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2016 Grantees, Fundraising Appeal, Call for Submissions for our Next Perspectives on Anarchist Theory and more!
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Contents
  • Congratulations 2016 Grantees
  • Help Publish Perspectives on Anarchist Theory Anarcha-feminisms Issue
  • Perspectives on Anarchist Theory Call for Submissions on Play
  • IAS Twentieth Anniversary
  • Contact Us
  • Support the Institute for Anarchist Studies
2016 Institute for Anarchist Studies (IAS) Writing Grant Awards

We would like to congratulate our four recipients of IAS writing grant awards for 2016.  We choose these four out of sixty-two applications.  They are: Henna Rasanen, writing Weltuntergang: A Queer Post-Apocalyptic Graphic Novel; Jeremey Louzao, writing  "The Friendly Neighborhood Anarchist: Embracing the Groundwork that Makes Revolutions Possible;" Mona Luxion, writing “#Printemps2015: Lessons from Québec's Stunted Anarchist Anti-austerity Mobilization;” and Toshio Meronek, writing "They Won’t Quit: LAGAI Queer Insurrection." Congrats! Our next deadline to apply for an IAS grant is January 15th, 2017.  Go to our website (anarchiststudies.org) and click on Grants.

Henna Räsänen is a queer femme Berlin-based political comic artist and illustrator and worked as an editor for two political comic anthologies: Sikala - Comics on Factory Farming and On The Way To Peace, targeting governmental structures of violence. Henna draws regular cartoons for the feminist magazine Tulva (Finland), as well as strip comics for Ubik Magazine (Finland) and is part of the Finnish Femicomix network. Henna hosts comic workshops on queer norms, and has self-published two issues of A Hypothetical Love Triangle comic zine.

Henna's project is titled, WELTUNTERGANG: A Queer Post-Apocalyptic Graphic Novel 

WELTUNTERGANG narrates the end of the world, told from an anarchist and queer perspective, set in the surprisingly lively ruins of Berlin, Germany. It follows on a small group of queers, scavenging and surviving a few years after the collapse. The graphic novel focuses on issues affecting especially the queer community, while simultaneously speaking to a broader audience, creating a world, in which queer protagonists are not singled out, while specific queer issues come to importance. Dealing with community building and consensus decision-making strategies as a part of survival, Weltuntergang comments on the actual, alarming political landscape of North-Europe. Through the characters' intersectional portrayals of various genders, races, classes, body types, abilities, ages and backgrounds, the novel employs dark, prickly humor, and like dystopian sci fi often does, uses fiction to comment on our world; from today's North-European closure of its borders to the rise of the right-wing in the author's native country, Finland.

 

Jeremy Louzao is a long-time anarchist organizer in the Seattle area, partaking in global justice affinity groups, collective community info-shops, anti-violence support groups, youth empowerment non-profits, Guatemalan ex-guerrilla communities, and most recently focusing on high school teaching and school reform work.  

His project is called "The Friendly Neighborhood Anarchist: Embracing the Groundwork that Makes Revolutions Possible"

Anarchism's "beautiful ideal" has remained woefully underdeveloped as a sustained, strategic orientation for mass-based social struggle on the ground. Anarchism so often remains a mild contributor, a sort of token sidekick to revolutionary movements--rarely getting a stage to strut its full strategic stuff. This project will argue that contemporary antiauthoritarian currents have tremendous potential to break from stale and rigid models of organizing and to actually build a winning mass politics, by embodying a uniquely humble, yet  strategic anarchist disposition toward radical groundwork. It will explore in-depth 1) how radicals can personally embrace uniquely antiauthoritarian approaches to mass work: as listeners, accomplices, connectors, educators, and cheerleaders, and 2) how we can solidify that mass work into actual popular power through expressly non-cadre forms of mass organization. 

 

Mona Luxion is a white settler living in Montreal/Tio'tia:ke, where they are a PhD candidate, and organizes against militarism and capitalism in various forms. Born and raised in Chicago, Mona's introduction to movement politics came through anti-imperial and environmental justice struggles in the early 2000s. Today, they can often be found preserving food with their roommates, facilitating workshops and working to reconcile struggles for necessary public services and infrastructure with anti-state, antiauthoritarian politics.

Luxion's project is called “#Printemps2015: Lessons from Québec's Stunted Anarchist Anti-austerity Mobilization” 

Looking at the efforts to spark a broad-based social movement in opposition to the austerity budgets (politique déficit zéro) by Québec's Liberal government in 2014, this essay will draw on interviews with movement organizers as well as seasoned activists who remained on the sidelines in order to understand the aims and aspirations of the mobilization and why, despite widespread opposition to austerity across Québec society, the campaign failed to mobilize sustained large-scale participation. "#Printemps2015” will investigate the impact of the specter of Québec's massive student-led popular uprising in 2012 on organizing in 2014-15, and the use of rhetoric highlighting the effects of austerity budgets on a wide variety of issues. The lessons of #printemps2015 are likely to be useful for other movement-building efforts, offering both a source of inspiration and a critique of the ways in which solidarity and intersectionality are practiced in North American anarchist organizing communities that are predominantly young, white, and university-adjacent.

 

Toshio Meronek is an independent journalist focusing on politics, the Bay Area, disability, LGBT/queer issues, and prisons. He covers Silicon Valley for TruthOut, and has also reported for Al Jazeera, In These Times, and The Nation. His work has appeared in several anthologies—most recently in Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex (AK Press, 2015)

Toshio's project is tentatively titled, "They Won’t Quit: LAGAI Queer Insurrection"

Plenty of flash-in-the-pan radical organizations have emerged for short periods only to dissolve quickly into the ether. Many have laid groundwork for future antiauthoritarian justice activism, but few have had the staying power of the San Francisco Bay Area's LAGAI—Queer Insurrection. Taking on often-unpopular but critical political positions, its comrades have popularized direct actions around the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement for Palestinian liberation; shut down the Golden Gate bridge to spotlight the AIDS crisis; and produced the longest-running prisoner-focused newspaper in the US, UltraViolet. Today’s activists have much to learn from LAGAI's members, which include both lovers and frenemies, and people all over the gender spectrum. This project will attempt to figure out what extraordinary factors have led the group to thrive and stay true to its radical roots over multiple generations.

 

Celebrate Women's Day by Helping Publish Perspectives on Anarchist Theory Anarcha-feminisms Issue

http://igg.me/at/PerspectivesFunds/x/9605606

We are a group of six people in Canada and the US who collectively publish Perspectives on Anarchist Theory,  the journal of the Institute for Anarchist Studies.  

Perspectives, published since 1997, with the current version published since 2010, has layout, art, and design by Josh MacPhee of Justseeds Artists' Cooperative.  Did you know that Perspectives is created almost exclusively with volunteer labor by our collective? That authors, editors, designers and sometimes even the printer donate all or most of their work to Perspectives?  About our current issue, CrimethInc. said, "this journal is setting out to do something different. It manages to present a wide array of nuanced and critical articles while remaining accessible, which is quite refreshing ... Perspectives on Anarchist Theory is well worth a read for anyone interested in insightful reflections on contemporary struggles from an antiauthoritarian viewpoint."

Our new issue focuses on anarcha-feminisms, and includes a wide variety of voices on the subject.  It will offer histories of anarcha-feminism, while also looking at ways anarchist feminism can move forward, what the relationship between anarchism and feminism is and the ways the anarchist movement falls short from a feminist perspective. We are turning to you to help fund the design, layout, printing and mailing costs for this issue.  With your help, we’ll be able to publish 1,000 copies and mail it to bookstores, distributors and people like you around the world.

Perspectives is printed in Portland, Oregon at Eberhardt Press, who often donate labor and do things like add color to pages without cost.  For this issue Josh MacPhee is not able to do layout because his partner just gave birth, so we are hiring a comrade to help.  Although he is reducing the costs for his work, it will still be $300 for layout and design, and then $2,750 or so to print, and then another $750 for mailing costs. So we are looking to raise $4,000 which includes an extra $200 for any unexpected expenses, which will go towards future issues if not used.

In exchange for your help in getting the anarcha-feminisms issue out, we can offer all sorts of perks, including copies of the issue when it’s ready, and many of our excellent back issues and copies of our Anarchist Interventions books, published in collaboration with AK Press.

We are turning to you to help make all this possible. Through your contribution we can get the new issue of Perspectives out to the world. 

The current Perspectives collective has been publishing issues of our journal for quite some time now, and we will produce an excellent issue with your help.  Please donate what you can, and spread the word about our fundraising campaign with your friends, family, coworkers and comrades!  Thanks.

http://igg.me/at/PerspectivesFunds/x/9605606

 

 

PLAY: A Call for Submissions for the Next Issue of Perspective

Are you an organizer or activist currently engaged in movement work?  Are you interested in taking time to reflect on the lessons and ideals of this work in order to help advance anarchist praxis?  Are you a self-taught thinker with a particular interest or expertise in some aspect of radical history or practice? Are you willing to share your insights to contribute to our collective memory?  Do you have ideas, experiences, or questions that you would like to develop and share with a wider audience?

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, the Perspectives on Anarchist Theory editorial collective would like to hear from you.  We believe it is crucial that those of us with visions of a free society share our work and ideas so that we can create a solid, common foundation on which to build a better world.  We value underrepresented voices, accessibility, complexity, and the rigorous investigation of ideas.

We are currently accepting work related to the concept of “play,” and encourage writers to conceive of the theme as broadly as possible.  For some, “play” may conjure notions of mischief or the anarchic spirit.  For others, it may provoke questions around creative street tactics and interventions, or the various roles of theater and performance in movement work.  Pastimes, game theory, sports and sport culture, playfulness at all ages—all are fair game.  We encourage folks to submit work that explores the transformative power of joy, challenge, and strategy.

We do not have a maximum or minimum word count, though shorter pieces do allow us to include more work by a broader range of authors.  When submitting, please ensure first that you are familiar with the kinds of writing and scholarship Perspectives publishes, and that your document format adheres to the Chicago Manual of Style.  All notes must be done as endnotes, not footnotes, and the note numbers must be typed directly into the body of the text, rather than as superscript.  Authors are welcome to query in advance of submitting manuscripts.  Editorial support is available to develop your idea or piece; first-time authors are encouraged to submit.

To submit or query, please email: PerspectivesonAnarchistTheory@gmail.com.  Submission deadline for the Play issue is January 1, 2017.

 

This Year is Our 20th Anniversary

We will be having a party in September in Portland, OR and hope you will join us! Watch for information on how you can help us celebrate 20 years of supporting anarchist writing and scholarship. 

Contacting IAS

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The Institute for Anarchist Studies is funded by donations from individual anarchists, anti-authoritarians, libertarian leftists, and other like-minded radicals as well as collectives, publishers, and projects interested in furthering anarchist scholarship–people like you! The IAS also raises funds through its Mutual Aid Speakers List and donations at other events. In this way, the IAS is both independent and yet deeply interconnected with, and supported by, anarchist and like-minded folks and movements. The IAS, in short, is about the anti-authoritarian Left sustaining its own public intellectuals and critical intellectual spaces to provide funding for things like child care or taking time off work to enable organizers the time to reflect and write.

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