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Renewing the Anarchist
Tradition
Archive: Complete Program
of Summer Conference 2000 ...
page 1
go to page two ... Saturday & Sunday
Thursday, August 24
- 4-10 p.m.: Conference registration
- 8 p.m.: Film - Breaking
the Bank
Friday, August 25
- 8:30-9:30 a.m.: Breakfast
& Late Registration
- 10-11:15 a.m.: Morning Presentations
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...in the sunroom
From "Ecology" to "Globalization":
The Repositioning of Contemporary Anarchism
Chaia Heller
Over the past several
centuries in the West, two major sociopolitical shifts have emerged:
a transition from an agrarian feudalistic society to an industrial
capitalist nation-state; and the current transition from an industrial
capitalist nation-state to an informational capitalist system.
This presentation will explore these "twin shifts"
and the forms of social critique that they have engendered. Moreover,
by looking at the new notions of nature, capitalism, and governmentality
introduced by the globalization discourse, this talk will examine
the implications of these shifts for contemporary anarchism.
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... in the big
top tent
Toward a Historical Perspective on
Libertarian Education in the United States
Kai Malloy
From the 1820s until the present
day, a remarkable set of pedagogical theories, broadly called
"libertarian," have inspired numerous educational experiments,
programs, and schools in the United States - first under the
auspices of various radical and utopian social movements, and
later under the sponsorship of an anarchist movement. This presentation
will examine anarchist education historically and philosophically,
touching on such topics as libertarian education as a process
of transformation, anarchist education in relation to other pedagogical
models, the fundamentals of anarchist education, and lessons
from the past as well as the relevance of anarchist pedagogy
for today and beyond.
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...in the farmhouse
Crusaders of the New World Order:
State, Power, God, & the Constitution
Charles W. Brown
This presentation will attempt
to provide a bridge between analyses of U.S. foreign policy both
as a concrete expression of military violence and means for U.S.
control of economies, on the one hand, and the ideology that
is infused in the U.S. citizenry on behalf of that power, on
the other. The approach will be to show some of the right-wing's
themes (God, the Constitution, and whiteness) as being the guiding
star of liberal discourse and the latter as the "moral high
ground" from which the U.S. government declares its right
to lead the crusade to create a New World Order. This will be
done with all due respect to Voltairine De Cleyre's 1914 article
"Anarchism and American Traditions," and to further
analyses of state, fascism, and ideology.
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- 11:30 a.m.-12:45 p.m.: Morning
Presentations, Second Round
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...in the sunroom
Social Ecology & Its Relation to
Anarchism
Dan Chodorkoff
Social ecology draws on studies
in philosophy, history, political and social theory, anthropology,
feminism, and the natural sciences to provide a coherent radical
critique of current anti-ecological trends. At the same time,
it offers a reconstructive, communitarian, and ethical approach
to social change. This talk will look at the connection between
social ecology as a body of ideas and anarchism as a tradition,
highlighting the connections and differences between the two.
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...in the farmhouse
Anarchist Responses to Violence against
Women
Helen Harrison
Since feminists in the early
1970s raised male violence against women as a systemic, political
issue, much of the organized response has been to use the state,
particularly the police and courts, as protection and recourse.
This presentation will focus on the ramifications of this approach
for women's freedom as well as for an anarchist vision of society.
What would an anarchist response to violence against women look
like?
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...in the big top
tent
Community versus Movement: Raising Anarchist Generations
Pavlos Stavropoulos
This presentation will argue
that if we are truly interested in "renewing the anarchist
tradition," we must dedicate considerable effort toward
younger generations. Specifically, this talk will address how
to incorporate families and young children into anarchist groups,
movements, and theories; how to bridge the gaps between younger
activists, who often look for excitement and trouble, and older
more seasoned anarchists with a bend toward theory and "serious
political work"; and how to build real communities that
can survive the ebbs and flows of issues and movements, raising
and sustaining new generations of anarchists.
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- 1-2 p.m.: lunch
- 2:15-3:30 p.m.: Afternoon
Presentations
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...in the big top
tent
Education for Liberation: A Dream or
a Possibility?
Paula Emery and Laura Schere
This participatory workshop
will explore both anarchist content and ethics, and their practice
in the public school classroom. How does one engage with this
monolithic system as an anarchist? How does one engage with students
in a classroom setting as an anarchist? Participants, especially
public school educators, are encouraged to share their stories
and strategies. Time permitting, there will also be a discussion
of schoolwide liberatory education models, such as individualized
learning and other studentcentered models.
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...at the washhouse
From Human Waste to the Gift of Food:
The Liberatory Nature of Humanure
Jonathan Bates
What is the power latent in
building the soil of cultures? Where is the radical politics
in excreta recycling? This presentation will discuss how present-day
society treats its excrement, and alternatively, explore how
to build a nonhierarchical, free, and democratic politics from
it. Indeed, without reconstructing the politics of excrement
and its connection to food, and thus society, and using these
subjects to explain a new social ecological politics that would
bring the power of decision making back into communities, it
is hard to envision a new society emerging from the anarchist
tradition.
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... in the sunroom
Anarchist Graphic Art
Wendy Hyman
A brief presentation of anarchist
art- from William Morris to Fluxus, and including a "show
and tell" of Wendy's collection of rare anarchist woodcut
novels from the 1920s and 1930s- will open the way toward a discussion
of the fraught and ripe relationship between radicalism and aesthetics.
Some of the theoretical issues to be considered include: iconicity
vs. reproducibility; the problem of the need for patronage and/or
leisure for most artists in most points in history; art's challenge
to syndicalism- that is, what value do anarchists place on "nonproductive"
contributions to society; and issues of the accessibility of
art (museums are cheap/free: why don't "the people"
go?; medium "vs." message; representation "vs."
abstraction; and humanism "vs." postmodernism).
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...in the farmhouse
The Revival of Syndicalism in Europe
Eric Chester
Over the last May Day weekend,
there was a Europeanwide conference of syndicalist unions in
Paris, which Eric attended as a member of the IWW delegation.
This presentation will briefly describe the conference and its
main participants, as well as future plans for coordination of
the growing syndicalist union movement in Europe. It will also
place this syndicalist revival within the wider context of the
increasing strength of the revolutionary Left in Europe.
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- 4-5:30 p.m.: Evening Presentations
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...in the farmhouse
Latin American Political Challenges
Chuck Morse
This talk will survey radical
movements against global capitalism in Latin America from a libertarian
perspective, analyzing their problems and the political opportunities
they present. Particular attention will be paid to Mexico.
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...in the sunroom
The Nineteenth-Century Emergence of American
Anarchism
Carlotta R. Anderson
This talk begins with a brief
overview of anarchism as it evolved in the United States in the
nineteenth century, from Josiah Warren to Alexander Berkman and
Emma Goldman. The emphasis, however, will be on the tenets of
individualist anarchism and its chief exponent, Benjamin Tucker,
his publication Liberty, and his circle. Among Tucker's
closest colleague was Joseph A. Labadie, who died in 1933. After
Tucker moved to France in 1908, Labadie remained one of individualist
anarchism's few adherents and continued to promote it ceaselessly
in lectures, articles, and poetry.
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- 6-7 p.m.: dinner
- 7:30-9:30 p.m.: Panel &
Discussion
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... at the Plainfield
Town Hall
Anarchy Resurgent:
Resisting the Global Capitalist State
A roundtable discussion facilitated by Ron Sakolsky &
guests
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Program schedule for
Saturday & Sunday
or, back to
the top of this page
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