Topic: Anarchism in the U.S.

Catalog description

The history of American anarchism as revealed in the stories of immigrants, activists, educators, and thinkers is also the history of progressivism in America. Just as their writing and stories have been consigned to footnotes in the history of American thought, the adherents of “the Idea” of freedom from government, authority, and hierarchies were relegated to the margins of American society. From labor struggles to anti-war movements, these anarchists have been the avant-garde of progressive thought and social change since the nineteenth century. This course will examine the history and writings of the American anarchist tradition in order to understand anarchism in the twenty-first century. Coursework will include a survey of associated writings and lectures, fieldwork, research and peer review, the in-class retrials of both the Haymarket activists and Sacco and Vanzetti, and culminate in a unit about representations of anarchy today, including the direct-action protest network known as Antifa. A survey of readings may include selections from Emma Goldman, Lucy Parsons, Voltairine de Cleyre, Katherine Anne Porter, John Dos Passos, Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Benjamin R. Tucker, Henry David Thoreau, Josiah Warren, Samuel Yellen, Philip Selznick, Karl Jay Shapiro, and others.