Browsing by Subject "Anarchism"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    Anarchy and individualism in American Literature: from Walden Pond to the rise of the New Left
    (2013-04) Brown, James Patrick
    This dissertation tells the story of--or, rather, unfolds one intellectual history of--American individualism on the left. In it, I argue that Emerson and Thoreau belong to a tradition of American anarchism that included Emma Goldman and other Gilded Age anarchists, Beat poets like Gary Snyder and Philip Whalen, and New Leftists in the politics of the 1960s.
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    Constituent space: re-theorizing the geographies of contestation and control.
    (2011-01) Clough, Nathan L.
    This dissertation analyzes contemporary contentious politics through a qualitative study of the mobilization against the 2008 Republican National Convention (2008 RNC) that was held in St. Paul, Minnesota from September 1-4, 2008. Empirically this study contributes to the emerging literatures in geography on social movements and social control. At the theoretical level this dissertation is an attempt to expound on recent incitements that neoliberal capitalism should be studied through its articulation with the myriad contestations that constantly emerge in reaction to, in relation with, or alongside of it. I contribute to this project through an engagement with some theoretical concepts that have been developed within the trajectory of Autonomous Marxism, including constituent and Constituted forms of power, biopolitics, and governmentalities and counter-conducts, as well as developing a geographical theory of constituent space.
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    War is the health of the State: war, empire, and anarchy in the languages of American national security
    (2014-12) Johnson, Ryan M.
    On the evening of September 6, 1901 anarchist Leon Czolgosz shot and killed U.S. President William McKinley. This violent scene set the stage for the creation of a popular, political, and legal culture premised upon defending the American nation from the specter of anarchy, both real and imagined. In this dissertation, I argue that the opening years of the twentieth century should be understood as a critical moment in the history of the American national security state. Beginning in 1901, government institutions enacted security legislation and policy in an effort to defend the state and the nation from the threat of enemy anarchists, engaging in a political and popular cultural environment defined by discourses surrounding exclusion and surveillance. I analyze these popular conceptualizations of anarchists as enemies of the nation and state alongside the circulation of a security-centric political discourse and the growth of surveillance bureaucracies as a way to trace the rise of a culture of state power and national identity centered upon the languages and metaphors of national security. National leaders enacted regulatory policies such as the Anarchist Exclusion Act of 1903 at a critical moment of federal growth in U.S. history. They increased the breadth and scope of federal bureaucracies like the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Justice, and the Immigration and Naturalization Service in order to secure the nation from the threats posed by anarchists. This national security project was rationalized as a necessary defensive measure to protect the nation from enemy anarchists. Americans engaged in a culture of war during a time of peace and from 1901 onward, the American nation-state acted as if it was at war with anarchy.