Post-structuralist anarchism, or what more often has been referred to as postanarchism, never quite received the attention that it deserved from the anarchist community at large. Nor has it to any great extent been met with sympathy. Part of the reluctance, I suspect, results from the empty spaces occupying the bookshelves of universities, alternative bookstores, and radical lending libraries across the world today – all of which are awaiting the publication of this volume, The postanarchism reader: writings at the intersection of anarchism and poststructuralism. But, most ironically, this problem has arisen simultaneously with a proliferation of related articles across disparate disciplines; a tradition built around such heterogeneity runs the risk of erecting its own tombstone.

The Postanarchist Reader – Call for Papers

Post-structuralist anarchism, or what more often has been referred to as postanarchism, never quite received the attention that it deserved from the anarchist community at large. Nor has it to any great extent been met with sympathy. Part of the reluctance, I suspect, results from the empty spaces occupying the bookshelves of universities, alternative bookstores, and radical lending libraries across the world today – all of which are awaiting the publication of this volume, The postanarchism reader: writings at the intersection of anarchism and poststructuralism. But, most ironically, this problem has arisen simultaneously with a proliferation of related articles across disparate disciplines; a tradition built around such heterogeneity runs the risk of erecting its own tombstone. It would seem that there is a double necessity here, one of maintaining a transdisciplinary approach while also ensuring that the tradition remains bounded. A body of thought such as this should allow itself the dignity to live on as the vital condition of a contemporary anarchist politics, as a volume of work which, though explicitly multivocal, nonetheless inherently shares a sense of community and responsibility. In this sense, the articles that will be presented in The postanarchism reader, constitutes a community of sorts, even before their binding.

To my knowledge, other than the humble contributions offered in the Reader, only three book-length works (Todd May's The Political Philosophy of Poststructuralist Anarchism was introduced in 1994, followed by Saul Newman's From Bakunin to Lacan: Antiauthoritarianism and the Dislocation of Power and Lewis Call's Postmodern Anarchism in 2001 and 2004 respectively) explore this subject in any sort of depth. We might recall May's groundbreaking book which was among the first to explore the relationship between poststructuralism and anarchism; May's book arrived as a response to the question Is poststructuralism anarchist? Indeed it is the case that poststructuralism, as a political philosophy, is, if not anarchist, at least anarchistic, and yet if we were to seek out full texts documenting this collaboration, still after so many years, we would be left, for the most part, near empty handed. Newman, obviously referring to May's original text, but seven years later, commented that he was only aware of one other author who explored these connections at any length (Newman, 2001: 7). Now, fourteen long years after May's initial writing on the subject and six empty years after Call's, there still consists of only three lengthy texts which explicitly address these connections. Are we not then to presume that postanarchism should be explored no further?

This book will come in part then as a reaction to the empty bookshelves that have come to be the private trouble of any postanarchist-curious reader. It also comes as a response to the outrageous lack of accessibility to postanarchist articles, many of which an academic might find scattered from one journal to the next, hardly reaching the most serious and sympathetic readers. Moreover this book is an attempt to come to terms with one of the biggest challenges posed by a postanarchist politics, that of building sustainable community in the face of endless fragmentation. I am reminded, in particular, of a popular conversation between John D. Caputo and Jacques Derrida, to which the question was posed: “[w]hat does deconstruction say, if anything, in favor of the unum, of community? Is there a place for unity after deconstruction? What might it look like?” (Caputo, 1997: 11), to which Derrida replied, “[o]f course, we need unity, some gathering, some configuration. You see, pure unity or pure multiplicity or disassociation . . is a synonym for death” (Ibid., 13). This book, therefore, is an attempt to take what are now scattered, yet important, articles and combine them into an accessible anthology, it will be just one shameless attempt at sustainable community. Up until now postanarchism, as a responsible tradition, has been far too interested in its transdisciplinarity without equal regard for its shared ethical commitments. This book is only one attempt, among many, to (re)achieve such a balance.

The deadline for current paper proposals is December of 2007. Contributions from many writers have already been secured, however we are still searching for a few more. We are looking for work/play which either explicitly addresses a post(structuralist) anarchist political approach, as in the case of Jason Adam's “Postanarchism in a nutshell”, or work/play which creatively deals with both poststructuralist and anarchist theories within the same essay. If you or somebody you know would like to contribute, please contact me by email at Duane.Rousselle(at)unb.ca (replace “at” with @) or by phone at 1-613-344-0132.

Duane Rousselle
Kingston, Ontario