Read and discuss texts on anarchism in the USA, its history, and its various strands in an informal setting. The group meets Fridays, 17:00-19:00 at Black Pigeon, Scharnhorststraße 50, in Dortmund.

Language of discussion will depend on group members‘ preference and decided on-site. Regular attendance is not mandatory.

The first meeting will be on Friday, November 16, 2018. The first discussion topic will be “Defining Anarchism”:

Emma Goldman, “Anarchism: What It Really Stands For”; Voltairine de Cleyre, “Anarchism & American Traditions.”

A reader including all texts can be found here: Word DOC

Further dates:

November 23: Haymarket

August Spies, “Address to the Court”; Voltairine de Cleyre, “At the Grave at Waldheim”; Kenneth Rexroth, “Waldheim.”

November 30: Individualist Anarchism

Josiah Warren, “Manifesto”; Benjamin Tucker, “State Socialism and Anarchism”; Bob Black, “The Abolition of Work.”

December 7: Anarcha-Feminism

Voltairine de Cleyre, “Sex Slavery”; Peggy Kornegger, “Anarchism: The Feminist Connection”; Gay Liberation Front: Manifesto

December 14: Anarchism & Education

Francisco Ferrer, “Reform of the School” (1913); Paul Goodman, from Compulsory Miseducation, chapters 9-11 (1969)

January 11: Sacco and Vanzetti

Robert D’Attilio, “The Sacco and Vanzetti Case”; Bartolomeo Vanzetti, “The Story of a Proletarian Life”; Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman, “Sacco and Vanzetti”; Edna Millay, “Justice Denied in Massachusetts”; John Dos Passos, “They Are Dead Now”

January 18: Anarcho-Syndicalism

Rudolf Rocker, from Anarchosyndicalism; Langston Hughes, “Spanish Civil War Broadside”; Noam Chomsky, “Notes on Anarchism”

January 25: Christian Anarchism

Adin Ballou, “The Superiority of Moral over Political Power”; Dorothy Day, “Wealth, The Humanity of Christ, Class War”; “The Family vs Capitalism”

February 1: Eco-Anarchism

Henry David Thoreau, “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For”; Murray Bookchin, “Society and Ecology” (final section)

February 8: Post-Colonial Anarchism

Ashanti Alston, “Black Anarchism,” Ricardo Flores Magon, “Land and Liberty.”

 

Discussion Group on Anarchism in America