Stateless Imaginations: Global Anarchist Literature

This course examines the literature, aesthetics, and theory of global anarchist movements, from nineteenth-century Russian anarcho-syndicalism to Kurdish stateless democratic movements of today. We will also study the literature of “proto-anarchist” writers, such as William Blake, and stateless movements with anarchist resonances, such as Maroon communities in the Caribbean. Authors will include Ursula Le Guin, Kaneko Fumiko, John Keene, Kafka, and Dario Fo. Theorists and historians will include Macarena Gomez-Barris, Dilar Dirik, Nina Gurianova, Paul Avrich, Luisa Capetillo, Emma Goldman, and J. Kehaulani Kauanui. Particular attention will be given to decolonial thought, religious anarchism, fugitivity and migration, and gender and race in anarchist literature.