Check out the recording of the panel discussion I organized on Race, Gender, and Anarchist Cultural Politics! (See the description below.) We are thinking about hosting an event series on anarchist history this fall, please reach out if you are interested in participating! You can email me at scb274@cornell.edu
Anarchist movements have not only organized workers and challenged state power, but also produced vibrant cultures of resistance. In this panel, Kirwin Shaffer, Montse Feu, and Spencer Beswick examine how anarchists have engaged with questions of race and gender in their cultural production in Cuba and the United States.
Tracing diasporic networks and grappling with intersectional identities that traversed political and cultural boundaries, the presenters explore the mixed legacy of anarchist movements in their struggles to overcome racialized and gendered limitations to their emancipatory visions. ————————————————————————-
Kirwin Shaffer: “The Multiple Uses of Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Sexuality in Cuban Anarchist Culture” 0:15
Montse Feu: “Women Fighting Fascist Spain: Protest and Solidarity in the United States” 19:56
Spencer Beswick: “Smashing Whiteness: Race, Class, and Punk Culture in the Love and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation” 37:30
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Panelists:
• Kirwin Shaffer is Professor of Latin American Studies at Penn State University – Berks College. He is author of three books on anarchism in the Caribbean (Anarchist Cuba, Black Flag Boricuas, and Anarchists of the Caribbean) and co-editor of the award-winning edited collection In Defiance of Boundaries: Anarchism in Latin American History.
• Montse Feu recovers and examines the literary history of the Spanish Civil War exile in the United States, US Hispanic periodicals, and migration and exile literature at large. She is the author of Correspondencia personal y política de un anarcosindicalista exiliado: Jesús González Malo (1943-1965) (Universidad de Cantabria, 2016) and Fighting Fascist Spain: Worker Protest from the Printing Press (University of Illinois Press, 2020). She is co-editor of Writing Revolution: Hispanic Anarchism in the United States (University of Illinois Press, 2019).
• Spencer Beswick is a PhD candidate at Cornell University studying the history of anarchism and the left. A chapter he wrote based on the material for this presentation will be featured in a forthcoming book series on anarchism and punk published by Active Distribution. Spencer’s dissertation is tentatively titled “Punks, Panthers, and Feminists: American Anarchism in the Late Twentieth Century.”
