
Sunday, October 1st
- 9:30 to 10:45 am
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Disabling Capitalism
and Supporting an Anarchism of Difference
Liat Ben-Moshe and Anthony J.
Nocella II
As capitalism
is designed to develop the perfect machine
to produce, so does it strive to create
the ideal consumer, one with no perceived
limitations. Thus, there is no room for
individuals with dis-abilities, for they
are seen as defective, both as producers
and consumers. Moreover, to have customization
for certain individuals would appear to
slow down production and cut profits. One
does not need to look far to find that this
economic system is not only unethical to
those who are identified as disabled but
also based on false premises (the myths
of independence, bodily perfection, and
nonaging). Until this point, the field of
anarchist studies has yet to discuss how
disability studies and anarchism are similar
and beneficial to each other. While many
anarchists believe in equality, disability
studies critiques it and demands specific
treatment for all, for all are different.
It is time for anarchist scholars and activists
to rethink equality and start a conversation
on the merits of human variation, which
will entangle the faulty promises of capitalism
in return.
Liat,
a doctoral student in sociology, disability
studies, and women's studies at Syracuse
University, is originally from Israel, where
she was an anti-occupation and disability
activist. She is the coeditor of Building
Pedagogical Curb Cuts (SU Press, 2005) and
a special issue of Disability Studies Quarterly
(2007) on disability in Israel/Palestine.
Liat is also a core member of Beyond Compliance,
a student advocacy group aimed at raising
disability consciousness.
Anthony,
an activist-scholar with an MA in peacemaking
and conflict studies, is working on a PhD
in social science and an MA in education
at Syracuse University. He has cofounded
three academic journals and more than a
dozen active political organizations, and
has published three books and more than
two dozen articles. His interests include
political repression, critical pedagogy,
and mental challenge awareness.
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The Legacy of Freedom
in Murray Bookchin's Work
Cindy Milstein
Born in 1921,
the same year that Kropotkin died, Murray
Bookchin's own death this past July signals
the end of another era in anarcho-communist
theorizing. Bridging the Old and the New
Left, his interdisciplinary body of work
(over a dozen books, and countless articles
and public talks) moved anarchism into the
twentieth century, transforming it into
a more rigorous political philosophy and
a more directly democratic praxis. His exploration
of the emergence of hierarchy in The Ecology
of Freedom and his utopian stress on forms
of freedom in Post-Scarcity Anarchism stand
out in this regard. Yet he was often a controversial
figure, displeasing Marxists and anarchists
alike. This discussion aims to take a critical
look this self-educated, lifelong radical's
contributions.
Cindy,
who feels honored and exhausted to co-organize
RAT, is also a board member of the Institute
for Anarchist Studies, and a collective
member of both the Free Society Collective
and all-volunteer Black Sheep Books in Montpelier,
Vermont. Her essays appear in various anarchist
periodicals and several recent anthologies.
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Animist/Anarchist
Andre Khalil
What is animism?
What is its place in societies that have
decentralized power and nonhierarchical
ways of life? How does it differ from its
old false imperialistic definition, or its
more recent (and equally false) new age
one? How do we experience animism in our
daily lives? Why is it not, as science would
have us believe, merely a metaphor or psychological
in nature? This talk is a broad survey -
using anthropology, phenomenology, cognitive
science, archaeology, and testimonies from
indigenous peoples - in hopes of beginning
a recultivation of animism in anarchist
traditionss.
Andre
is a Distinguished Teacher of English and
a graduate student at the University of
Massachusetts, where he is studying creative
writing as well as organismic and evolutionary
biology, and finishing a book of essays,
A New (Old) Way of Thinking: Animism, Mythology,
Autonomy.
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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 men's vision of a just society
included aspects of the erotic, shifting
much of the rhetorical essentialism from
their work and illustrating means in which
radical/revolutionary activists can use
them in an antiauthoritarian framework.
Kazembe
is a writer/cultural historian whose work
has been featured in Left Turn, PopMatters,
and Working USA. He writes for the NYC Indypendent,
and is an instructor at the Brecht Forum/New
York Marxist School. He is working on "Queering
the X" (spring 2007) and a history
of black communist organizer Bill Epton.
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Solidarity:
A Three-Part Series
Part
3: A Plenary on Building Strategic Solidarity
A
conversation with solidarity series panelists,
Poya (our guest resource person), and AndrŽa
Maria (facilitator)
...
for full description, see Part
I on Saturday...
Andréa
is an independent journalist, researcher,
and activist. She has written dispatches
on occupation and conflict from Iraq and
Haiti, and organized for migration justice
and the right to housing in Montreal. She
is an IAS board member, a former Perspectives
editor, and is working on a book about international
solidarity.
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- 11:15
am to 12:30 pm
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History of Queer
Anarchy
Adam Tinnell
Sexuality
and gender are the most cherished and delicate
aspects of our identity, so shouldn't they
play a similarly vital role in our politics?
Contemporary anarchism needs to adequately
address issues of sex and gender, as they
are critical to the way in which much of
systemic authority derives its power. The
often-marginalized queer anarchism confronts
this dilemma head on, highlighting sexuality
and gender as crucial components for all
strains of anarchy. Through understanding
the history of queer anarchy, anarchists
can stand to gain a fresh new perspective
on their own activist projects and goals.
How does Oscar Wilde's philosophy of decadence
play into creating an anarchist philosophy?
How does the vaudeville drag performances
of the Cockettes in the 1960s give new meaning
to radical performance art? How does the
poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay give insight
into anarchist protest? This talk will cover
a broad range of philosophy, art, and activism
from queer anarchists throughout history,
reinforcing their significance, and asserting
the need for a hot and bothered politic
today.
Adam
lives in Denver, Colorado, and is currently
dancing his ass off in the Sparkle Anarchy
Dance Collective. In the past, he helped
start the notorious (yet defunct) Circle
A Ranch Cooperative and the Soapbox Free
Community Space.
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Psychology, Ideology,
Law, and Justice
Dan Aalbers and Dennis Fox
This panel
will review anarchist perspectives on law,
and the distinction between law and morality.
It will describe in general terms the support
for anarchist approaches to law and justice
within psychological theory about human
nature, and then apply this critique to
the torture of human beings in places like
Guantanamo. This background should generate
discussion of several theoretical and practical
questions: Would law under democratic, nonauthoritarian
conditions be acceptable, or do law's underlying
assumptions such as categorization, rationalization,
and de-individualization inevitably render
law objectionable? Can any complex society
function without lawlike institutions? Are
restorative justice and similar approaches
compatible with anarchist principles and
social psychological knowledge, and are
they sufficient to confront violence and
oppression? Pragmatically, how do anarchists
today relate to law, lawyers, and legal
institutions? Can anarchists work with progressive
activists who use the law to fight state
and corporate power?
Dan is
an ambivalent academic and a media activist
who isn't nearly as active as he should
be. He likes to describe his politics as
pacifist-libertarian-socialist, but is well
aware that his ideals and actions conflict
with one another on a daily basis.
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Toward a Doctrine
of Experimental Communism
Nic Veroli
As the global
order of biopolitical sovereignty described
by thinkers like Hannah Arendt and Giorgio
Agamben extends and deepens its hold over
all life-forms, the question of demarcating
a truly radical politics is coming back
into the forefront. And yet the reaction
of the last thirty years combined with the
repression of the last five years together
are creating a situation in which no alternative
to that order seems to be possible. In this
presentation, I will put forward some hypotheses
about what the theoretical conditions of
such a politics should look like, especially
regarding the problem of the relationship
between the concepts of multiplicity and
universality. I will also begin the work
of defining such a politics under the name
of "experimental communism" on
the basis of a historical analysis of what
I call "the anarchist categorical imperative."
Intellectually, my main points of reference
will be the works of Gilles Deleuze and
Félix Guattari, Alain Badiou, Michael
Hardt, and Antonio Negri.
Nic is
a philosopher. He was a member of the Seattle
Research Institute until its dissolution
in spring 2006. Currently, he is hard at
work on a book titled The Theory of Anarchic
Action. He works on the relationship between
political philosophy, metaphysics, and revolutionary
praxis, and just moved to Brooklyn.
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Perspectives on
Anarchism and Race
Chloe Jhangiani, Aragorn!, and
Anjali Nath
This panel
will look toward anarchist perspectives
on race using current anarchist and antiracist
movements as starting points. What lessons
do we draw in regard to the diversity, and
lack thereof, within the anarchist movement?
What can anarchism learn from movements
that are more racially diverse? Conversely,
what can antiracist organizing efforts learn
from anarchism? How can we think of race/culture/ethnicity
in more nuanced ways than society at large
and those that we work with? How can we
demonstrate a different approach to questions
around representation, identity, and resolution
than other antiracist approaches? And how
would these questions and answers change
our organizing?
Chloe
lives in central Vermont, where she builds
houses, and is involved in immigrant justice,
antiracist, and anarchist organizing projects.
Aragorn!
is a member of the Anarchy journal collective,
and helps organize the annual BASTARD conference.
He has written pamphlets on race, nihilism,
and raccoons.
Anjali
studies at California State University Fullerton,
serves on the board of the Lesbian, Gay,
Bisexual Alliance and Women's Studies Student
Association, and is also a member of Critical
Resistance. .
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On the Problems
of Ownership: Property in Anarchist Organizing
Shiri Pasternak
A common
and central mechanism of privatization is
propertization - the legal expansion of
ecological and intellectual property rights.
Propertization enables the encroachment
of the private sector into the public domain,
or commons - a process fundamental to the
growth of capitalism. This process destroys
knowledge forms, social relationships of
mutual aid, and political freedoms by fundamentally
altering structures of authority and regimes
of power, and through legal means, asserting
national sovereignty. This talk will address
an anarchist approach to challenging property
- thus privatization - as theft. Included
will be a discussion about the co-optation
of the idea of the commons and common property
by international lending institutions and
academic schools of thought; the need to
foreground decolonization as central to
thinking through new forms of ownership
and property regimes; and a survey of links
between various anti-privatization campaigns.
Shiri
was the associate director of the Forum
on Privatization and the Public Domain,
and has an MA in cultural, social, and political
thought from the University of Victoria.
She is now excited about her research on
biotechnology, property, and indigenous
sovereignty.
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the 29th / Saturday
the 30th
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