Anarchist Essays

In this essay, Vincent Bouchard and Asia Matthews discuss how contemporary anarchism can be used as a framework to rethink how we teach mathematics at the university level. At its core, anarchism aims at aligning thoughts and actions, and we argue that an anarchist viewpoint on undergraduate mathematics may offer a path toward a more equitable, horizontal and human-centred approach. This is not an essay about math: this is about how it is taught, and why it matters! Vincent Bouchard is Professor in the Department of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences at the University of Alberta (personal website: https://sites.ualberta.ca/~vbouchar/). Vincent's publication list is freely available on arXiv.org at https://arxiv.org/a/bouchard_v_1.html . Asia Matthews is a professor of mathematics and interdisciplinary educator. She worked at Quest University Canada until recently, and is now a free agent. You can find her on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/asiamatthews/. Asia and Vincent's recent publication, "An Anarchist Approach to the Undergraduate Mathematics Curriculum", on which this essay is based, was published in the Canadian Journal of Science, Mathematics and Technology Education (2025) and is freely available on arXiv at https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.18811. Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Bluesky @anarchismresgroup.bsky.social Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.

In this essay, Eleanor Strangways explores the collaborations between anarchists and anti-imperialists in Britain during the Second World War. The essay begins by examining publications on imperialism within War Commentary, before turning to the participation of anti-imperialist activists in both the publication and anarchist meetings, including George Padmore, Jomo Kenyatta, and Chris Jones. Eleanor Strangways is a final-year PhD student at Loughborough University and the author of the recent article, 'Anarchism, Anti-Militarism, and the British Empire: The Case of War Commentary and the Freedom Defence Committee', which forms the basis of this episode. Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Bluesky @anarchismresgroup.bsky.social Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.

In this essay, Sean Ketteringham examines the anarchist and anti-imperial politics which informed the work of Henri Gaudier-Brzeska (1891-1915), the French modernist sculptor who was based in London for the final and most productive years of his life. By suggesting several new models for Gaudier-Brzeska's Maquette for a Large Basin (referred to until recently as Maquette for a Bird Bath), the essay nuances readings of how anarchist revolutionary principles of direct action and anti-statist transnational solidarity shaped the artist's approach to primitivism, labouring bodies, and classicism.  Sean Ketteringham is Assistant Curator at Henry Moore Institute, Leeds. His first monograph, Architectures of Identity: Imperial Decline and the Homes of English Modernism, is forthcoming with Oxford University Press. He will join the University of Birmingham as a Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow in May 2026. Thanks are due to the following people for their generous help and feedback in support of this work: Rebecca Beasley, Holly Bird, Jennifer Johnson, Clare O’Dowd, Evelyn Silber and Sarah Turner as well as to the two anonymous reviewers and the editorial staff at Sculpture Journal for the many improvements they suggested to the version of article that appeared in print. Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Bluesky @anarchismresgroup.bsky.social Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.  

In this essay, Maria Chomard examines the transatlantic anarchist mutual aid initiative after World War II, focusing on its attempted reunification and the tensions between universalist politics and Jewish postwar relief. Through this case, she argues that the Holocaust constituted a structural rupture in anarchism’s social and moral economy, reshaping practices of solidarity and contributing to the movement’s postwar crisis. Maria Chomard is a historian with a Ph.D. from the University Paris 8 Vincennes — Saint-Denis, specializing in transatlantic Jewish anarchism. She recently published “To Save the Saviors: Reorganizing Anarchist Solidarity in Europe after World War II,” in S. Korbel and P. Strobl (eds.), Practices of Reunification: The Continuation of Refugee Life after 1945 (Routledge, 2025). Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Bluesky @anarchismresgroup.bsky.social Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.  

In this essay, Ruth Kinna and Simon Stevens discuss their article Anarchism: war, violence and scapegoating - an analysis of power, violence and government irresponsibility. They talk about issues that inspired the article and the central claim, namely that violence does not turn solely on its performance, but on the embrace of an ethic of violence that empowers transgressive action without necessarily exposing law breakers to the punishing violence of the state.  Ruth Kinna is a political theorist and member of the Anarchism Research Group at Loughborough University. She is the author of The Government of No One. Her co-authored book with Alex Prichard (Exeter) Constitutionalising Anarchy is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press.  Simon Stevens is a political philosopher and member of the methods in Normative Political Theory Group (ECPR). His research lies in normative political theory, with particular interests in democratic theory, political methodology, and public political philosophy. He has published on civil disobedience, homelessness, epistemic authority, and marginalisation in journals including Contemporary Political Theory, Theoria, Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, and the Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour. He is the author of Political Theory: Why Big Ideas Matter (SAGE, 2025) and has published recent work on [https://doi:10.1017/pub.2025.10079]public political philosophy, moral sentimentalism, and live action roleplay in the Public Humanities journal published by Cambridge University Press. Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Bluesky @anarchismresgroup.bsky.social Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns).

In this essay, Kirwin Shaffer explores the creation of an anarchist ethnic identity (an anarchist Latinidad) among Spanish-speaking anarchists in the United States in the 1880s and 1890s. This identity united anarchists from Spain and Cuba around a common language and common experiences confronting capitalism and the Cuban War for Independence in the 1890s while rejecting divisive ethnic and nationalist politics centered around the place of one's birth. Kirwin Shaffer is Professor of Latin American Studies at the Pennsylvania State University - Berks College. His most recent books include A Transnational History of the Modern Caribbean, Anarchists of the Caribbean: Countercultural Politics and Transnational Networks in the Age of US Expansion, and the forthcoming Anarchist Militants in Latin America: Biographies, Historiographies, and Transnational Lives co-edited with Amparo Sánchez Cobos and María Migueláñez Martínez.  Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Bluesky @anarchismresgroup.bsky.social Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.

In this essay, Robert T.F. Downes examines how the eco-anarchist philosophy of social ecology and the pluriverse of Indigenous political thought come together in anarcho-Indigenous solidarities, from Standing Rock to the Zapatista caracoles, to imagine a “democracy of species” beyond the (neo)liberal rule of law. He asks how these experiments in “living otherwise” challenge anthropocentrism, private property, and the State while sketching participatory, multispecies alternatives to governance, grounded in care, consent, land, more-than-human relations, and mutual aid. Robert T.F. Downes is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of Connecticut, investigating questions at the intersection of political theory, environmental politics, and law. His most recent publications are "Green Anarchy & Red Praxis: An Anarcho-Indigenous Dialogue Towards a Democracy of Species," Anarchist Studies 33, no. 2 (2025): 6-49 (doi.org/10.3898/AS.33.2.01) and "Constitutional Dictatorship and Enemies Within: A Constitutional and Historical Analysis of the Alien and Sedition Acts from John Adams to Donald Trump," Journal of International Relations, Peace Studies, and Development 10, no. 1 (2025): 1-60 (https://scholarworks.arcadia.edu/agsjournal/vol10/iss1/4/). Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Bluesky @anarchismresgroup.bsky.social Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.

Livia K. Stone, an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Illinois State University, dives deep into the history of autogestion, challenging the notion that it originated in 1950s Yugoslavia. She reveals its roots in the Algerian independence movement of the 1960s and discusses how autogestion evolved from a workers' focus to include diverse revolutionary identities. Stone also highlights key figures in its promotion and examines the paradox of its misattributed origins, ultimately arguing for its significance in shaping modern anti-colonial and identity-based movements.

In this discussion, Juan Carlos Mijangos Noh, a full professor at the Autonomous University of Yucatán, dives into creating an anarchist community within a Yucatecan Maya village. He argues that students from neoliberal backgrounds can practice anarchism through autonomy and cooperation. Mijangos shares inspiring testimonies from volunteers about teamwork, direct action, and unlearning societal hierarchies. Education at the Canicab Community Center serves as a microcosm for anarchist values, promoting equality and mutual aid while challenging conventional academic structures.

In this essay, Jason Garner, looks at the debate between anarchists in countries on both side of the Atlantic about the need, or not, to revise anarchist tactics in the light of the end of the postwar revolutionary wave in 1923. This is part of an overall project on “Reformism and Cooperation in interwar anarchism. National and transnational debates in a context of decline”. Jason Garner, former lecturer and teacher in Contemporary and Argentine history though presently freelance historian relocatied to Europe. External member of Gesraiot, Grupo de Estudios sobre Representaciones y Acciones de las Izquierdas y Organizaciones de Trabajadores, IIDyPCa, Rio Negro National University (Argentina). Recent publications: Goals and Means: anarchism, syndicalism and internationalism in the origins of the Federacion Anarquista Iberica, AK Press, 2016. ‘The Revue International Anarchiste’s World Survey (1924-1925) A transnational attempt at reappraising, revising, and reinvigorating the anarchist movement’, Journal for the Study of Radicalism, Spring 2023, Vol.27, no.1, 1-25 ‘“Too many cooperatives and too few cooperativists”: The Consumer Cooperative movement in Catalonia 1898-1939.’ Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies, July 2022 ‘Left to die – The fate of the Catalan Consumer Cooperative Movement during the Primer Franquismo (1939-1959’, European Review of History: Revue européenne d'histoire, April 2022 ‘A failure of Praxis? European revolutionary anarchism in revolutionary situations 1917-1923’. Left History. An interdisciplinary journal of historical inquiry and debate, (24) 1, 2021, 10-44. Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Bluesky @anarchismresgroup.bsky.social Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.