tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-40287321576145878422024-03-13T04:22:13.877+00:00A Pinch of SaltChristianity and anarchism in conversation and action<br><br>
Apinchofsalt.orgKeithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02147525823683417890noreply@blogger.comBlogger446125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4028732157614587842.post-13697176844329943282018-02-03T13:10:00.000+00:002018-02-03T13:10:20.438+00:00Call for papers on religion & anarchism, ASN Conference Loughborough 12-14 September 2018<div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1515760825282_31473">
CALL FOR PAPERS – please circulate widely</div>
<div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1515760825282_31459">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1515760825282_31469">
Anarchism and Religion // Anarchist Studies Network 5th International</div>
<div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1515760825282_31467">
Conference // Loughborough University - 12-14 September 2018</div>
<div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1515760825282_31465">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1515760825282_31461">
The intersection of anarchism and religion has proved a fertile field</div>
<div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1515760825282_31463">
of intellectual inquiry. Some publications have focused on traditional</div>
<div dir="ltr">
anarchist quarrels with religion and its institutions; others have</div>
<div dir="ltr">
elaborated and discussed anarchist exegesis of religious scripture;</div>
<div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1515760825282_31478">
others yet have articulated theological reflections with an anarchist</div>
<div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1515760825282_31480">
angle; and others still have studied the histories of specific</div>
<div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1515760825282_31482">
religious anarchist thinkers, communities and movements. However, the</div>
<div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1515760825282_31484">
literature has tended to display familiar biases: authors are often</div>
<div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1515760825282_31486">
white and Western, the main religion is often Christianity, and few</div>
<div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1515760825282_31488">
have turned their attention to decolonisation.</div>
<div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1515760825282_31490">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1515760825282_31492">
In line with the central theme of the broader conference, papers for a</div>
<div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1515760825282_31494">
potential stream of panels on anarchism and religion which consider</div>
<div dir="ltr">
issues around decolonisation are particularly encouraged (the broader</div>
<div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1515760825282_31496">
conference call for papers is copied below). Proposals developing</div>
<div dir="ltr">
non-Christian perspectives are also encouraged. Nonetheless,</div>
<div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1515760825282_31498">
contributions on any topics relevant to the study of anarchism and</div>
<div dir="ltr">
religion are welcome, with or without connection to decolonisation.</div>
<div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1515760825282_31500">
Any disciplinary angle is welcome.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1515760825282_31502">
Please send abstracts of up to 250 words with your name and (if</div>
<div dir="ltr">
relevant) any institutional affiliation to stream convenor Alex</div>
<div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1515760825282_31504">
Christoyannopoulos at <a href="mailto:a.christoyannopoulos@lboro.ac.uk">a.christoyannopoulos@lboro.ac.uk</a> by 15 February</div>
<div dir="ltr">
2018.</div>
<div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1515760825282_31506">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1515760825282_31508">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
Anarchist Studies Network // 5th International Conference // 12-14</div>
<div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1515760825282_31510">
September 2018 // Loughborough University, U.K.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
Call for Papers and Panels</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1515760825282_31453">
The fight against domination and destruction continues under heavy</div>
<div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1515760825282_31451">
clouds. A global wave of resistance has once again been met with</div>
<div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1515760825282_31449">
reaction, as elites turn to barefaced nationalism, racism and</div>
<div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1515760825282_31447">
misogyny. For the world's majority, such oppression is neither</div>
<div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1515760825282_31441">
surprising nor new, given the enduring legacy of colonialism and</div>
<div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1515760825282_31445">
by-now-established forms of neo-colonial exploitation. Meanwhile,</div>
<div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1515760825282_31511">
hegemonic discourses show a frustrating capacity to co-opt and</div>
<div dir="ltr">
neutralise: converting anti-capitalism into welfare-populism,</div>
<div dir="ltr">
ecological resistance into green consumption, and militant</div>
<div dir="ltr">
intersectionality into liberal identity politics. Anarchist literature</div>
<div dir="ltr">
and organising are not automatically immune to these problems; posing</div>
<div dir="ltr">
ideas and practices that are radically free from domination requires</div>
<div dir="ltr">
critical reflection on assumptions and truths, including one’s own.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
Despite challenges, anarchists have sustained and grown multiple sites</div>
<div dir="ltr">
of resistance as well as constructive projects, while boldly</div>
<div dir="ltr">
spearheading the confrontation with the far right. Confident that the</div>
<div dir="ltr">
tide will turn again, the flame remains kindled.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
In these uncertain times, the elaboration of anarchist analysis</div>
<div dir="ltr">
bridging theory and practice, scholarly rigour and the insights of</div>
<div dir="ltr">
social movements, is as necessary as ever.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
The 5th International Conference of the Anarchist Studies Network will</div>
<div dir="ltr">
be held at Loughborough University between 12-14 of September 2018.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
Proposals are welcome for individual papers, as well as for panels</div>
<div dir="ltr">
drawing together 3-4 papers around a common theme.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
Please send abstracts of up to 250 words per paper to the address:</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<a href="mailto:asn.conference.5@mail.com">asn.conference.5@mail.com</a></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
Deadline for abstracts: 28 February 2018</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
ASN conferences aim to breach new frontiers in anarchist scholarship,</div>
<div dir="ltr">
and encourage cross-pollination between disciplines. Contributions are</div>
<div dir="ltr">
invited from within and outside the official academic sphere, from any</div>
<div dir="ltr">
scholarly discipline(s), and on any topic relevant to the study and</div>
<div dir="ltr">
practice of anarchism as a vital approach to social transformation.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
The central theme for this conference is DECOLONISATION, which we hope</div>
<div dir="ltr">
will inspire many of the presentations and panels. The purpose is</div>
<div dir="ltr">
twofold: to stimulate discussion of colonialism and racism as forms of</div>
<div dir="ltr">
oppression that anarchists oppose, but which continue to be felt in</div>
<div dir="ltr">
anarchist organising; and to welcome individuals, groups and</div>
<div dir="ltr">
communities who have not previously participated in ASN events. By</div>
<div dir="ltr">
recognising the legacy of non-western and anti-colonial thought and</div>
<div dir="ltr">
action in the anarchist tradition, we want to strengthen the ties</div>
<div dir="ltr">
between contemporary anarchists and decolonial theory and practice in</div>
<div dir="ltr">
the struggle against oppression, and to use the recognition of racist</div>
<div dir="ltr">
and Eurocentric practices and mind-frames to open up the event to</div>
<div dir="ltr">
marginalised groups.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
We therefore particularly encourage submissions from the global south</div>
<div dir="ltr">
and from people of colour, as well as from women, trans and non-binary</div>
<div dir="ltr">
people, and people with disabilities. We strongly encourage panel</div>
<div dir="ltr">
organizers to overcome exclusion. For the central theme, we welcome</div>
<div dir="ltr">
presentations that are concerned with topics such as the following:</div>
<div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1515760825282_31512">
- Anarchist engagements with decolonial and race theory</div>
<div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1515760825282_31514">
- Anarchist geographies of decolonisation</div>
<div dir="ltr">
- Anarchist movements in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Pacific, etc.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
- Anarchist resonances of non-western philosophies, religions and traditions</div>
<div dir="ltr">
- Anti-nationalism and anti-fascism</div>
<div dir="ltr">
- Decolonial critiques of anarchism</div>
<div dir="ltr">
- Decolonial critiques of the state</div>
<div dir="ltr">
- Histories of anarchist resistance to colonialism</div>
<div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1515760825282_31516">
- Intersections between race/colonisation and age, class, dis/ability,</div>
<div dir="ltr">
gender, sexuality, etc.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
- Non-western anarcha-feminism, green anarchism, individualism, etc.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
- Non-western and western modes of (anti-)representation and the</div>
<div dir="ltr">
movement between them</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
In addition, proposals are welcome on ANY TOPIC related to the study</div>
<div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1515760825282_31517">
and practice of anarchism.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
As well as submissions that bridge the gap between “academic” and</div>
<div dir="ltr">
other forms of knowledge, we also welcome proposals for workshops, art</div>
<div dir="ltr">
events/performances and experimental pieces, and are happy to discuss</div>
<div dir="ltr">
any ideas that you might have.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
We welcome proposals for papers and panels in other languages, but</div>
<div dir="ltr">
please send an abstract in English as well. Translation will be</div>
<div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1515760825282_31519">
self-organised during the conference on an ad-hoc, volunteer basis.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
Loughborough University facilities are fully wheelchair accessible and</div>
<div dir="ltr">
induction loops are available. We are hoping to have some travel</div>
<div dir="ltr">
bursaries available for low- or unwaged participants, especially from</div>
<div dir="ltr">
the global south, as well as co-organised childcare arrangements.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
Although we cannot guarantee either of these at the present stage,</div>
<div dir="ltr">
please do get in touch with any specific access needs and we will do</div>
<div dir="ltr">
our best to meet them: <a href="mailto:asn.conference.5@mail.com">asn.conference.5@mail.com</a></div>
<div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1515760825282_31537">
<br /></div>
AdRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07599745713630393640noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4028732157614587842.post-91710815550087983402017-11-24T18:17:00.003+00:002017-11-24T18:17:56.688+00:00Call for papers Anarchist Studies Conference Loughborough, 12-14 September 2018<div class="yiv5513651365MsoNormal" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1511520070465_9753">
<span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1511520070465_9752" style="font-size: 11.0pt;">The
fight against domination and destruction continues under heavy clouds. A
global wave of resistance has once again been met with reaction, as
elites turn to barefaced nationalism,
racism and misogyny. For the world's majority, such oppression is
neither surprising nor new, given the enduring legacy of colonialism and
by-now-established forms of neo-colonial exploitation. Meanwhile,
hegemonic discourses show a frustrating capacity to
co-opt and neutralise: converting anti-capitalism into
welfare-populism, ecological resistance into green consumption, and
militant intersectionality into liberal identity politics. Anarchist
literature and organising are not automatically immune to these
problems; posing ideas and practices that are radically free from
domination requires critical reflection on assumptions and truths,
including one’s own. Despite challenges, anarchists have sustained and
grown multiple sites of resistance as well as constructive
projects, while boldly spearheading the confrontation with the far
right. Confident that the tide will turn again, the flame remains
kindled.</span></div>
<div class="yiv5513651365MsoNormal" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1511520070465_9760">
<br /></div>
<div class="yiv5513651365MsoNormal" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1511520070465_9762">
<span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1511520070465_9761" style="font-size: 11.0pt;">In
these uncertain times, the elaboration of anarchist analysis bridging
theory and practice, scholarly rigour and the insights of social
movements, is as necessary as ever.</span></div>
<div class="yiv5513651365MsoNormal" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1511520070465_9763">
<br /></div>
<div class="yiv5513651365MsoNormal" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1511520070465_9765">
<span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1511520070465_9764" style="font-size: 11.0pt;">The
5th International Conference of the Anarchist Studies Network will be
held at Loughborough University between 12-14 of September 2018.
Proposals are welcome for individual
papers, as well as for panels drawing together 3-4 papers around a
common theme.</span></div>
<div class="yiv5513651365MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="yiv5513651365MsoNormal" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1511520070465_9767">
<span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1511520070465_9766" style="font-size: 11.0pt;">Please send abstracts of up to 250 words per paper to the address:
</span><a href="mailto:asn.conference.5@mail.com" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1511520070465_9769" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1511520070465_9768" style="font-size: 11.0pt;">asn.conference.5@mail.com</span></a><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="yiv5513651365MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="yiv5513651365MsoNormal" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1511520070465_9771">
<span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1511520070465_9770" style="font-size: 11.0pt;">Deadline for abstracts: 28 February 2018</span></div>
<div class="yiv5513651365MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1f497d; font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></div>
<div class="yiv5513651365MsoNormal" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1511520070465_9773">
<span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1511520070465_9772" style="font-size: 11.0pt;">ASN
conferences aim to breach new frontiers in anarchist scholarship, and
encourage cross-pollination between disciplines. Contributions are
invited from within and outside
the official academic sphere, from any scholarly discipline(s), and on
any topic relevant to the study and practice of anarchism as a vital
approach to social transformation.</span></div>
<div class="yiv5513651365MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="yiv5513651365MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">The
central theme for this conference is DECOLONISATION, which we hope will
inspire many of the presentations and panels. The purpose is twofold: to
stimulate discussion of
colonialism and racism as forms of oppression that anarchists oppose,
but which continue to be felt in anarchist organising; and to welcome
individuals, groups and communities who have not previously participated
in ASN events. By recognising the legacy of
non-western and anti-colonial thought and action in the anarchist
tradition, we want to strengthen the ties between contemporary
anarchists and decolonial theory and practice in the struggle against
oppression, and to use the recognition of racist and Eurocentric
practices and mind-frames to open up the event to marginalised groups.</span></div>
<div class="yiv5513651365MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="yiv5513651365MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">We
therefore particularly encourage submissions from the global south and
from people of colour, as well as from women, trans and non-binary
people, and people with disabilities.
We strongly encourage panel organizers to overcome exclusion. For the
central theme, we welcome presentations that are concerned with topics
such as the following:</span></div>
<div class="yiv5513651365MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="yiv5513651365MsoNormal" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1511520070465_9775">
<span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1511520070465_9774" style="font-size: 11.0pt;">- Anarchist engagements with decolonial and race theory</span></div>
<div class="yiv5513651365MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">- Anarchist geographies of decolonisation</span></div>
<div class="yiv5513651365MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">- Anarchist movements in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Pacific, etc.</span></div>
<div class="yiv5513651365MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">- Anarchist resonances of non-western philosophies, religions and traditions</span></div>
<div class="yiv5513651365MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">- Anti-nationalism and anti-fascism</span></div>
<div class="yiv5513651365MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">- Decolonial critiques of anarchism</span></div>
<div class="yiv5513651365MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">- Decolonial critiques of the state</span></div>
<div class="yiv5513651365MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">- Histories of anarchist resistance to colonialism</span></div>
<div class="yiv5513651365MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">- Intersections between race/colonisation and age, class, dis/ability, gender, sexuality, etc.</span></div>
<div class="yiv5513651365MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">- Non-western anarcha-feminism, green anarchism, individualism, etc.</span></div>
<div class="yiv5513651365MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">- Non-western and western modes of (anti-)representation and the movement between them</span></div>
<div class="yiv5513651365MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="yiv5513651365MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">In addition, proposals are welcome on ANY TOPIC related to the study and practice of anarchism.</span></div>
<div class="yiv5513651365MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="yiv5513651365MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">As
well as submissions that bridge the gap between “academic” and other
forms of knowledge, we also welcome proposals for workshops, art
events/performances and experimental
pieces, and are happy to discuss any ideas that you might have.</span></div>
<div class="yiv5513651365MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="yiv5513651365MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">We
welcome proposals for papers and panels in other languages, but please
send an abstract in English as well. Translation will be self-organised
during the conference on an
ad-hoc, volunteer basis. </span></div>
<div class="yiv5513651365MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="yiv5513651365MsoNormal" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1511520070465_9784">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">Loughborough
University facilities are fully wheelchair accessible and induction
loops are available. We are hoping to have some travel bursaries
available for low- or unwaged
participants, especially from the global south, as well as co-organised
childcare arrangements. Although we cannot guarantee either of these at
the present stage, please do get in touch with any specific access
needs and we will do our best to meet them:
</span><a href="mailto:asn.conference.5@mail.com" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1511520070465_9783" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1511520070465_9782" style="font-size: 11.0pt;">asn.conference.5@mail.com</span></a><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"></span></div>
<pre id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1511520070465_9780"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></pre>
AdRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07599745713630393640noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4028732157614587842.post-77968574147712231862017-04-06T22:40:00.000+01:002017-04-07T12:41:15.381+01:00Crowdfunding for books on religion and anarchism<iframe width="650" height="380" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fCKqWckczyY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
<a href="https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/essays-in-anarchism-and-religion/#/" taget="blank">Fundraising page</a><br />
<a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/97077166/essays-in-anarchism-and-religion" target="blank">the first volume</a>AdRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07599745713630393640noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4028732157614587842.post-91761941558853373622017-03-21T00:17:00.002+00:002017-03-21T00:17:54.617+00:00Peter Maurin’s vision for the Catholic Worker, an idea whose time has come<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iPmeTfOoOpY/WNBw_HH2xkI/AAAAAAAAP8k/LyX46-q-0_0r3IRfmP0eCp0k3mBc8NtkACLcB/s1600/wevenmaloy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="236" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iPmeTfOoOpY/WNBw_HH2xkI/AAAAAAAAP8k/LyX46-q-0_0r3IRfmP0eCp0k3mBc8NtkACLcB/s320/wevenmaloy.jpg" width="320" /></a>When I met Dorothy Day after arriving in New York City in 1975, I was 19 years old and she was 78 and the only thing that impressed her about me was that I had read Bread and Wine, a novel by Ignazio Silone published in 1936, that she cherished and often cited. The book’s protagonist is a leader in the Italian Communist party who secretly returns from exile to the village where he was born with the intention of organizing the rural masses to revolt against Fascism. He barely makes it home before falling ill and his fevered musings grasp part of the dilemma of the modern person:<br />
<br />
“If only I could wake up tomorrow morning at dawn, put a stick to my donkey, and go the vineyard, Don Paolo said to himself. If I could go to sleep, and wake up, not only with healthy lungs, but with a normal brain, free of all intellectual abstractions. If I could only go back to a real, ordinary life. If I could dig, plow, sow, reap, earn my living, talk to the other men on Sundays, read and study; fulfill the law that says, ‘In the sweat of thy face thou shalt earn thy bread.’ On further reflection Don Paolo decided that the root of his trouble lay in his infraction of that law- in the irregular life he had been living, in cafes, libraries, and hotels, in having rudely broken the chain that for centuries had bound his ancestors to the soil. He was an outlaw, not because he contravened the arbitrary laws of the party in power, but because of his infringement of that more ancient law, ‘In the sweat of thy face thou shalt earn thy bread.’ He had ceased to be a peasant, and he had not become a townsman. It would never be possible for him to return to the soil. Still less would it be possible for him ever to forget it.”<br />
<br />
Today it seems obvious that a return to the land, to a proper relationship with creation and to meaningful, productive work is integral to the aims of the Catholic Worker movement. For much of its history, however, since its beginning in 1933, this aspect of its founder’s original intentions was relegated to the margins of an already marginal movement.<br />
<br />
For the next eleven years after meeting Dorothy, I lived in Catholic Worker Houses of Hospitality in New York and then Davenport, Iowa, sharing meals and giving shelter to those in need. Peter Maurin’s visions of “agronomic universities” and return to a village based craft economy were not taken too seriously in those days and most of us, I think, would have been just as happy to dump these as slightly embarrassing and quaint anachronisms.<br />
<br />
Peter’s “Easy Essays” about Irish monks establishing salons de culture across medieval Europe did not seem relevant to our demanding work of offering hospitality, nor did his suggestion that in following these monks’ example was the answer to global hunger and the threat of nuclear annihilation. We took Dorothy Day at her word that Peter Maurin was her mentor and co-founder of the movement but there was at the time little evidence of his influence in our life and work.<br />
<br />
Mel Piehl in his fine historical review of the Catholic Worker movement, Breaking Bread,1982, even quotes some Catholic Workers of an earlier era who suggested that Peter’s “intellectual genius was clearly exaggerated” and that Peter was uncomfortable in his “feigned role of leadership.” Piehl estimates that Dorothy Day had exaggerated Peter’s role as “co-founder” and that she “promoted the fiction that the Catholic Worker was simply an attempt to realize Peter Maurin’s ‘Idea.’” It was, Piehl said, “strategically useful to her as a woman leading a social movement in the sexually conservative Catholic Church, to be able to point to a male co-founder of the movement.”<br />
<br />
For generations of young Americans attracted to Catholic Worker communities, the European peasant Peter Maurin might have appeared as obscure and incomprehensible as the very American radical Dorothy Day was accessible. Daniel Berrigan, in his introduction to Dorothy’s memoir, The Long Loneliness, published in 1981, a year after her death, reflected a common if less than generous perception of Peter and his vision: “They started a newspaper and the rest is history. They started houses of hospitality; that too is history. Peter was forever talking about something he called ‘agronomic universities.’ They started one, on the land; and that is something less than history.”<br />
<br />
Dorothy’s announcement in The Catholic Worker in January 1936, “we are going to move out on a farm… and start there a true farming commune,” however, was clearly proclaimed with the expectation that history was being made: “We believe that our words will have more weight, our writings will have more conviction, if we ourselves are engaged in making a better life on the land.” While she assured her readers that “we are not going to abandon the city,” it is clear that Dorothy’s historic expectation was that the Catholic Worker was going to realize its original vision, that of a rural based “back to the land” movement keeping some presence in the city, “sending out apostles of labor from the farm, to scenes of industrial conflict, to factories and to lodging houses, to live and work with the poor.”<br />
<br />
If this and other early experimental farming communes came and went as “something less than history,” as Dan offers, or as the abject failures that others have named them, the concept did continue to limp along somehow for the next decades. Rather than the cutting edge of a revolution as Peter envisioned the agronomic university, however, most Catholic Worker farms were planned and grew, if they did, as dependent branches of urban Catholic Worker houses of hospitality. Most of these few farms were seen even by those who lived and worked at them in an urban context, as auxiliaries, existing to provide cheap food for soup lines, hospitality for the urban poor and places for retreat and recreation for Catholic Workers from the city. Most were rural responses to urban poverty and homelessness with little regard to the poverty of their neighbors. By and by, the “true farming communes” originally proposed gave way to “retreat centers.”<br />
<br />
Some few here and there in the most obscure and remote places have always remembered and stood by Peter’s vision. These were often marginalized and misunderstood by the larger Catholic Worker movement as much as by their neighbors and the culture at large. When in 1986, Betsy Keenan and I moved with our children from the Catholic Worker hospitality house in Davenport, Iowa, to Maloy, a town of less than 30 souls just north of Iowa’s border with Missouri, many friends assumed that we had left the Catholic Worker movement. Some challenged us, what need is there for a soup line in so small a town? No soup line? What kind of Catholic Worker house are you? Whose farm are we, we were challenged, meaning what city house owns and controls our farm, assuming that the legitimate existence of any rural entity is bound to its tie to an urban one. About that time our good friend Chuck Trapkus included in his iconic “Catholic Worker Primer” a cartoon of a man in overalls holding a chicken and saying, “We’re Catholic Workers, too, don’t you forget it!”<br />
<br />
Over the past 30 years there has been a great shift in understanding and respect for Peter’s vision and what it means. At one of the sporadically convened national Catholic Worker gatherings, I think that this was in 1987, a “round table” discussion of Peter’s agronomic university was attended by a few of us farmers and the most pressing question that surfaced from the few mildly curious others who wandered in was “why bother with a garden when we have more donated old vegetables from the market than we can ever sort out?” Since that time, there has been a resurgence in Peter’s dreams of farming communes in the movement. At more recent gatherings, roundtables on rural issues and Peter Maurin are among the liveliest and best attended and this, the fourth biannual national Catholic Worker gathering is the largest ever.<br />
<br />
This resurgence is evidenced not only in the unprecedented plethora of Catholic Worker farms around the country and abroad. It is also shown in the level of discussion given Peter and his ideas in the newspapers of the various houses. Peter’s influence is seen in the growth of urban gardens in the yards and vacant lots around our city houses. Catholic Worker cottage industries, such as carving spoons, repairing bicycles, making soap, all are examples of a growing movement.<br />
<br />
In Maloy each winter we host a craft retreat, when up to a dozen Catholic Workers from around the Midwest crowd into our farmhouse to join us and some neighbors to weave, make cheese, carve wood, dip candles, knit, make baskets, cook, eat, pray, dance and sing. We have fun but these sessions were not recreational in the conventional sense nor are we really “on retreat.” These gatherings are the Catholic Worker movement going about some of its most serious business. As it happens, the craft retreat often gets scheduled just before or after the annual Witness Against Torture event in Washington, DC, an intense time of fasting and action to demand the closing of the prison at Guantanamo and the abolition of torture that I usually attend. In my mind, these two yearly events have melded into one continuum.<br />
<br />
This shift of paradigm has come in part, I think, as people who come to Catholic Worker houses are staying longer. While many still come to Worker houses to donate a “gap year” or two of their lives in service to the poor between college and “real life,” from the 1970s on, more and more came and stayed. It has been suggested that some of these moved out to farms looking for a better place to raise kids than an inner city house of hospitality. There may be something to that, but I offer that for many of us, living and working for years with the urban poor made us look deeper into the roots of the world’s problems and see that serving soup, good work that it is, is not enough. Speaking for myself, I needed to live in urban hospitality houses for many years before I could make any sense of Peter’s talk about revolution on the land.<br />
<br />
For many of us, too, solidarity work and travel to places exploited by economic and other kinds of colonialism brought us to see that Peter was right when he pointedly insisted that issues of war and peace always are, at the heart, issues of the land and its use. In New York City or Los Angeles as in Jerusalem or Mexico City or San Salvador, the peace and good order of society requires justice on the land. It strikes us, finally, that even the food that we serve on our soup lines that is donated or gleaned from dumpsters depends on slave labor and is grown in ways that cannot be sustained. When the peace for which we yearn and struggle finally comes and our global neighbors will no longer be forced by debt and oppression to clothe and feed us but will use their own labor, land and water to care for themselves, how then will we live?<br />
<br />
The crisis of climate change on our threshold, too, makes Peter’s dream of agrarian revolution look less like a medieval utopian fantasy and more like an urgent and rational plan for a new and sustainable social order of the future.<br />
<br />
Some criticize such changes in the movement as if they are evidence that we are losing our way. My perspective is that, with some growing pains, the Catholic Worker is rather finding its way now after so many years. “Our houses of hospitality are scarcely the kind of houses that Peter Maurin has envisioned in his plan for a new social order,” Dorothy Day wrote in her column in September 1942. “He recognizes that himself, and thinks in terms of the future to accomplish true centers of Catholic Action and rural centers such as he speaks of.” Perhaps it is true that Peter Maurin’s role as “co-founder” of the Catholic Worker was exaggerated in the past. If so, it might also be true that he is now posthumously growing into that role as the movement matures into the dynamic revolutionary social force it was meant to be.<br />
<br />
While I am gratified to see this revival, I must confess that, along with Silone’s Don Paolo, I am still a townsman and after three decades of rural living I am far more at home in the city, “in cafes, libraries, and hotels,” than I am on the farm and in the small town where I live. In recent years as a co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence, I am spending about half my time on the farm, half on the road, often in cities in America and abroad, sometimes in war zones and in jails and prisons. Some friends assume that my time on the farm is a respite from the stresses of activism, but the opposite is true. I love my home but often do not feel at rest there- the farm is the place where I feel most challenged and humbled and the city is where I go to escape.<br />
<br />
Betsy has become an accomplished weaver, goatherd and gardener, but the skills and attitudes needed to be a farmer continue to elude and frustrate me. Going to jail comes easier for me than fixing a fence or attending a church pot luck. I can make many varieties of cheeses from the milk of our goats, but find more satisfaction writing a press release or organizing a protest. A shopping trip to the county seat can be more daunting to me than traveling alone to Seoul or Kabul. By education, aptitude and temperament, I am not able to return to the soil but neither can I forget it.<br />
<br />
We are gathered here, Catholic Worker farmers and friends, at a time of extraordinary uncertainty and peril. It is unclear if the damage our wars and industrialized lifestyles are inflicting on the planet can be reversed at this late date. Never have so many people been displaced and the danger of nuclear war is more imminent now than ever before in the lifetimes of most of us here. If previous generations of Catholic Worker farms have measured in the end as “somewhat less than history,” our efforts today must be of historic proportions, God help us, if we are to contribute to the continuation of life on earth.<br />
<br />
- <i>Brian Terrell</i>AdRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07599745713630393640noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4028732157614587842.post-42917875533669970422016-02-11T17:22:00.000+00:002016-02-11T17:22:19.090+00:00Theology for liberation in the UK - call for papersModern Believing Call for Papers - Circulate Widely!<br />
<br />
<b><i>Theology for Liberation in the UK</b></i><br />
<br />
You are invited to submit a paper for review and publication that explores the interaction of radical politics and Christian faith that takes seriously its British context and looks for actual concrete change for neighbourhoods. <br />
<br />
<br />
Nothing vague or aspirational: Demonstrably Practical Theology, rooted in neighbourhoods or marginal communities. <br />
<br />
Papers need to demonstrate an understanding of a particular context, show that analysis has taken place with (rather than over or for) people and that the analysis of lived experience is deeply reflected on with academically rigorous theology that’s presented in an accessible way.<br />
<br />
<br />
Themes may include but are not exclusive to:<br />
<br />
<br />
- The interaction of religions in ways that change society<br />
<br />
- Anarchy as observed and interacted with by people of faith<br />
<br />
- Queer theology and its role in social transformation<br />
<br />
- Disability and challenging the changes to the social contract<br />
<br />
- Direct Action and theological reflection<br />
<br />
<br />
Due Date for Proposals: 1st March 2016<br />
<br />
Due date for submission of paper and abstract: 1st July 2016<br />
<br />
<br />
Contact: <br />
<br />
Revd Dr Keith Hebden, Guest Editor for Modern Believing<br />
<br />
<a href="mailto:Keithhebden@gmail.com" target="blank">Mail</a> for more details and to submit a proposal. AdRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07599745713630393640noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4028732157614587842.post-3348139062178564632016-01-24T23:02:00.001+00:002016-01-24T23:23:41.988+00:00Anarchist Studies Network Conference, 14-16 September 2016 Loughborough<div class="item">
Loughborough University, U.K. – 14-16 September 2016 <br />
Central theme: Anarcha-feminism <br />
Call for Papers and Sessions <br />
The global resistance faces turbulent times, as the balance of hope
teeters between inspiring mobilisation and reactionary retrenchment. In
Rojava, Kurdish communities are implementing libertarian socialism and
feminist leadership on a scale unseen since the Spanish civil war, while
world powers bomb the democratic Syrian opposition alongside ISIS. The
mobilisation of African Americans against police brutality goes beyond
liberal platitudes to highlight systemic racism, while competitors for
the Republican candidacy outdo one another in barefaced bigotry and
misogyny. And while anarchists were encouraged by the resurgence of
popular protest in the wake of the global financial crisis, much of that
energy has been absorbed by electoral initiatives from Greece and Spain
to the UK and US, vindicating longstanding concerns about the
co-optation of movements who expect too much of the state. In these
uncertain days, the elaboration of anarchist analysis which bridges
theory and practice and speaks to the needs of social movements assumes
increasing importance. <br />
The 4th International Conference of the Anarchist Studies Network
will be held at Loughborough University between 14-16 September 2016.
Proposals are welcome for individual papers, panels, and streams of
several panels. We especially encourage panel proposals, to include 3-4
presentations drawn together around a common theme, although individual
paper proposals are of course also welcome. <br />
Contributions from both within and outside the official academic
sphere are invited from any scholarly discipline(s), on any topic
relevant to the study of anarchism. <br />
The central theme for the conference is anarcha-feminism. The
purposes are twofold: to stimulate discussion of a form of oppression
that anarchists oppose but which continues to be felt in anarchist
organising; and to welcome individuals, groups and communities who have
not previously participated in ASN events. By recognising the legacy of
anarcha-feminists/anarchist feminism and women's activism in anarchism
we want to strengthen the ties between contemporary anarchists and
feminists in the struggle against oppression and use the recognition of
misogynist practices and hierarchical gender structures to open up the
event to other marginalised peoples. We therefore particularly encourage
submissions from women, trans and non-binary people, queer activists,
collectives, people of colour, people with disabilities and we strongly
encourage panel and panel stream organizers to overcome exclusion. We
are also especially interested in presentations that are concerned with
anarchism and one/more of the following: <br />
· Anarcha-feminist and queer theory <br />
· Anarcha-feminist critiques of the state <br />
· Anarcha-feminist histories <br />
· Ecofeminism, individualist anarcha-feminism,
anarcho-primitivist feminism, posthuman, cyborg and sci-fi
anarcho-feminism <br />
· Feminist critiques of anarchism and anarchist engagement with feminism <br />
· Intersections between gender, sexuality, race, class, abilities and anarchism <br />
· Local anarcho-feminist struggles / experiences <br />
· Love, sex, relationships (or resistance to) <br />
· Masculine and feminine representations and the movement between them <br />
· Sex work and reproductive rights <br />
· The role of women and non-binary people in the struggle against capitalism <br />
In addition, we welcome contributions on any other topic relevant to
the study of anarchism, with or without connection to anarcha-feminism. <br />
ASN conferences aim to breach new frontiers in anarchist scholarship,
and encourage cross-pollination between disciplines. As well as
submissions that bridge the gap between ‘academic’ and other forms of
knowledge, we also welcome proposals for workshops, art
events/performances and experimental pieces and are happy to discuss
ideas that you might have. <br />
Please send abstracts of up to 250 words per paper (multiply for panel/stream proposals) to ASN Co-convenor Uri Gordon at <a href="mailto:u.gordon@lboro.ac.uk"> u.gordon@lboro.ac.uk</a> by 14 March 2016<br />
<br />
- Specifically, our readers are cordially invited to come up with ideas for a special spiritual/religious anarchism section, not necessarily connected to the main theme.<br />
You may send your ideas to christianarchy at yahoo dot co dot uk</div>
AdRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07599745713630393640noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4028732157614587842.post-24848486748005097592015-09-04T11:30:00.003+01:002015-09-04T11:30:51.292+01:00Critical time for Religious Studies, Stirling<div class="yiv5160504975gmail_extra" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441360233714_4105" style="font-size: 13px;">Administrators are trying to shut down the entire Religious Studies department at Stirling University. </div><div class="yiv5160504975gmail_extra" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441360233714_4103" style="font-size: 13px;"><br />
</div><div class="yiv5160504975gmail_extra" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441360233714_4101" style="font-size: 13px;">This is significant for a number of reasons.</div><div class="yiv5160504975gmail_extra" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441360233714_4099" style="font-size: 13px;"><br />
</div><div class="yiv5160504975gmail_extra" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441360233714_4095" style="font-size: 13px;">First, the religious studies department at Stirling is of particular import due to its emphasis on Critical Religion theories. In fact, Timothy Fitzgerald, one of the professors affected, is a prominent voice in that field. Critical Religion theories are important because they challenge the very colonialist basis upon which the study of "religion" is based.</div><div class="yiv5160504975gmail_extra" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441360233714_4093" style="font-size: 13px;"><br />
</div><div class="yiv5160504975gmail_extra" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441360233714_4043" style="font-size: 13px;">The second reason is related to the first: Precisely because Critical Religion studies are a vitally needed, the shutting down of the entire department is an act of censorship that would damage not only the entire field of religious studies but also broader struggles against white supremacy and colonial domination. </div><div class="yiv5160504975gmail_extra" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441360233714_4090" style="font-size: 13px;"><br />
</div><div class="yiv5160504975gmail_extra" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441360233714_4088" style="font-size: 13px;">Third, this is significant because this type of sudden and arbitrary laying off of workers despite high student attendance— is exactly the type of business practice that we are all affected by and need to stick together to fight it. Despite a balanced budget and a healthy number of students, the administration offered four professors redundancy packages and plans to lay off the rest of the instructors. This type of brutal cutthroat practices cannot be accepted. </div><div class="yiv5160504975gmail_extra" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441360233714_4109" style="font-size: 13px;"><br />
</div><div class="yiv5160504975gmail_extra" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441360233714_4111" style="font-size: 13px;">What to do?</div><div class="yiv5160504975gmail_extra" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441360233714_4113" style="font-size: 13px;"><br />
</div><div class="yiv5160504975gmail_extra" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441360233714_4115" style="font-size: 13px;">You can sign (and spread!) the petition:</div><div class="yiv5160504975gmail_extra" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441360233714_4118" style="font-size: 13px;"><a href="https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/keep-religion-programme-at-stirling-university" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441360233714_4117" rel="nofollow" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/keep-religion-programme-at-stirling-university</a></div><div class="yiv5160504975gmail_extra" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441360233714_4120" style="font-size: 13px;">(Already 1,000 signatures in a few days!)</div><div class="yiv5160504975gmail_extra" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441360233714_4122" style="font-size: 13px;"><br />
</div><div class="yiv5160504975gmail_extra" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441360233714_4124" style="font-size: 13px;">Read more about Critical Religion studies at Stirling:</div><div class="yiv5160504975gmail_extra" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441360233714_4127" style="font-size: 13px;"><a href="http://criticalreligion.org/" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441360233714_4126" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://criticalreligion.org</a></div><div class="yiv5160504975gmail_extra" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441360233714_4127" style="font-size: 13px;"> </div><div class="yiv5160504975gmail_extra" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441360233714_4127" style="font-size: 13px;">Further reading:</div><div class="yiv5160504975gmail_extra" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441360233714_4127" style="font-size: 13px;"><A href="http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/22005" target="blank">here</a>. </div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441360233714_4157"><br />
</div>AdRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07599745713630393640noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4028732157614587842.post-9378380687961295042015-08-17T17:48:00.000+01:002015-08-17T17:48:10.065+01:00Conference on Dorothy Day<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MSSDaaL-T8s/VdIP5M-cVYI/AAAAAAAAOKg/RHH8vIuax98/s1600/DD-Conference.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MSSDaaL-T8s/VdIP5M-cVYI/AAAAAAAAOKg/RHH8vIuax98/s640/DD-Conference.jpg" width="542" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A conference that will examine both the person and the teachings of
Catholic Worker co-founder Dorothy Day will be held at the Oblate School
of Theology in San Antonio, TX, at the end of October</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
AdRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07599745713630393640noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4028732157614587842.post-28551341705748899902014-10-26T01:26:00.000+01:002014-10-26T01:26:07.140+01:00Keith Hebden speaking at Occupy Democracy, 17th of October 2014 <iframe width="640" height="380" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/6H7mYik5c50" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>AdRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07599745713630393640noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4028732157614587842.post-78490034869000469792014-10-06T11:22:00.000+01:002014-10-09T00:23:46.485+01:00IS and The Kurdish Revolution: Ideas on the Ground! <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">While IS continue to gain ground in the Middle East it is vital that we all get our heads around who the Kurds are, where they came from, and what they aspire to. Humanity's future is tied up in theirs and they map possibilities we can learn from. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Political maps have a horrid habit of dividing people for the sake of governing over them. Or as a flat-mate of mine used to say "Borders are imaginary lines separating one group of people's imaginary rights from those of another". <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Kurdish ethnic communities, Indo-European in descent and speaking various languages; Iranian, by and large but represented in bordering Iraq, Syria and Turkey are a classic example of the top-down statist nastiness that is 'border control'. And by 'border control' I mean the control of peoples using borders. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">A Brief Dystory* of the Kurdish People</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">As an ethnic group the Kurdish people are a huge melting pot, forming as a people in a place that is such an important geographical axis in world history. It makes them rich in legend, culture, language and diversity. but also disparate and subject to oppression by their many neighbours and - not having a state to represent them - ignored, by and large, by world powers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Kurdistan, as an entity, came into its own in the medieval period as a series of related but autonomous emirates organised under a shah. In the sixteenth century the Ottoman empire put and end to this with their occupation and centralisation of power, leading to the first organised Kurdish resistance and fight for self-rule, leading to a fully-formed Kurdish nationalism after World War 1 as the western powers carved up the map for their own greedy gain. So a conspiracy of Turkish, Iraqi, British and other European agencies have all but put an end to Kurdish hopes of a nation state to call home - free from persecution; safe from within their borders: their own 'Holy Land' as it were. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Iraq and the KRG</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">There is, today (since 2006) a<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.krg.org/p/page.aspx?l=12&s=050000&r=300&p=210">Kurdish regional government in Iraq</a> (KRG) with its own Prime Minister, flag, and so on. But the majority of Kurds are resident of Turkey. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Syria and the YPG</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">The "People's Protection Units" (YPG) are a stateless militia operating in Syria to protect Syrian Kurds from attack with the city of Kobane (a.k.a Ayn al-Arab) in norther Syria being a particular flashpoint and strategic area in the concept of a Kurdish Syria. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Turkey and the PKK</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">The "Kurdish Workers Party" (PKK) founded way back in 1978, is another armed struggle of resistance against state repression of Kurds: this time in Turkey. The PKK was founded by Abdullah Öcalan "Apo" and is, according to NATO, a terrorist organisation. However, since the PKK are not known to attack unarmed civilians and are busy resisting IS, international politicos may change their mind on this. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Apo was a Leninist organisation at first but has abandoned this agenda for a fluid and contextual form of anarchism, influenced greatly by Mikhail Bakunin and by Murray Bookchin: "Democratic Confederalism". <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Today, amidst the chaos of the middle east conflict, aided and abetted by a confused and avaricious Saudi-Western oil pact, the PKK are on the move and on the grow, These are, of course, precarious and unstable times. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://roarmag.org/2014/08/pkk-kurdish-struggle-autonomy/">Roarmag puts it like this</a>: "</span><span style="background: white; color: #111111; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Kurdish struggle, however, is anything but narrowly nationalistic. In the mountains above Erbil, in the ancient heartland of Kurdistan winding across the borders of Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria, a social revolution has been born." </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">The PKK have taken to this Democratic Confederalism and their ecologically-minded and feminist egalitarianism is capturing the imaginations of Kurdish people in Turkey. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Like any organisation there is a shadowy side and many unanswered questions. The PKK is committed to violence as a means to a just end and inevitably this leads to internal contradictions between liberty and authoritarianism. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">But what they demonstrate - and this is the exciting bit - is that people can have and do want stateless autonomy. We saw it in Spain in the 1930s and in Korea in the early 20th Century. In both cases it wasn't the unworkability of anarchism that destroyed it but the insatiability of the state from without, imposing its "protection" on otherwise self-organising people. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">You won't read much about the PKK, or the YPG in the mainstream press - the revolution will be relativised rather than televised - but keep your radical ear to the ground because change and resistance doesn't mean rockets from drones or 'boots on the ground' it means <a href="http://libcom.org/news/anarchists-join-fight-against-isis-defend-kurdish-autonomous-areas-03102014">power from the people building a new world in the shell of the old</a>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">HT: @RevdRay and @AnotherGreen <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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*Dystory - A History of how it all went wrong! </div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16826546489455832908noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4028732157614587842.post-32576700663484455132014-08-24T13:30:00.000+01:002014-08-24T13:30:20.052+01:00Enlightened Anarchism: An International Conference at Lapland University<div align="center" class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_1848" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<b id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2073"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2072" style="font-size: 11pt;">Enlightened Anarchism: An International Conference at Lapland University</span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_1856" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2076" style="font-size: 11pt;">Sept 11-14, 2014, Lapin Yliopisto, LS 10</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Organized by:</span></div>
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<span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2079" style="font-size: 11pt;">Ms. Ali Jones, CIMO Fellow, Cambridge University</span></div>
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<span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2081" style="font-size: 11pt;">Dr. Mika Luoma-aho, Lapland University</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2084" style="font-size: 11pt;">Anarchism
has recently become a topic of scholarly focus, as social and political
movements such as Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Spring emerge
throughout
the world. While traditional public opinion tends to view anarchism as
juvenile force of negation, violence or gleeful destruction, it is
nonetheless possible to examine a far more nuanced discourse, as
espoused by the social actors involved. In fact, many
such groups are particularly focused upon combatting fascism, perceived
state corruption, the effects of neoliberalism or globalization, or to
dedicating themselves to fighting for environmental protection,
immigrant and refugee rights, or in other arena of
social justice. Many of these aims could be interpreted as not only in
the public interest, but also to constitute some of the cornerstones of
democracy itself. In fact, in 2007 Saul Newman wrote that</span><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2086" style="font-size: 11pt;">
"the ideological terrain appears to have shifted to such an extent that
to be radical these days is precisely to insist on things like the rule
of law and protection of civil liberties and human rights."</span><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2087" style="font-size: 11pt;">
Indeed, despite
the traditional perceptions of anarchy predominant in Finnish academia,
it is in fact possible to view these social movements as composed of
highly engaged, and even faithful, public citizens, which begs the
question of why they are ostracized and considered
to be so politically threatening. It further causes one to re-examine
democracy and Anarchism categorically and philosophically.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2090" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2089" style="font-size: 11pt;">The upcoming
<i>Enlightened Anarchism</i> conference seeks to initiate this important
conversation within the Finnish Academy. It is organized in organized
in cooperation with Cambridge University, with financial support from
the Lapland
Faculty of Social Sciences. This major international event will host 25
speakers from around the world, including two outstanding keynotes:<span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2091">
Dr. George Katsiaficas, Wentworth Institute of Technology and Dr.
Alexandre
Christoyannopoulos, Loughborough University, in addition to Special
Guest Speaker Dimitrios Roussopoulous. Biographies of each speaker can
be found online, along with the schedule of talks,</span> at
</span><a href="http://enlightenedanarchism.wordpress.com/" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2094" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><i id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2093"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2092" style="font-size: 11pt;">http://enlightenedanarchism.wordpress.com/</span></i></a><i><span style="font-size: 11pt;">.<span>
</span></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2096" style="font-size: 11pt;">All
events are free and open to the public, and we encourage students to
attend and participate. Auditors should contact Ms. Ali Jones
at </span><a href="mailto:ajones@ulapland.fi" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">ajones@ulapland.fi</span></a><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2098" style="font-size: 11pt;"> for registration details. Students seeking credit for participation
should contact Dr. Mika Luoma-aho at </span><a href="mailto:mika.luoma-aho@ulapland.fi" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">mika.luoma-aho@ulapland.fi</span></a><span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">.</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Enlightened Anarchism</span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
September 11-14, 2014</div>
<div align="center" class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
Lapland University, in cooperation with Cambridge University</div>
<div align="center" class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span>Location: Lapin Yliopisto, Room LS10,
</span>Rovaniemi Finland</div>
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</div>
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<i>Keynote Speakers:</i></div>
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George Katsiaficas</div>
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<span><span>Alexandre Christoyannopoulos</span></span></div>
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<span><span> </span></span></div>
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<i><span>Special Guest Speaker:</span></i></div>
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<span>Dimitrios Roussopoulos</span></div>
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<b><u><span>Friday September 12<sup>th</sup>
</span></u></b></div>
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<span>8:30-9:15
<span> </span>Registration, Coffee, warm snacks and pastries
</span></div>
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<span>9:15-9:30
<span> </span>Welcoming Remarks, Ali Jones</span></div>
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<span>9:30- 11:00<span>
</span><span> </span><b>Non-Western Anarchisms</b></span></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2108" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<i><span>Chair: Dimitri Roussopoulos</span></i><span></span></div>
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<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2101" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 2cm;">
Tiina Seppälä, <i id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2100"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2099" style="color: black;">University of Lapland</span></i><span style="color: black;">
- </span>Anarchism, Resistance & Social Movements: Critical Perspectives from South Asia<span style="color: black;"></span></div>
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Enrique Galvan-Alvarez,<b> </b><i id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2102">International University of La Rioja</i> - Revolutionary Mercy? The Western Buddhist Anarchist Tradition</div>
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James Jackson, <i>Unaffiliated</i> – Rebel Music<b><span></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span>11:00-11:15<span>
</span><span> </span>Break</span></div>
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<span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2111">11:15 - 13:15
<span> </span><b id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2110">Capitalism and the State</b></span></div>
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<i><span>Chair: Julian Reid</span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2115" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 2cm;">
Blair Taylor,<i> New School</i> <i id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2114">
for Social Research</i>- New Spirit of Capitalism, New Spirit of the Left: Neoanarchism from the Alterglobalization Movement to Occupy Wall Street</div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2117" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 2cm;">
Nina Rismal, <i id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2116">Cambridge University</i> - Critical Theory and the Question of Violence: The 1968 Students Protests</div>
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Brandon Wallace, <i>New School</i> <i>
for Social Research</i> - Anarchism and the Legitimation of Authority</div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2119" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 2cm;">
Joshua Anderson, <i id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2118">Saint Louis University </i>
– Against the Nation-State: On the normative poverty of statism</div>
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<br /></div>
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<span>13:15-14:00
<span> </span>Lunch (University Cafeteria)</span></div>
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<span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2123">14:00- 15:30
<span> </span><span> </span><b id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2122">Anarchism and International Relations
</b></span></div>
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<i><span>Chair: Mika Luoma-aho</span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 2cm;">
Michael Kilburn,<span style="color: black;"> <i>
Endicott College</i></span> – Anarchism and Human Rights</div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2127" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 20.7pt;">
Jan Hanska, <i id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2126">Finnish Defense Research Institute
</i>– SERIOUSLY LUDICROUS:</div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 2cm;">
The “ridico-anarchic” nature of the politics of the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army</div>
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Guido Verstraeten, <i id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2129"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2128">Satakunta University of Applied Sciences</span></i><span>-</span> Eco-Regionalism, an Alternative
for Democratic Anarchistic Refuges.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span>15:30-16:00<span>
</span>Break (Coffee and warm snacks provided)</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span>16:00– 18:00
<span> </span><b>George Katsiaficas Keynote</b>,
<i>The Grammar of Insurgency</i></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt;">
<span>18:15
<span> </span><span> </span>Board Bus at University to Forest Cookout.
</span></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 108pt;">
<span>(Food will be provided.<span>
</span>Please bring drinks, warm clothes, and rain coats as appropriate)</span></div>
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<span><span> </span><span> </span></span></div>
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<b><u><span>Saturday September 13<sup>th</sup>
</span></u></b></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span>9:00-9:30
<span> </span>Coffee, warm snacks and pastries</span></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt;">
<span>9:30- 11:00
<span> </span><b>Anarchisms in German Thought and Praxis</b></span></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt;">
<i><span>Chair: George Katsiaficas</span></i></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt;">
<span> </span></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 2cm;">
<span>Anatole Lucet,
<i>École normale supérieure de Lyon - </i><span>Spirit and community: Gustav Landauer’s criticisms of materialism and violence.</span></span></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 2cm;">
Katharina Karcher, <i>University of Warwick </i>
and <i>Cambridge University</i> – The Red Zora: Anarchist Feminist Counter-violence in the Federal Republic of Germany<span>
</span></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 2cm;">
Ali Jones, <i>Cambridge University</i> – Henri Lefebvre and German Autonomie</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt;">
<span>11:00-11:15
<span> </span>Break</span></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt;">
<span> </span></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt;">
<span>11:15-13:15
<span> </span><b>Freedom,</b>
<b>Ethics and</b> <b>
the Spirit of Rebellion</b></span></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt;">
<i><span>Chair: Suvi Alt</span></i></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt;">
</div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 2cm;">
<span style="color: black;">Aylon Assael Cohen,
<i>Oxford University</i> - The Insurrection of Feelings and the Feelings for Insurrection</span><span>
</span></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 2cm;">
Mari Kuukkanen, <i>University of Helsinki</i> -<span> Prefigurative politics or counter-conduct?</span></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 2cm;">
Victor Castro, <i>Universidad de Granada </i>– Paradox of Ends and Means<span></span></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 2cm;">
Iwona Janicka, <i>Cambridge University</i> – Is There an Anarchist in this Closet? Understanding Contemporary Anarchism with Judith Butler and Peter Sloterdijk</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt;">
<span>13:15- 14:00
<span> </span>Lunch (University Cafeteria)</span></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span>14:00- 15:30<b>
<span> </span>Space and the Spatial Turn</b></span></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<i><span>Chair: Ali Jones</span></i></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 2cm;">
<span>Mika Luoma-aho,
<i>Lapland University - </i>Metaethics of Scale</span></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 2cm;">
Rui Coelho, <i>University of Lisbon</i> - Anarcho-Monks: Is Neomonasticism part of the “New Anarchist” wave?<span></span></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2136" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 2cm;">
Christian Pfenninger, <i id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2135"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2134" style="color: black;">University of Westminster
</span></i><span style="color: black;">– Porous Sovereignties</span></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2137" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span>15:30-15:45
<span> </span>Break</span></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2140" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2139">15:45- 17<b>:</b>15<b id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2138">
<span> </span>Anarchism and Christian Theology</b></span></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2141" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<i><span>Chair:
<span>Alexandre Christoyannopoulos</span></span></i></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2142" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2145" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 2cm;">
Anthony Fiscella, <i id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2144"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2143">Lund University</span></i> - Two Christianities: “Communal” and “Imperial” Variations - Responsibilities
and Relevancies for Researchers</div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2147" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 2cm;">
Lara Apps, <i id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2146">University of Alberta,</i> No Gods, No Masters? Anarchic Optimism in Eighteenth-Century French Atheism</div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2149" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 2cm;">
Justin Meggitt, <i id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2148">Cambridge University -</i> <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;">
Anarchism and Apocalypse: The historical Jesus and the problem of violence deferred</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2152" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2151">17:15-18:00
<span> </span>Break (coffee and warm snacks provided)</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span>18:00- 20:00
<span> </span><span><b>Alexandre Christoyannopoulos Keynote</b>,
<i>Leo Tolstoy’s Anticlericalism</i></span></span></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
20:00<span>
</span>University Sauna. </div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 72pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
(Drinks and snacks will be provided. Meals can be ordered).<span></span></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2154" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<b><u><span>Sunday September 14<sup>th</sup>
</span></u></b><span></span></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2155" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2179">Location: University Sauna Meeting Room</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2158" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt;">
<span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2157">10:00-11:00
<span> </span><span> </span>Roundtable Discussion (Coffee, snacks, pastries provided)</span></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2161" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 72pt;">
<span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2160">Dennis Fox, Emeritus,
<i id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2159">University of Illinois at Springfield</i> - Anarchist Morality and Personal Change</span></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2162" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt;">
<span> </span></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2165" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt;">
<span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2164">11:00-13:00
<span> </span><b id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2163">Dimitrios Roussopoulos Special Guest Speaker,
</b></span></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2180" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt;">
<i id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2182"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2181">Constructive Anarchism – Social Ecology and Democracy</span></i><b><span></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="yiv8347737562MsoNormal" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2183" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1408881131613_2184">13:00
<span> </span>Conference Conclusion.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
AdRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07599745713630393640noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4028732157614587842.post-75349433502353775492014-06-16T10:27:00.003+01:002014-06-16T11:32:15.494+01:00Reading about Christian anarchism<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24.375px; margin-bottom: 1.625em;">
I'm writing this blog post in response to a tweet that reads, <b style="color: inherit; font-style: inherit; line-height: 1.625;">"I've been thinking about Christian anarchism what would you suggest I read? Something theological with good praxis"</b>. Sometimes the answer is longer than a tweet allows! @NormalSteve</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fHjTvwf7wdU/U564ViyHyQI/AAAAAAAADEU/TikDV8Bw_gY/s1600/canning+tweet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fHjTvwf7wdU/U564ViyHyQI/AAAAAAAADEU/TikDV8Bw_gY/s1600/canning+tweet.jpg" height="87" width="320" /></a></div>
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If it's reading about Christian anarchism you're after, I'd recommend starting somewhere else. Start by reading about anarchism and then do your theological thinking from there. Then do some reading on Christian anarchism. </div>
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Start with the classics: Colin Ward's "Anarchy in Action" (which I can't find on hive.co.uk but his more up to date "Talking Anarchy" is likely to be great. But you can get even more classic than that with Emma Goldman's "Anarchy and other Essays" and the essential Peter Kropotkin's "Mutual Aid". Oh yes: and William Morris! </div>
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The original Christian anarchist writer would be Leo Tolstoi; his acerbic "What I Believe" and <a data-mce-href="http://www.hive.co.uk/ebook/leo-tolstoy-the-kingdom-of-god-is-within-you/18253726/" href="http://www.hive.co.uk/ebook/leo-tolstoy-the-kingdom-of-god-is-within-you/18253726/" style="color: #1b8be0; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.625; text-decoration: none;">"The Kingdom of God is Within You"</a> are the foundations of much Christian anarchist thought. </div>
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Online much of the foundational stuff for Christian anarchism is available form <a data-mce-href="http://compassionistas.net/index.php/component/remository/articles/orderby,2/page,2/?Itemid=0" href="http://compassionistas.net/index.php/component/remository/articles/orderby,2/page,2/?Itemid=0" style="color: #1b8be0; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.625; text-decoration: none;">Jacques Ellul</a> and <a data-mce-href="http://www.hccentral.com/eller1/" href="http://www.hccentral.com/eller1/" style="color: #1b8be0; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.625; text-decoration: none;">Vernard Eller</a>. </div>
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If you want something that gives you an incredibly in depth overview of Christian anarchist thought you can't go wrong with Alexandre Christoyannopoulos's <a data-mce-href="http://www.hive.co.uk/by/alexandre-christoyannopoulos/21900636/" href="http://www.hive.co.uk/by/alexandre-christoyannopoulos/21900636/" style="color: #1b8be0; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.625; text-decoration: none;">"Christian Anarchism"</a> and if you want something that's both practical and accessible you've got Dave Andrews' <a data-mce-href="http://www.daveandrews.com.au/chr.html" href="http://www.daveandrews.com.au/chr.html" style="color: #1b8be0; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.625; text-decoration: none;">"Christi-anarchy"</a> or "Not Religion, But Love". </div>
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And, of course, anything by Dorothy Day but I would warmly recommend her inspiring biography, "The Long Loneliness" which tells the story of a pioneering Catholic Anarchist with honesty that leaves you utterly humbled. </div>
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If you've read this far, I'm sure you won't mind me recommending my own<a data-mce-href="http://www.christian-alternative.com/books/seeking-justice-radical-compassion-jesus" href="http://www.christian-alternative.com/books/seeking-justice-radical-compassion-jesus" style="color: #1b8be0; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.625; text-decoration: none;"> "Seeking Justice: The Radical Compassion of Jesus"</a> which takes principles of Christian anarchist theory, without the language of anarchism, and translates them into genuine experiments in radical compassion. </div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16826546489455832908noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4028732157614587842.post-22217462584040381372014-05-19T12:29:00.001+01:002014-06-14T17:43:01.993+01:00Nuclear missile factory blocked<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-arzrLxxA8yk/U3npNxtjgoI/AAAAAAAAMVQ/F-2Rht4t3UM/s1600/familiar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-arzrLxxA8yk/U3npNxtjgoI/AAAAAAAAMVQ/F-2Rht4t3UM/s320/familiar.jpg" height="640" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This morning 19th of May 2014 the entrance of the nuclear missilefactory in Burghfield, Berkshire, was blocked.<br />
More news can be expected <a href="http://christianityuncut.wordpress.com/2014/05/19/christians-disrupt-berkshire-nukes-factory-by-joining-blockade-of-entrance/">here</a> and <a href="http://putdownthesword.wordpress.com/blog/">here</a>.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
AdRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07599745713630393640noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4028732157614587842.post-56399270950170352952014-05-17T01:16:00.002+01:002014-05-17T01:16:44.848+01:00European Christian Anarchist Gathering 18-20 July<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I'll be co-hosting, with <a href="http://thecatholicworkerfarm.org/">London Catholic Worker Farm</a>, a European Gathering on Christian Anarchism from 18 to 20 July this year (2014). <div>
<br /></div>
<div>
There's space for camping and if you get in touch with the farmhouse folk directly there are a few beds going too. </div>
<div>
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<div>
The event will include Open Space for theory, practice and reflection so bring your ideas and get stuck in. It's been a few years since the last one of these and eight years (really?!) since our first gathering in Leeds so it will be fascinating to tell stories of the journey in between. </div>
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<div>
Whether you're new to the ideas of Christian anarchism or you've been around the anarchist block, we're all in it together and figuring it out as we go along. </div>
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Watch this space for more details but meanwhile: save the date! </div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16826546489455832908noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4028732157614587842.post-58065288315028137622014-04-29T20:37:00.000+01:002014-04-29T20:37:13.577+01:00Call for papers on Enlightened Anarchism<div align="center" class="yiv9477927788MsoNormal" id="yui_3_13_0_1_1398775033998_22518" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span id="yui_3_13_0_1_1398775033998_22517" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt;"><b id="yui_3_13_0_1_1398775033998_22516">Enlightened Anarchism</b></span></div>
<div align="center" class="yiv9477927788MsoNormal" id="yui_3_13_0_1_1398775033998_22514" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="yiv9477927788MsoNormal" id="yui_3_13_0_1_1398775033998_22512" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span id="yui_3_13_0_1_1398775033998_22511" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt;">An
inter-disciplinary event organized by Lapland University, in cooperation with
Cambridge University.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack" rel="nofollow"></a></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt;">Keynote
Speakers: </span></b></div>
<div class="yiv9477927788MsoNormal" id="yui_3_13_0_1_1398775033998_22525" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span id="yui_3_13_0_1_1398775033998_22527" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt;">George Katsiaficas, Wentworth Institute of
Technology</span></div>
<div class="yiv9477927788MsoNormal" id="yui_3_13_0_1_1398775033998_22530" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span id="yui_3_13_0_1_1398775033998_22529" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt;">Alexandre Christoyannopoulos, Loughborough
University</span></div>
<div class="yiv9477927788MsoNormal" id="yui_3_13_0_1_1398775033998_22532" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="yiv9477927788MsoNormal" id="yui_3_13_0_1_1398775033998_22534" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt;">With
Special Guest Speaker:</span></b></div>
<div class="yiv9477927788MsoNormal" id="yui_3_13_0_1_1398775033998_22536" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt;">Dimitrios Roussopoulous</span></div>
<div class="yiv9477927788MsoNormal" id="yui_3_13_0_1_1398775033998_22538" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="yiv9477927788MsoNormal" id="yui_3_13_0_1_1398775033998_22542" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt;"></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt;">Lapland University, Rovaniemi Finland</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt;">Sept 12-14, 2014</span></div>
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<span id="yui_3_13_0_1_1398775033998_22550" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt;">Please send abstracts of no more than 500
words, including email address and institutional affiliation, to conference
organizers Ali Jones at </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="mailto:ajones@ulapland.fi" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">ajones@ulapland.fi</span></a></span><span id="yui_3_13_0_1_1398775033998_22553" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt;"> and Mika Luoma-aho at </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="mailto:mika.luoma-aho@ulapland.fi" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">mika.luoma-aho@ulapland.fi</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt;"> by <b>June 1,
2014. <span> </span></b></span></div>
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<span id="yui_3_13_0_1_1398775033998_22558" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt;">Please also s<span id="yui_3_13_0_1_1398775033998_22557">ee our website at:<i id="yui_3_13_0_1_1398775033998_22556"> <a href="http://enlightenedanarchism.wordpress.com/" id="yui_3_13_0_1_1398775033998_22555" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://enlightenedanarchism.wordpress.com/</a></i></span></span></div>
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<span id="yui_3_13_0_1_1398775033998_22563" lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt;">Anarchism has recently become a topic of
scholarly focus, as social and political movements have become increasingly
active across Europe and North America. While traditional public opinion tends to
view anarchism as juvenile force of negation, violence or gleeful destruction,
it is nonetheless possible to examine a far more nuanced discourse, as espoused
by the social actors involved. In fact, many such groups are particularly
focused upon combatting fascism, perceived state corruption, the effects of
neoliberalism or globalization, or to dedicating themselves to fighting for
environmental protection, immigrant and refugee rights, or in other arena of
social justice. Many of these aims could be interpreted as not only in the
public interest, but also to constitute some of the cornerstones of democracy
itself.<span> </span>Indeed, despite the
traditionally discussed perceptions of anarchy, it is in fact possible to view
these social movements as highly engaged public citizens, which begs the
question of why they are ostracized and considered to be so politically
threatening. It further causes one to re-examine democracy and anarchy
categorically and philosophically.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt;">This reconsideration further raises the
debate surrounding the use of political violence for achieving democratic
goals. This conference particularly wishes to open dialogue on these
discourses, especially the moral, and one could even say spiritual aims of such
movements.<span> </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt;">Furthermore, analysis and recent
scholarship also asks whether anarchism must be “justified” by such moral
categories, or if it should attempt to remove itself from such dominating
discourses. As such, both moral and anti-moral interpretations are welcome, as
well as those papers interrogating this process of moral justification itself.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt;">Focusing upon this notion of enlightened
anarchism, the conference presents a forum for discussing the moral,
anti-moral, religious, anti-religious, social justice, democratic and
anti-democratic, or purely revolutionary discourses of modern anarchists and social
movements.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt;">The conference organizers are particularly
interested in placing these contrasting perspectives into fruitful and exciting
conversation. Some potential areas of focus include:</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt;">-Enlightened anarchism</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt;">-Political theology and social movements</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt;">-The use of anarchism to achieve the goals
of democracy</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt;">-The use of anarchy to combat perceived
corruption</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt;">-The justification of destruction for
purposes of social justice</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt;">-Discussions of anarchist violence</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt;">-The justification of violence for
achieving democratic or moral goals</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt;">-A re-examination of democracy and
anarchism</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt;">-Explicitly religious anarchism</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt;">-Explicitly anti-religious anarchism</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt;">-Anarchism as a non-religious morality</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt;">-Anarchism rejecting the category of
morality</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt;">-Other types of anarchism</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt;">- While papers on Marxism will of course be
considered, the conference organizers hope that they will relate to anarchism
in some way.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt;">Selected papers from the conference will
then be compiled into an edited volume, and submitted to Cambridge University
Press or another international publisher by the end of 2014.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt;">While travel
funding is unfortunately not possible, limited subsidized accommodations are
available. Presenters are encouraged to contact conference organizers Ali Jones
at </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="mailto:ajones@ulapland.fi" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">ajones@ulapland.fi</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt;"> and Mika Luoma-aho at </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="mailto:mika.luoma-aho@ulapland.fi" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">mika.luoma-aho@ulapland.fi</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt;"> with inquiries.</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt;">Keynote Speaker Biographies</span></b></div>
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<b><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pk04ZWWJkhQ/U1_-4OpwSII/AAAAAAAAMRU/JufdCAfPJTI/s1600/ocbeachcg.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pk04ZWWJkhQ/U1_-4OpwSII/AAAAAAAAMRU/JufdCAfPJTI/s1600/ocbeachcg.jpg" /></a></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt;">George Katsiaficas</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt;"> has been active in social movements since 1969. A
target of the FBI's COINTELPRO program, he was classified "Priority 1
ADEX" (meaning in the event of a national emergency, people like him were
to be immediately arrested). For 11 years, he worked in Ocean Beach, California
as part of a radical countercultural community (described in Andre Gorz's book,
<i>Ecology as Politics</i>). He moved to
Berlin, after which he wrote two books: one on the global imagination of 1968
and another on European social movements. In these books, he developed the
concept of the “eros effect” to name the sudden and synchronous eruption of
insurgencies. For years, he was active in the cause of Palestinian rights.
Together with Kathleen Cleaver, he co-edited <i>Liberation, Imagination and the Black Panther Party</i>. A graduate of
MIT and UCSD (where he studied with Herbert Marcuse), he is currently based at
Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston and also in Gwangju, South Korea,
where he finished a 2-volume book, <i>Asia’s
Unknown Uprisings</i>.<span> </span>His web site is: </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.eroseffect.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">http://www.eroseffect.com</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt;"></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 11pt;">Alexandre Christoyannopoulos </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt;">is Senior Lecturer in Politics and
International Relations at Loughborough University, which he joined in 2010.He is the author of <i>Christian Anarchism:
A Political Commentary on the Gospel, </i>a seminal book which brings together
the writings of disparate Christian anarchists, Tolstoy in particular, and
presents a comprehensive exegesis arguing that Jesus’ teaching implies
anarchism. He has also published a number of articles, chapters and other
publications on Tolstoy and on Christian anarchism, and edited <i>Religious
Anarchism: New Perspectives</i>. He is currently working on a monograph on
Tolstoy’s political thought, and co-editing a new collection of essays on
anarchism and religion.A Fellow of the Higher Education Academy,
he also acts as Treasurer of the Anarchist Studies Network and officer of the
International Political Science Association’s research committee on Politics
and Religion.His website, which includes a full list of
publications (many of which are openly accessible online) and a more extensive
biography, can be accessed via </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.christoyannopoulos.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">http://www.christoyannopoulos.com</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt;">.</span></div>
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AdRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07599745713630393640noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4028732157614587842.post-74919483768216211112014-04-20T13:17:00.000+01:002014-04-20T13:17:00.810+01:00Call for papers - Living in the Cosmos<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-WXfJR8_DDeI/U1MRtz8azyI/AAAAAAAAMOE/KoStkiQ-WAA/s1600/postertype-small1.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-WXfJR8_DDeI/U1MRtz8azyI/AAAAAAAAMOE/KoStkiQ-WAA/s320/postertype-small1.jpg" height="640" width="456" /> </a><br />
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<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: .18cm; margin-bottom: .85cm; text-align: center;">
‘<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Living in the Cosmos: </span></b></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: .18cm; margin-bottom: .85cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Ethical and Ascetic Reflections on Patristic and ContemporaryTheology’</span></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0; text-align: center;">
Confirmed keynote speakers: Professor Andrew Louth, Dr Krastu Banev</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black;">Monday 9th June</span> 2014, Durham University</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0; text-align: center;">
9.30am – 5:30 pm</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>PG20, The Palace Green, Durham University, DH1 3EP</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">We
invite the submission of abstracts for 20-minute long papers from all
interested academics including a quota of one third postgraduate
students for the day conference ‘Living in the Cosmos’, to take place at
Durham University </span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">on Monday 9th Jun</span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">e, 2014.</span></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;">We
would like proposed papers to address or engage with the title topic of
the conference: ‘Living in the Cosmos: Ethical and Ascetic Reflections
on Patristic and Contemporary Theology’. We welcome varied
interpretations of this topic, including, but not restricted to
approaches through Patristic and Byzantine theology, Eastern Orthodoxy
and Anglicanism, discussing such topics as:</span></div>
<ul>
<li>
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<span style="font-size: small;">asceticism and ascetic practice</span></div>
</li>
<li>
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<span style="font-size: small;">environmental ethics</span></div>
</li>
<li>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;">politics and ethical conduct</span></div>
</li>
<li>
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<span style="font-size: small;">ethics of economics</span></div>
</li>
<li>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Christian living in the world today</span></div>
</li>
</ul>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">This
is a new conference and arises in response to a growing interest in the
relevance of Patristic theology for contemporary living. Keynote papers
will be 40 minutes and will open and close the conference. </span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">There
will be of three sessions of four 20 minute papers over the course of
the day. We are looking to accept twelve papers, four of which will be
from postgraduate students. If interest is large enough and abstract
contributions greatly exceed this number, we will consider putting on
multiple sessions at a time.</span></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Please email abstracts of approximately 2</span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><b>00 words</b></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> for 20-minute long papers to </span></span></span><span style="color: navy;"><span lang="zxx"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">LivingInTheCosmos(at)ogdoad.org</span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT">
<span style="color: navy;"><span lang="zxx"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">When
doing so, please indicate your name and institution in the subject of
the email and nowhere else on the abstract submission.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Deadline for abstract submission is</span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><b> Friday 16</b></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><sup><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><b>th</b></span></span></sup></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><b> May 2014.</b></span></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Further notification will be issued when registration opens.</span></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">A registr</span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">ation fee of £10 for students and £15 for non-student</span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">s will apply, which includes lunch and afternoon refreshments. A limited amount of overnight ac</span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">commodation will be available to book in advance in St Johns College and other University colleges</span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
Please contact us as soon as possible if you wish to book a room. We
will also be going out for a meal together in the evening and we will be
asking registering attendees to indicate if they would like to attend
this also so that we may know the numbers for table booking.</span></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;">It
is unlikely that we will be able to give financial assistance towards
travel or accommodation expenses, but those whose abstracts are accepted
are asked to keep their receipts in the event that this changes.</span></div>
<br />
AdRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07599745713630393640noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4028732157614587842.post-45513548818072311322014-03-04T22:21:00.000+00:002014-03-04T23:16:05.739+00:00Keith Hebden to fast for 40 days and 40 nights for Lent campaign<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #5f5f5f; font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px; orphans: auto; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><b style="border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">• Reverend Dr Keith Hebden of Mansfield Parish, Nottingham will begin a 40 day water-only fast on Ash Wednesday (March 5th) as part of the End Hunger Fast Campaign.<br />
• Announcement comes after seven more Bishops sign<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://endhungerfast.co.uk/open-letter-bishops/" style="-webkit-transition: all 120ms ease-in; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: underline; transition: all 120ms ease-in; vertical-align: baseline;">last week’s open letter</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>from Anglican, Quaker, Methodist and United Reformed Church leaders in support of the campaign. [1]</b></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #5f5f5f; font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px; orphans: auto; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">A new national grassroots campaign, End Hunger Fast was announced last week, as faith leaders called on the UK Government to act on the growing hunger crisis in Britain.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #5f5f5f; font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px; orphans: auto; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RWHi-M2fusM/UxZRHpAUQgI/AAAAAAAAL7U/G5ib-sqnb_k/s1600/KEITH-HEBDEN.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RWHi-M2fusM/UxZRHpAUQgI/AAAAAAAAL7U/G5ib-sqnb_k/s1600/KEITH-HEBDEN.jpg" /></a>Foodbanks around the UK are reporting that the number of people needing food aid is still rising, as the poorest miss out on the economic recovery. Last week a report published by the Department for Food and Rural Affairs said those providing food aid attributed the increased demand to low incomes, rising prices and increased indebtedness. [2] Half a million people have visited food banks in the UK since last Easter. Meanwhile there have been 5,500 hospital admissions for malnutrition, up 73% since 2008. [3]</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #5f5f5f; font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px; orphans: auto; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">Over half of people using foodbanks have been put in that situation by cut backs to, and failures in, the benefit system – whether it be payment delays or punitive sanctions.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #5f5f5f; font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px; orphans: auto; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">In response to this, food bank volunteers, church groups and poverty activists around the UK have united to launch End Hunger Fast. The grassroots campaign brings people from across the country together to call on the Government to meet its duty of care to UK citizens and take immediate action on welfare, wages and food markets – three of the biggest contributors to the problem. [4]</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #5f5f5f; font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px; orphans: auto; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">Supporting church groups, many of whom are also involved with running food banks plan to sign up thousands of supporters for a national day of fasting.[5] Further details to be released on the official launch date, March 5th include:</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #5f5f5f; font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px; orphans: auto; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">• New polling data and an advertising campaign from Church Action on Poverty<br />
• A fasting relay, with forty high profile faith leaders, celebrities and food bank volunteers passing a fasting baton.<br />
• A vigil outside Westminster, which will bring Government ministers face to face with the realities of hunger</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #5f5f5f; font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px; orphans: auto; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><b style="border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Keith Hebden, End Hunger Fast campaign spokesman and Parish Priest for Mansfield, said:</b><br />
“The Government has a duty of care to act and provide a basic safety net for its own citizens. But with so many relying on food banks, people having to chose whether to eat or heat their home, it seems it is failing in that duty.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #5f5f5f; font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px; orphans: auto; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">“I believe the Church should stand in solidarity with the poorest and most vulnerable. I will personally be eating no food for 40 days till Holy Week to show how strongly I feel about this issue.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #5f5f5f; font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px; orphans: auto; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">“I hope others will join and fast for a day, a week or as long as they feel able, in sympathy with the half a million hungry Britons.”</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #5f5f5f; font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px; orphans: auto; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><b style="border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">ENDS</b></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #5f5f5f; font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px; orphans: auto; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><b style="border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Notes to editors</b><br />
<b style="border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">[1]<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b>A letter signed by 38 faith leaders, including 27 Anglican Bishops, Methodist leaders, the General Secretary of Quaker Peace and Social Witness and United Reformed Church leaders, was published last week. Since then a further seven Bishops have signed in support. They are:</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #5f5f5f; font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px; orphans: auto; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">Nick Baines, Bradford<br />
Pete Broadbent, Willesden<br />
Paul Bayes, Hertford<br />
Graham Kings, Sherborne<br />
Stephen Conway, Ely<br />
Brian Castle, Tonbridge<br />
Jonathan Clark, Croydon</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #5f5f5f; font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px; orphans: auto; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><b style="border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">[2]</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>See point 1 in ‘Conclusions of Research’ on page xii of DEFRA report available<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/283071/household-food-security-uk-140219.pdf" style="-webkit-transition: all 120ms ease-in; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: underline; transition: all 120ms ease-in; vertical-align: baseline;">here</a>. This refutes previous Government claims that increased supply of food aid was driving increased demand.<br />
<b style="border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">[3]</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>According to the Department of Health there were 3,161 hospital admissions as a result of malnutrition in 2008/9 and 5,499 in 2012/13. Full figures available here.<br />
<b style="border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">[4]<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b>The campaign is calling on the Government to act on welfare, wages and food markets. Specific suggestions include:<br />
• Immediately undertake a full independent inquiry, reporting directly to the Prime Minister, into the relationship between benefit delay, error or sanctions, welfare reform changes, and the growth of food poverty and commit to implement its recommendations.<br />
• To monitor, annually, the extent of hunger in the UK and commit to robust 2020 targets for its reduction.<br />
• To begin a phased increase of the national minimum wage to a Living Wage, crucial to making work pay.<br />
• To work with legislators in Europe to curb financial speculation on food markets, which are partly responsible for food price inflation in the UK.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #5f5f5f; font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px; orphans: auto; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><b style="border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">[5]<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b>End Hunger Fast are organising an online campaign to encourage citizens around the UK to take part in a national day of fasting on April 4th. People can pledge to join the day of fasting at www.endhungerfast.co.uk</div><br />
<a href="http://simoncross.wordpress.com/2014/03/03/profiting-from-hunger/">Also fasting for forty days: Simon Cross</a><br />
AdRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07599745713630393640noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4028732157614587842.post-50720395029308853422014-03-01T20:53:00.000+00:002014-03-09T10:53:27.589+00:00Urgent call for papers for ASN conference and workshop on religion & anarchism<div id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1393699187820_10902" style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: arial, sans-serif, verdana, tahoma, helvetica; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-top: 5px; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-O38yLpgJjzc/UxJHgPn4dGI/AAAAAAAAL5g/Gx0pADj57Mc/s1600/85px-Logo_Gustav-Landauer-Bibliothek.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-O38yLpgJjzc/UxJHgPn4dGI/AAAAAAAAL5g/Gx0pADj57Mc/s1600/85px-Logo_Gustav-Landauer-Bibliothek.jpg" /></a>Building on the success of its predecessor, the 3rd International Conference of the Anarchist Studies Network will showcase the best new thinking in the study of anarchism as a political theory and practice – past, present and future. The conference aims to breach new frontiers in anarchist scholarship, and encourage cross-pollination between disciplines and contributions from both within and outside the official academic sphere. Proposals are welcome for sessions and individual papers from any scholarly discipline(s), on any topic relevant to the study of anarchism. Also welcome are proposals for practical workshops, experiential sessions, and other activities.<br />
</div><div id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1393699187820_10902" style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: arial, sans-serif, verdana, tahoma, helvetica; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-top: 5px; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><b>As at the earlier conferences in 2008 and 2012 there will be a special stream on religious anarchism / the relation anarchism - religion or spirituality. </b><br />
<b>Hosts will be Paul Cudenec and the undersigned, André de Raaij, independent researchers and writers on relevant subjects. </b><br />
<b> </b> </div><div id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1393699187820_10900" style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: arial, sans-serif, verdana, tahoma, helvetica; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-top: 5px; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">As the crisis of late capitalism deepens, nominal democracies are increasingly showing their hand: freedom of speech is the freedom to be ignored. Every demand of the last wave of social mobilization has been rejected or side-lined. Instead, governments pursue business-as-usual with obstinacy. The fallout from the global financial crisis has become the pretext for even harsher strategies of inequality management. Devastating storms and a changing climate do nothing to stop the dash for gas. Even dramatic revelations about generalised surveillance and the infiltration of protest movements have done more to normalize these phenomena than to halt or reverse them. Governments will change the story on the move if they have to, or just plug their ears - perhaps unsurprisingly, since the last credible alternative does not include them.<br />
</div><div id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1393699187820_10906" style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: arial, sans-serif, verdana, tahoma, helvetica; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-top: 5px; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">For anarchists, new-found public disillusionment is as much of a challenge as a cause for celebration. Loss of trust in the democratic state can result in despair or reactionary retrenchment as much as it can lead to radicalization. Indeed, anarchists have been the first to offer solidarity to many marginalized groups in their struggles, and their organizational strategies – if not their actual aims – have inspired mass movements the world round. But the mere celebration of anarchist resurgence is no longer sufficient. What is now needed is a redoubled effort towards practical and theoretical innovation, and engagement with mass struggles in content as well as form.<br />
</div><div id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1393699187820_10908" style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: arial, sans-serif, verdana, tahoma, helvetica; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-top: 5px; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Building on the success of its predecessor, the 3rd International Conference of the Anarchist Studies Network will showcase the best new thinking in the study of anarchism as a political theory and practice – past, present and future. The conference aims to breach new frontiers in anarchist scholarship, and encourage cross-pollination between disciplines and contributions from both within and outside the official academic sphere.<br />
</div><div id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1393699187820_10910" style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: arial, sans-serif, verdana, tahoma, helvetica; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-top: 5px; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">The conference will be held at Loughborough University during the first week of September 2014.<br />
</div><div id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1393699187820_10912" style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: arial, sans-serif, verdana, tahoma, helvetica; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-top: 5px; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Proposals are welcome for individual papers, sessions, and streams of sessions. We especially encourage proposals for sessions, to include 3-4 papers drawn together around a common theme, although individual paper proposals are of course also welcome, as are proposals for practical workshops, experiential sessions, and other activities.<br />
</div><div id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1393699187820_10914" style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: arial, sans-serif, verdana, tahoma, helvetica; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-top: 5px; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Contributions can come from any scholarly discipline(s), on any topic relevant to the study of anarchism.</div><div id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1393699187820_10926" style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: arial, sans-serif, verdana, tahoma, helvetica; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-top: 5px; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"> </div><div id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1393699187820_10924" style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: arial, sans-serif, verdana, tahoma, helvetica; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin-top: 5px; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Anarchist Studies Network:<span class="yiv2773898452Apple-converted-space" id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1393699187820_10928"> </span><a href="http://anarchist-studies-network.org.uk/" id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1393699187820_10930" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: transparent; color: darkslategrey; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">http://anarchist-studies-network.org.uk/</a></div>AdRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07599745713630393640noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4028732157614587842.post-37674101042995350352013-10-18T14:52:00.001+01:002013-10-18T14:52:44.322+01:00A letter by Daniel Bemgau...it is not a bad bet to think that this may be <i>A letter by Daniel Berrigan</i> - the nasty tricks of scanning printed text.<br />
But it looks like all the paper issues of <i>A Pinch Of Salt</i> can be read online now, eighties' issues as well as the recent series, <a href="http://www.thesparrowsnest.org.uk/collections/posa/posa_info.html">here</a>. <br />
There should be more errors like the above in those, but it cannot be that difficult to reconstruct it. AdRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07599745713630393640noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4028732157614587842.post-15769582725428274002013-10-10T07:45:00.000+01:002013-10-10T07:45:02.948+01:00Anarchist Bookfair London October 19th 2013<h3>
Booking stalls, meetings and adverts</h3>
<div class="bookbody">
We have now stopped taking bookings for meetings. Check out our <a href="http://anarchistbookfair.org.uk/whatson.html">meetings</a> page on the website for all the meetings and running order. We will be bringing Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin (Anarchism and the Black Revolution) and JoNina Abron-Ervin (Driven by the Movement: Activists of the Black Power Era) from America to speak at this year's bookfair. This is part of a nation-wide speaking tour we are also organising. Check out the “other events” page for speaking dates around the UK. We will be updating this page, as we get more confirmed dates arranged. </div>
<br />
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-n5u8MiBgUeM/UlZMoTVBuJI/AAAAAAAALH8/g4Kcn7JTGj0/s1600/bookfair2013.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-n5u8MiBgUeM/UlZMoTVBuJI/AAAAAAAALH8/g4Kcn7JTGj0/s320/bookfair2013.jpg" /></a><br />
<h3>
The venue</h3>
<div class="bookbody">
We will be holding the bookfair at Queen Mary’s university on the Mile End Road again. In 2012, there were a few problems with the venue, including some of the meeting rooms being too small, crowding on the main staircase and the lift being out of action for part of the day, which made it difficult for people with mobility problems getting from floor to floor.<br />
<br />
We spent the time after the bookfair looking at other possible venues, but we couldn’t find anything that suited the event better than Queen Mary’s. Most didn’t have the space we needed for 110 stalls, 60 meetings, films and three children and youth spaces. Some did, but they were either far too expensive, or had bad connections (i.e. the Excel building runs the arms fayre as well).<br />
<br />
So, we stuck with Queen Mary’s but we have been chatting with the venue and have identified some bigger rooms for meetings, and we can use other staircases in the Bancroft building for getting around the building. This should solve a lot of the problems of 2012 – although the problems are of our own making, as the bookfair is just too successful! We are also looking at the situation with the lift so this problem doesn’t happen in 2013.<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<h3>
Anarchism and the bookfair</h3>
<div class="bookbody">
The bookfair is one of a number of spaces for anarchists around the UK and the world to come together. But, as the Anarchist Bookfair is one of the bigger public events we put on as a movement, we want it to also be a place where those interested in anarchism can find out what we are about. <br />
<br />
So, in 2013 we will be looking for thought-provoking and rabble-rousing meetings. It can also be a space where we counter the rubbish talked about anarchism by sections of the media and our opponents. We want to continue to make anarchism a threat again.<br />
<br />
We will also need people to help us publicise the event to every nook and cranny in London. If you are new to anarchism, check out the pages <a href="http://anarchistbookfair.org.uk/websites.html">websites</a> and <a href="http://anarchistbookfair.org.uk/others.html">bookfairs</a>. There are links to anarchist and campaigning groups around the country and anarchist bookfairs throughout the world. <br />
<br /></div>
<h3>
Access</h3>
<div class="bookbody">
All the meeting rooms are now wheelchair accessible. If you have any other access requirements, please let us know nearer the time of the bookfair so we can try and meet your needs. If you are Deaf and require BSL interpreting and/or speech-to-text provision, please give us as much notice as possible and we will do our best to organise these. To discuss any specific access needs, please contact us at access at anarchistbookfair.org.uk.<br />
<br /></div>
<h3>
Dogs</h3>
<div class="bookbody">
To make the bookfair a safe environment for children and adults alike, we ask people do not bring dogs to the event - except guide dogs. Thanks.<br />
<br /></div>
<h3>
Getting to the venue</h3>
<div class="bookbody">
The venue is Queen Mary, University of London, Mile End Road, London, E1 4NS. <br />
If you are coming by public transport the following buses stop near the college on Mile End Road: 25; 205; 339. If you are coming by tube the two nearest stations are Mile End (central line / Hammersmith & City line or District line) or Stepney Green (Hammersmith & City line or District line).<br />
<br /></div>
See <a href="http://www.streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?X=536016&Y=182267&A=Y&Z=110" target="_blank">map of the venue and surrounding area.</a> AdRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07599745713630393640noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4028732157614587842.post-61885447150106675692013-10-08T21:01:00.000+01:002013-10-09T00:13:37.824+01:00Alexandre Christoyannopoulos' Christian anarchism: a rejoinder from Laurens OtterI am afraid this is only a partial reply to Christoyannopoulos, my wife is extremely ill, and this gives me only limited time.<br />
<br />
I must make clear I am not an academic, sixty-three years ago I was a promising science student: I won a national scholarship to Harwell (not knowing that it involved work on nuclear weapons) but had to refuse it for that reason and consequently was persuaded by Prof. James Walton to give up being a scientist. Change discipline I became a third rate historian.<br />
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-uSTAFOBXeh0/UlRjKDajNhI/AAAAAAAALHc/fj8eeJ0XiRU/s1600/220px-William_Blake_by_Thomas_Phillips.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-uSTAFOBXeh0/UlRjKDajNhI/AAAAAAAALHc/fj8eeJ0XiRU/s320/220px-William_Blake_by_Thomas_Phillips.jpg" /></a><br />
Though an active christian anarchist I would never have set out to write an encyclopaedic account of christian anarchism. Nevertheless I would claim that the people I mentioned are those – at least in the English speaking world – who have done most in terms of bringing christian anarchist ideas to a mass audience. C.'s book may measure up to academic standards, it falls painfully short in the terms of an anarchist activist.<br />
<br />
Also I insist that modern anarchism is first and foremost a libertarian form of socialism, that it cannot be discussed without consideration of its relationship to Marxism. Though anarchists have always been critics of Marx, there is essentially a dialectical relationship between the ideas of anarchists and those of Marxists. (Which is one of the reasons why I am unlikely to respond to C.'s challenge to write on the influence of Muggleton or Blake on anarchism; for C.'s benefit: E.P. Thompson – who, though never an anarchist, nevertheless wrote a number of books which I regard as essential reading for any anarchist – has written brilliantly on these, and I would always recommend that anarchists read his work, I could never do more than plagiarize him on them.)<br />
<br />
Christoyannopoulos brings out a book entitled “Christian Anarchism” - a title which implies a comprehensive depiction of the field - but confined himself to a small subsection, most of whom have never been active within the secular anarchist movement.<br />
<br />
I did not in my rebuttal make any real reply on the question of Tolstoi himself. Certainly Tolstoi is worthy of a lot of anarchist attention, no doubt an outstanding writer, who contributed much worthwhile theory – Celia (my wife) and I called our first house after him - and we thought very highly of Ronald Sampson, then generally regarded as the English authority on him. (Maude was before my time.)<br />
<br />
But Tolstoi was a man much given to rape – he regularly raped his wife, twice at least raped the wives of other members of his commune – women didn't belong under their own right - and raped two or three (at least) other peasant women. He ran a “commune” where the other communards were all peasants dependant on his charity, and given the nature of overall Russian society, they remained serfs, when in the commune and after it ended, none of them – including his wife – ever was able to express an opinion about this commune.<br />
<br />
Also, as I mentioned, there was a significant element of anti-semitism in his writing, not as strong as in his pretended heirs, Alexei and Nikolai Tolstoi, but still not to be overlooked.<br />
<br />
I question whether Tolstoi can properly be considered an anarchist, a term he never used for himself. Certainly noone considering anarchism should include him as such without some critical comment. No anarchist should be a serial rapist, no anarchist commune (or matrimonial or similar relationship) can be seen where only one voice is heard outside that relationship. No anarchist can be a racist.<br />
<br />
The only arguably valid point I can so far find in C.'s response is his querying my use of the word rebuttal. It would obviously depend on which dictionary one uses. The Penguin one, which was the most convenient one when I wrote it, gives this as pointing out the falsity of an argument; which was what I wanted. I later thought it might have been more accurate to call it a “disavowal” or “repudiation”. C. keeps on saying that X or Y was not the intention of his book, but cannot see that by calling the book “Christian Anarchism” there is an implicit claim that only those of whom he writes (or at least mentions in passing) qualify as such.<br />
<br />
<br />
P.S. Aims and Limitations para 3: the book relies ... on the writings of … from a small sub-section of christian anarchist thinkers. The fact that it is such a small sub-section is never made clear, & though he admits it's a limited selection there is a clear (& false) implication that that selection is typical/representative of the whole.<br />
<br />
It is perhaps not relevant, and I shouldn't say, but the same selection of authorities was made some years ago by someone on e-mail trying to engage Séamas Cain in on-line conversation, rejoicing under the hardly christian, and hardly libertarian, pen-name of Pliny.<br />
<br />
Anyone who knows anything about anarchism would know most of the names I mentioned. The fact that they were activists means that they figure in the anarchist record. That does not necessarily mean that they didn't write theory, it is more likely that bourgeois academics have neglected them; or, as in he case of Simone Weil, the Right has misrepresented their writings (as they did Orwell), because they didn't dare let the writings stand as written. That is the difference.<br />
<br />
While the Catholic Worker has carved out for itself an anarchist role in the general life of politics, as has David Mumford, entirely independent of the secular anarchist movement, and in its way, the same could be said briefly for the Brotherhood Church, and while there have been in Britain (and no doubt elsewhere) a number of eccentrics who have proposed anarchisant ideas, and have spoken of themselves, as if they constituted a significant political movement; there has not been to my knowledge, any notable christian anarchist movement (other than the Catholic Worker and the Brotherhood Church) that has not played its part within the secular anarchist movement. So when I say of C.'s sub-section that THEY have not played a part, I mean (since I have only previously heard of their existence through the gossip of a phoney), that they have had no significant impact. The whole bunch, put together, have not influenced one thousandth of the people that Fr Hegarty influenced. Yet C. omits Fr Hegarty. Even W.E.B. Du Bois, questionably christian and certainly no anarchist, had done more to popularize christian anarchist ideas than the whole bunch of C.'s offering.<br />
<br />
Returning to the word “rebuttal” - I felt anarchism as an egalitarian and revolutionary philosophy “was argued against”.<br />
<br />
It doesn't seem to have struck C. that a demo is an argument. One does not risk a police beating/gassing, a prison term or even death for a cause without having an argument; one so does because the masses lack the access to the media that academics have; one engages in a demo, just as one writes an article, as a way of taking a message to a wider public.<br />
<br />
Since C. claimed that christian anarchists weren't for the most part interested in the Old testament, the Dead Sea Scrolls – an extension of that Testament became immediately relevant, as does the Talmud and the fact that on the Golden Rule there is an interesting contrast between Rabbi Hillel and Jesus.<br />
<br />
Anarchism is both a philosophy of political action and a lifestyle choice: if someone proposes admirable views as to how people should live, but apparently makes little attempt to live according to that same proposal, one has to question his/her anarchist sincerity.<br />
<br />
The breach between the Brotherhood Church and the Quakers was relevant, because at that time the Quakers were very much a bourgeois movement, and their involvement with capitalism made a nonsense of their other beliefs. Even when I was a teenager, I was in part alienated from pacifism by meeting a Quaker who, though calling himself a pacifist, saw nothing wrong with owning a large block of shares in the arms industry. He wasn't prepared to fight, but he wanted others to do so.<br />
<br />
Godwin was mentioned but not as a christian anarchist; as a Sandemian he may have been an eccentric christian – though hardly as much so as Tolstoi – but he was a christian nevertheless and so the fact that C. chose to pass him by as ONLY a secular anarchist is relevant. The references to Dorothy Day all picture her as a middle class do-gooder, her socialist origins are also relevant. Noone is asking for biography, just accuracy.<br />
<br />
The fact that C. has felt he hasn’t had time to read Blake does not make Blake less significant, or compensate for the lack of a significant contribution to the subject of christian anarchism.<br />
<br />
Marxist thinking may not have been relevant to a study of the small sub-section of christian anarchism C. wrote a bout; but it is nevertheless far more relevant to christian anarchism than everything discussed in C.'s book.<br />
<br />
I could go on but it would all be in the same vein, and there'd be little point.<br />
<br />
P.S. 2. Though my names may sound Dutch : 1) Laurens is found in all areas of the former Lotharingian empire, it is the actual Latin spelling; 2) Otter is Saxon/early Germanic for water and is also fairly widespread. There have been Otters in England at least since the time of Alfred the Great.<br />
<br />
I was born in Clarens in Switzerland, where Elisée Reclus lived and Kropotkin stayed when he first came to the West. I was christened Jean-François Laurens Otter, known until I was three as Jean-François, then brought to England, and to my consternation my name was suddenly anglicized. I was never reconciled to this, until I was in my 20s thought of myself as Jean-François, but began to tell others that my name was Laurens when I was in my teens, and after a while so convinced myself.<br />
<br />
<i><b>Sequel to a <a href="http://apos-archive.blogspot.com/2013/04/christoyannopoulos-christian-anarchism.html">Rebuttal of Alexandre Christoyannopoulos' <i>Christian anarchism</i></a> and a rejoinder to <a href="http://apos-archive.blogspot.nl/2013/05/a-response-to-laurens-otter.html">Alexandre Christoyannopoulos' reply</a> and <a href="http://apos-archive.blogspot.nl/2013/05/waiting-for-encyclopaedia-on-christian.html">André de Raaij's </a> comment.</b></i>AdRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07599745713630393640noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4028732157614587842.post-69171930343525103392013-06-17T23:13:00.000+01:002013-06-17T23:13:11.313+01:00Anarchist revelation<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MxhD-WGnfXE/Ub-JnX_mgjI/AAAAAAAAKq4/iJeuv7ISrfI/s1600/The+Anarchist+Revelation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MxhD-WGnfXE/Ub-JnX_mgjI/AAAAAAAAKq4/iJeuv7ISrfI/s320/The+Anarchist+Revelation.jpg" /></a></div>An important new book on anarchist thought is now available from <a href="http://winteroakpress.blogspot.nl/2013/06/the-anarchist-revelation-by-paul-cudenec.html">Winter Oak Press</a>.<br />
<br />
The Anarchist Revelation: Being What We’re Meant to Be is the latest work by activist and writer <a href="http://paulcudenec.blogspot.com">Paul Cudenec</a>.<br />
<br />
Here, he turns his back on contemporary trends of anarchism in a bid to reconnect with the primal force of its root ideology.<br />
<br />
Cudenec notes the significance of its refusal of the state and its judicial system, of land ownership and of the need to work for wages in order to live.<br />
<br />
But he goes further in suggesting that anarchism represents a whole way of thinking that stands in direct opposition to the blinkered materialism of contemporary society and its soul-stifling positivist dogma.<br />
<br />
He writes: “The anarchist does not merely stray outside the framework of acceptable thinking as carefully assembled by the prevalent system – she smashes it to pieces and dances on the wreckage.”<br />
<br />
Cudenec explores the fluidity and depth of thinking found in anarchism, in stark contrast to Marxism, and identifies, in particular, a love of apparent paradox that seems to appeal to the anarchist psyche.<br />
<br />
He also sees a connection between and anarchism and esoteric forms of religion – such as Sufism, Taoism and hermeticism - whose inner light defies the crushing patriarchal conservatism and hierarchy of the exoteric institutions.<br />
<br />
Cudenec provides evidence that anarchism’s roots lie partly in this life-embracing source of inspiration, the bringer of art and poetry as well as of resistance and revolt.<br />
<br />
While, he argues, anarchism is incompatible with existing religions, it has the potential to harness its powerful ideology to this universal esoteric current and thus become the religion of the future, the spiritual and political revelation that will save humankind from a grim future of slavery, corruption and destruction.<br />
<br />
In making his case, Cudenec draws on the work of anarchists such as Gustav Landauer, Michael Bakunin and Herbert Read. But he also widens the field of enquiry to include the philosophy of René Guénon, Herbert Marcuse and Jean Baudrillard; the existentialism of Karl Jaspers and Colin Wilson; the vision of Carl Jung, Oswald Spengler and Idries Shah, and the environmental insight of Derrick Jensen and Paul Shepard.<br />
<br />
With a fusion of scholarly research and inspiring polemic, Cudenec succeeds in forging a coherent and profound 21st century world-view with an appeal that will reach out far beyond those who currently term themselves anarchists.AdRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07599745713630393640noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4028732157614587842.post-83204039505217344932013-05-17T13:28:00.001+01:002013-05-17T13:32:29.655+01:00Christian anarchy is too important to be left to Christian anarchists<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/BprP6tRZ8mk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
Dutch author Albert Helman - an anarchist, by the way - once wrote that the reviewer of books is an idiot who gets more money for his writing about your book than you as an author will get for the entire book. I know, I had the strange pleasure of being reviewed in a way that made me wonder whether I had swallowed something unknowingly. "That's how it goes," my publisher told me, although he still was rather surprised by being called a fascist Mussolini-style because of a book of his about media impact. <br />
<br />
Yes, that is how it goes. <br />
Through the page of Alex Christoyannopoulos on his <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/christoyannopoulos/publications/christian-anarchism-a-political-commentary-on-the-gospel"><i>Christian anarchism</i></a> I came across a review that once again gave me the feeling I had smoked something I have not touched in ages. <a href="http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/content/view/full/106675">If you know the book you will see what I mean</a>.<br />
<br />
Yet this piece of good old commie-nonsense reminded me that quite a lot of action taking people I have come to know through the Catholic Worker and a group loosely associated with it, the Nevada Desert Experience, will not call themselves Christian anarchists. They would not dismiss the title but they will not use it for themselves.<br />
Which brought me to the quotation that anarchy is too important to be left to anarchists only. The same of course applies to Christian anarchy.<br />
Above you can see a video interview with sr. Megan Rice, until recently associated with and living on the compound of the Nevada Desert Experience. Now probably destined to spend the rest of her life behind bars.<br />
And here an email about another cleric I met throught the NDE, Steve Kelly SJ. <br />
Just two active persons working for the (Christian) anarchy without taking the epithet. <br />
<br />
<blockquote>Dear Friends,<br />
<br />
On March 29th, Good Friday, Steve Kelly was picked up by the police<br />
while demonstrating at the Lockheed Martin missile plant in Santa<br />
Clara, CA.<br />
<br />
In keeping with his spirit of ‘non cooperation’ an arrest warrant was<br />
floating around with his name on it for not reporting to the probation<br />
office after his release from SeaTac in June 2012.<br />
This current incarceration has him once again at the SeaTac Detention<br />
Center outside of Seattle.<br />
<br />
If you want to be in touch with him, his address is:<br />
<br />
Steve Kelly, SJ #00816-111<br />
FDC SeaTac<br />
P.O. BOX 13900<br />
SEATTLE, WA 98198<br />
<br />
Steve will be going to Federal Court in Tacoma on Monday, May 20th at<br />
11:30 AM – at that time a judge will determine if he is to serve<br />
additional time for non cooperation with his June release conditions.<br />
<br />
At 10:30, an hour before his court date, there will be a support vigil<br />
in front of the court house; all who can attend are encouraged to do<br />
so. Following the vigil, at 11:15, you are invited to sit in the court<br />
room with Steve.<br />
<br />
On Sunday, May 19th, there will be a vigil in front of the SeaTac<br />
Detention Center. As in the past, when Steve was there for 15 months,<br />
our presence, and message was very helpful to him. Anyone leaving from<br />
Tacoma and desiring carpool information can call me at {xx}.<br />
We will be gathering in front of the Tacoma Catholic Worker at 11:45<br />
and leaving at Noon for SeaTac. Hope you can make it.<br />
<br />
Wishing you well,<br />
[signature]</blockquote>AdRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07599745713630393640noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4028732157614587842.post-43893334344071187912013-05-16T19:48:00.000+01:002013-05-16T19:48:11.741+01:00The HTB Show: all about the Bling<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Each year Holy Trinity Brompton –
or “HTB” holds a high octane, big numbers show at the Royal Albert Hall. This
year three senior banking executives, and a nuclear weapons manufacturer show
that whatever the Alpha Gospel is about, it’s definitely about the bling.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Already this year we’ve heard
from the new Archbishop of Canterbury and his commitment to peace and
reconciliation among Christians and the line-up for the second day is no less
dizzying: the </span><span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Chief executive at Serco and Brian Griffiths, the
executive director at Goldman Sachs are both invited to speak as is Benjamin
Grizzle Goldman Sach’s Executive Director. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Ken Costa, investment banker and Alpha’s
biggest funder, who wrote of the Occupy LSX camp as “naïve” and of “little
consequence” before being appointed by St Paul’s Cathedral to listen
respectfully to them (you couldn’t make this stuff up!) will – as ever – be
part of the conference this year. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Last year the big treat was Tony Blair. Tony
Blair is known internationally as someone who led this country into war on a
false premise after misleading many from both parliament and the nation into
believing that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Many Christians consider him to be guilty of
war crimes. He now spends a great deal of time making money from his
neo-liberal solutions to conflict in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">HTB didn’t listen to concerns about their ‘big
name’ in 2012 and they’re not listening today. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Along with Lockheed-Martin,
Serco manage nuclear weapons factory at Aldermaston which Christians from all
traditions have been protesting, lamenting, and blockading for six decades. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Nuclear weapons are designed to deliberately
target civilian populations, illegal under international law and immoral by
almost any standard. Yet here is HTB celebrating the man who oversees their
production and maintenance as a “Christian leader”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Goldman Sachs meanwhile have been one of the
most fraudulent of banks in the world and were pivotal to the banking crisis.
To date their leadership have shown littler remorse or sign of a change in
culture. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">I wonder if Brian Griffiths will get the same
robust Christian witness meted out to HSBCs Stuart Gulliver in February when he
said, “</span><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">It seems to me that you are putting huge effort
into a values-based organisation and yet at the end of the day, particularly
for your most senior staff who are most important as regards setting values and
culture, you seem to be saying the only way you can motivate them to any
significant extent is with cash,"? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Probably not. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Well done to the folks of Christian CND who stood outside in the rain yesterday, banner in hand, to engage Alphanes in conversation about SERCO. Thank you! </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://apos-archive.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/st-pauls-cathedral-hires-patronising.html">http://apos-archive.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/st-pauls-cathedral-hires-patronising.html</a>
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/feb/06/archbishop-of-canterbury-banks-bonuses">http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/feb/06/archbishop-of-canterbury-banks-bonuses</a><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://leadershipconference.htb.org.uk/conference/speakers">http://leadershipconference.htb.org.uk/conference/speakers</a><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16826546489455832908noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4028732157614587842.post-35173295556290653422013-05-16T16:12:00.001+01:002013-05-16T16:20:54.536+01:00Waiting for the encyclopaedia on Christian anarchism<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-koMfr_lJd0k/UZT1aMeDeeI/AAAAAAAAKjM/MyJ0O7fdsdU/s1600/220px-Anna_Maria_van_Schurman.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-koMfr_lJd0k/UZT1aMeDeeI/AAAAAAAAKjM/MyJ0O7fdsdU/s320/220px-Anna_Maria_van_Schurman.JPG" /></a>Apart from the short and mostly US-oriented book by <a href="http://apos-archive.blogspot.nl/2009/12/tripp-york-book-review.html">Tripp York</a> until recently there was not any introduction to ideas and praxis (which should be indistinguishable) of Christian anarchism. As far as I know now there are two, one I have not yet finished reading, and there is the book <i>Christian anarchism</i> by Alexandre Christoyannopoulos. With Introduction I mean a (birds' eye) view of several thinkers through several centuries. A look at Christian anarchist books or writings as sources for the writing of history (of political ideas e.g., both Christoyannopoulos' and my academic specialisation).<br />
<br />
When you talk about anarchism in general the first question that should come to mind is: when can we reasonably speak of a time when it can be discerned as such. Resistance against oppressors or government of any kind is as old as government itself, but the state as an instrument of wielding class power over a territory and its inhabitants is a fairly recent development. So were the Anabaptists the first Christian anarchists, or several English revolutionaries of the seventeenth century - oh, as a good old chauvinist I should mention the Labadists of the late seventeenth century in the Republic too. You can argue about the birth of the state, but it was not much earlier, it has been growing for the past centuries and much as we may dislike it, it probably still is growing.<br />
<br />
Traditionally people calling themselves religious or Christian anarchists identify with lots of predecessors or kindred spirits from Antiquity to present. But since anarchism developed as a reaction to <b><i>the state</i></b> we have to be rather strict. Whatever you think of Waldensians or Beghards, they do not fit into the anarchist mould (though present day Waldensians might - looking at the resistance in the Susa <a href="http://www.euronews.com/2012/11/30/the-alpine-tunnel-dispute/">Valley</a>). <br />
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Maybe some day there will be an Encyclopedia of Christian anarchism, who knows (extending the idea to Religious anarchism, though it sometimes is difficult to keep these anarchsims apart, would be an even greater task). <br />
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When I received the article by <a href="http://apos-archive.blogspot.nl/2013/04/christoyannopoulos-christian-anarchism.html">Laurens Otter</a> and placed it the layout completely fell apart. That was a sign to ask the accused "Our author" for a rebuttal of the rebuttal, and in case <a href="http://apos-archive.blogspot.nl/2013/05/a-response-to-laurens-otter.html">you missed it</a>... I sent it through to Alex Christoyannopoulos - admittedly, it is more difficult writing this than "Our author" - and to encourage him in writing his rebuttal-rebuttal I wrote:<br />
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The author Laurens Otter finds so much fault with does not mention Jean de Labadie, Anna Maria van Schuurman, H.C.J. Krijthe, Stoffel Muller, Maria Leer, Jac. van Rees, Lod. van Mierop, Anne de Koe, H. Meijer, Titia van der Tuuk, A.R. de Jong, N.J.C. Schermerhorn, Kees Koning, Frits ter Kuile, M.J. van Houten, Hilbrandt Boschma, Kees & Betty Boeke, S.C. Kijlstra, Jacoba F.D. Mossel, Margaretha Meijboom, Ali Sanders van Loo, Louis A. Bähler, H.W.Ph.E. van den Bergh van Eysinga, Ernst Stern, to mention but a very few, without whom a book on Christian anarchism simply cannot be worthy of its title. What is even more astonishing: Otter does not notice this. Did these Great Names escape him, despite his Dutch-looking name? <br />
Could it be that this thesis is not meant for encyclopedic purposes and that it is worthy of praise for being an exploration of as yet hardly known territory for political science, theology, history, philosophy? Never mind - no mercy! That's the spirit.</blockquote>
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Actually, there is not much I can add to this comment. I wanted to give my own accompanying note to these two huge articles, and this is it.<br />
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Illustration: first Dutch female university alumna Anna Maria van Schuurman, writer of <i>Eukleria</i>, follower of Jean de Labadie, arguably Christian anarchist...AdRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07599745713630393640noreply@blogger.com