CSCH 3019 Anarchy in the USA
This course is designed to uncover the hidden history of a rarely-studied dimension of political and philosophical radicalism: anarchism in the United States. We will examine the origins of anti-State and anarchist thought in North America, various collective anarchist utopian experiments and important events in the history of American anarchism such as the Haymarket Riot, the assassination of President McKinley and the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti. We will also read important American anarchist writers such as Josiah Warren, Emma Goldman and Dorothy Day and examine the historical and intellectual context of their lives and ideas. A central question throughout will be that of the relationship of anarchism to collective action, and the related philosophical and political tension between the ideal of pacifism and the strategy of violence. The course will conclude with an examination of the recent resurgence of anarchism in the U.S. as part of the anti-globalization and Occupy Wall Street movements.