#Anarchism

Time Under Tension: Lessons in Organizing from a Kettlebell Gym

by Lara Messersmith-Glavin

Strength is a Skill Your spine is straight. You have shifted your weight back so that your knees are above your ankles—this is such an uncomfortable position until you learn to trust the muscles that hold you there—and you check to make sure the bell … Read more

Fall 2020 IAS Newsletter

Grant Applications Open! Kicking Off 25 Years The Institute for Anarchist Studies is turning 25 and opening grants! The IAS is dedicated to furthering anarchist ideas and making them accessible to a broader audience. To celebrate a quarter century of supporting radical thought, we are … Read more

IAS Newsletter, Spring 2020

Perspectives on Anarchist Theory No. 31: Imaginations is Hot off the Press!;
Call for Submissions: Perspectives on Anarchist Theory Special Issue – Pandemics from the Bottom Up;
IAS T-shirts and Hoodies In Stock!;
Deeper Dive: “If You Don’t They Will:”
Book a Speaker Through the Mutual Aid Speakers List; Tell Us About Yourself! Community Survey

The Cooperative Commonwealth: An Anarchism for the 21st Century?

by Robert Christl with art by Roger Peet

Mutual aid associations have historically emerged from disenfranchised populations’ struggle to survive inequality. During the late nineteenth century, when European and American states offered little social welfare, the destitute pragmatically combined their resources out of necessity. Meanwhile, anarchists recognized that workers’ mutual aid associations such … Read more

Joyful Militancy interview

Solecast talks with carla bergman and Nick Montgomery about their Institute for Anarchist Studies/AK Press book Joyful Militancy on their podcast! Joyful Militancy, part of the IAS/AK Anarchist Interventions series, is a critical examination of the toxicity that is so common within activist subcultures. Nick and … Read more

Hillary Lazar on LaborWave Revolution Radio

Artwork by Tararchy

Here’s an interview with writer and activist Hillary Lazar on the connections between border politics and antifascism, applying intersectional frameworks to movement organizing. The discussion begins with a conversation about Lazar’s recent essay, “Connecting Our Struggles: Border Politics, Antifascism, and Lessons from the Trials of Ferrero, Sallito, and Graham,” published in Perspectives on Anarchist Theory (N30, “Beyond the Crisis” issue)

Mutual Aid Speakers list

The Institute for Anarchist Studies (IAS) has revamped and updated our list of speakers. Our speakers bureau, called the Mutual Aid Speakers, are all available to come to your town and assist in your organizing efforts.
Take a look at all the awesome folks below. Many of them received an IAS writing grant, or have written books or essays over the years for the IAS. Some are either current or past IAS board members, while others are comrades, and people whose work we respect.

Beyond the Crisis

The world is on fire. It has been, for quite some time. If you’ve done any organizing, you’ve felt it—that sense of racing about, extinguishing this flare up or that, spending precious energy and resources surviving the immediate emergency and hoping the future will somehow … Read more

An Anarchism of the Working-Class: A Review of Whither Anarchism?, by Kristian Williams (To the Point/AK Press, 2018), Reviewed by Miriam Pickens

I appreciate Kristian Williams’ pamphlet, both the thought put into it and the challenge it represents. I learned a lot from its history, and in particular gained insight into the behavior of anarchists I meet today. Williams traces some practices of contemporary US anarchism back to pacifism, looking at how contemporary anarchists unthinkingly accept much of that philosophy. In my view, that influence led to the movement prioritizing providing comfort to its participants, rather than organizing to change the circumstances that led to the discomfort they feel with society in the first place. This emphasis accepts the inevitability of capitalism and is therefore a strategy to live within its parameters. But I don’t think capitalism will allow us these spaces. Instead, it has to be overthrown and not allowed to come back.

Beyond Anti-Fascism Reflection

The Beyond Anti-Fascism, But Not Without It statement was circulated in December, 2017, generating a number of both positive and negative responses.

Positive responses include Hillary Lazar’s piece, Connecting Our Struggles: Border Politics, Antifascism, and Lessons from the Trials of Ferrero, Sallitto, and Graham, in the forthcoming print issue of Perspectives on Anarchist Theory (N.30, “Beyond the Crisis”), as well as other writing we’ll be sharing on-line soon.

Negative responses included critiques that the call was, a) being improperly essentialistic about identity politics and b) disregarding the fact that some of the white men writing about fascism/anti-fascism are Jewish and therefore it was insulting to say they don’t understand the history of fascism.

In light of these responses, we have rewritten the statement and are including it in the new print issue of Perspectives on Anarchist Theory. Below you’ll find this new version, followed by a reflection on how we got from the original to this one, and what we still find inadequate and needing in our discussions of fascism and anti-fascism. And here we really want to encourage you to use our comments section for discussion, or send us your thoughts to be considered for posting on-line.