IAS Grant Updates

Passionate and Dangerous: Conversations with Midwestern Anti-Author-itarians and Anarchists by Mark Bonhert and Richard Curtis has been completed and published as an attractive, 70 page pamphlet. The pamphlet (formerly titled Post-Industrial Resources: Anarchist Reconstructive Efforts & Visions in the Upper Midwest) is comprised of interviews with anarchist activists from Detroit, Chicago, and other areas throughout the Midwest. It defies the Midwest’s reputation as a bastion of conservatism and offers a candid picture of the contemporary anarchist movement, its failings as well as strengths. It is available from AK Press, Left Bank Books, or directly from the authors at P.O. Box 63232, St. Louis, MO 63163. Bonhert and Curtis were awarded $250 in June 1997.

Matt Hern and Stuart Chaulk’s book, The Myth of the Internet: Private Isolation and Local Community has been accepted for publication by Broadview Press of Toronto, Canada. A first draft is being reviewed by the publisher and Hern and Chaulk anticipate that the book will be available in the fall or early winter. They were awarded $1200 in January 1998.

Lucien van der Walt has completed more than 140 pages of his manuscript, Anarchism and Revolutionary Syndicalism in South Africa, 1904-1921. He has written a detailed treatment of the impact of anarchism and revolutionary syndicalism on the early socialist movement in South Africa up until 1920 and all that remains to be examined are the events leading to the founding of the Communist Party of South Africa in mid-1921. His research indicates that libertarian socialism was a powerful influence on the early left-wing movement. Two articles drawn from his research will appear this year. “‘The Industrial Union is the Embryo of the Socialist Commonwealth’: The International Socialist League and Revolutionary Syndicalism in South Africa, 1915-1920” will appear in Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East and “Race, Class and Revolutionary Syndicalism in South Africa: The International Socialist League and the Industrial Workers of Africa, 1915-1920” is forthcoming in Archiv fur die Geschichte des Widerstandes und der Arbeit. He was awarded $500 in June 1998.

Joe Lowndes continues to work on his “Anarchism and the Rise of Rightwing Anti-statism.” He will soon begin archival research into the direct mail campaigns of the New Right in the mid-1970’s. He will examine how New Right elites appealed to a white, middle and working-class public, with particular attention to the way they linked racial themes to anti-government messages. He hopes to complete his project by Fall 1999. He was awarded $1000 in June 1998.

Chris Day continues work on his book, Anarchism and the Zapatista Revolution. He has completed a draft of the first section, which is a history of the EZLN from its founding in 1983 to 1994. He has also written two articles that will provide the basis for an additional two chapters. The first, which is scheduled for publication in Forward Motion, recapitulates the history of the EZLN prior to 1994 and continues with a narrative account of their development to the present. An edited version of the second article, “Dual Power in the Lacandon Jungle” is scheduled for publication by the Fire By Night Organizing Committee. This is a theoretical treatment of the lessons of the Zapatistas’s experience in dual power in the form of the autonomous municipalities established in December 1994. He was awarded $2000 in January 1998.

Sam Mbah is working on his book, The Military Dictatorship And The State In Africa. He completed the analysis and collation of research materials this spring and has now begun writing. He was awarded $2000 in  January 1999.

All but four of thirty chapters of Zoe Erwin and Brian Tokar’s anthology, Engineering Life: A People’s Guide to Biotechnology, are complete. They have been negotiating with publishers and will begin final editing as soon as they secure a publication contract. They were awarded $1000 in June 1997.

Murray Bookchin continues research on the Spanish anarchists. His work will appear in Volume 3 of the Third Revolution: Popular Movement in the Revolutionary Era (the book will be published by Cassell Academic in late 1999 or 2000). He was awarded $1000 in January 1997 for the second volume of his Spanish Anarchists: The Heroic Years.

Peter Lamborn Wilson’s introduction to the new edition of Enrico Arrigone’s (aka Frank Brand) autobiography has evolved into an article that will appear in a collection of essays on anarchist history (The Autobiography of Enrico Arrigone has been postponed). Wilson’s piece, which will probably be titled “‘Brand’: an Italian anarchist”, is complete and the anthology that will contain it is tentatively titled Lost Histories: Anarchist Essays (scheduled for publication by Autonomedia in 2000). He was awarded $250 in June 1997.

Frank Adams continues to work on his essay, “The Educational Ideas and Management Practices of 19th and 20th Century Anarchists in Labor-Owned Cooperatives.” He was awarded $500 in June 1997.