IAS Grant Awards

The Institute for Anarchist Studies (IAS) annually awards $8000 in grants to writers whose work is important to the anarchist critique of domination, who have a clear financial need, and whose piece is likely to be widely distributed. The IAS Board of Directors was pleased to award grants to the following individuals in January 2000:

$1500 to Mike Staudenmaier for his piece, Towards a New Anarchist Theory of Nationalism. This piece will develop an in-depth historical analysis on anarchist theories of nationalism and the diversity of opinions within anarchism. It will focus on a contradiction between theory rooted in class-based international criticism and a practice normally consisting of uncritical antiimperialist and antiracist solidarity. He intends to show that this contradiction between theory and practice, along with very little written on contemporary nationalism from an anarchist perspective, only serves to polarize the issue of nationalism. Ethnic groups try to advance their freedom at all costs and anarchism often dismisses nationalistic struggles out-of-hand due to the historically simplistic anarchist belief that all people will triumph equally. This piece will include a case study of contemporary revolutionary nationalism; an intellectual history of anarchism and nationalism looking at writers such Mikhail Bakunin, Gustav Landuar, Rudolp Rocker, and Freddy Perlman; and a section on contemporary issues that often intersect with nationalistic struggles, such as prison and antifascist activism. To be completed in March 2001, this piece will provide us with an innovative and sophisticated understanding of nationalism from an anarchist perspective. Mike Staudenmaier has been an active anarchist for ten years now, primarily in the Chicago area. He has also worked extensively with the Puerto Rican community in Chicago and has had opportunity to interact with members of the Puerto Rican nationalist movement on a daily basis for several years.

$2500 to Alberto Villarreal for his Spanish translation of Murray Bookchin's Remaking Society: Pathways to a Green Future (Rehaciendo la Sociedad). Originally published in 1990, this book is meant to be a summarization of social ecology, a political philosophy that bases the ecological crisis in the emergence of social hierarchy and domination and advocates for a radical transformation of society. A wide variety of Spanish speaking movements, particularly in Latin America, are struggling with social and ecological issues, which can be radicalized by ideas presented in Remaking Society.  To be completed by September 2001, this translation project will greatly add to Latin American radical intellectualism. Alberto Villarreal has translated several of Bookchin's essays for Comunidad, newsletter for the Comunidad project of Sweden and Uruguay,  and Tierra Amiga, magazine of REDES - Friends of the Earth Uruguay. He was a founding member of REDES and has been actively involved with social ecology for the last fifteen years.

If you are interested in applying for a grant, please send a SASE to the IAS at P.O. Box 1664, Peter Stuyvesant Station, New York, NY 10009 - USA. You can also print out a copy of our application from our website, http://home.newyorknet.net/ias/Default.htm. On our website, you will also find a complete listing of IAS supported projects.     ~