1st Anarchist Studies Network Conference - "Re-Imagining Revolution"

Dates: 4th-6th September, 2008 (Confirmed)
Proposal Deadline: March 26, 2008
Location: Department of Politics, IR, and European Studies, Loughborough University, UK

Call for Papers for Panels/Publication

What is the meaning of revolution today? From the French Revolution through much of the twentieth century, both the theory and practice of revolution was dominated by the assumption that the violent seizure of state power was the defining characteristic of revolutionary change. In recent years, this assumption has increasingly been called into question by a wide range of thinkers and activists from across the radical political spectrum. Yet only a small minority appear to recognise the extent to which recent developments were anticipated by the words and deeds of certain anarchist revolutionaries over a century ago. As a result, a rich and diverse corpus of anarchist revolutionary experience has been neglected, and its relevance to the contemporary world overlooked.

By way of contribution to the process of remedying this historical amnesia and generating fresh ideas rooted in critical reflection on the past, we invite paper proposals for a series of Anarchist Studies Network conference panels on the theme of "Re-Imagining Revolution". More specifically, the aim of the panels is to creatively re-imagine the concept of revolution in ways relevant to the times in which we live, with a particular emphasis on the distinctive contributions and limitations of anarchism – both classical and contemporary – and anarchist(ic) variants of contemporary counter-cultural social movements.

While there is no restriction on possible paper topics, proposals informed by feminist, anti-racist, ecological, pacifist, utopian, romantic, and non-Western anarchist perspectives are particularly welcome. So, too, are papers that promise to illuminate the relationship between the "personal" and the "political" aspects of revolutionary change; its joyous, witty, sensuous, playful, and aesthetic dimensions; the possibilities for combining revolutionary spontaneity and organisation; the conception of revolution as a process unfolding over time rather than a singular cataclysmic event; and the roles of direct action, prefigurative politics, non-violent struggle and organised non-cooperation, countercultural communal experiments and alternative lifestyles, affinity groups and networks, social centres and co-operatives, skill sharing and the practice of mutual aid, utopian imagination, Luddism, and the qualitative transformation of work in generating radically open-ended, popular, organic, constructive, and creative forms of revolutionary change.

Some of the speakers confirmed as of January 2008 include Ruth Kinna, current editor of the journal *Anarchist Studies*; David Graeber, author of *Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology*; Sasha Roseneil, author of *Common Women, Uncommon Practices: The Queer Feminisms of Greenham*; Saul Newman, author of *From Bakunin to Lacan: Anti-Authoritarianism and the Dislocation of Power*; and John Jordan, co-editor of *We Are Everywhere: The Irresistible Rise of Global Anti-Capitalism* and co-founder of the Clandestine Rebel Insurgent Clown Army.

Selected papers from the conference will be revised for publication either in the form of a special journal issue or as an edited volume.

If you are interested in contributing to the panels, please send an email to Laurence Davis (the convenor, at ldavis@oceanfree.net) by 26th March 2008 including a paper title, 200-300 word proposal, and contact details. Alternatively, if you wish to propose a complete three-person panel, please send a panel title, brief synopsis of the panel, and names and contact details of all contributors, indicating after each name whether participation has been confirmed. Informal inquiries about alternative panel or workshop arrangements are very welcome.

For further information about the conference, see http://www.anarchist-studies-network.org.uk/HomePage.