International Anarchist Academics and Activists Conference
April 13-15, 2006
Pitzer College
Claremont, CA
USA
Anarchist academics and activists will gather in Claremont for three days of culture jamming, music, film, art, panel presentations, discussions, lectures, and demonstrations. Whether you are an anarchist or just curious about anarchism, all are welcome to participate. The purpose of the conference is to strengthen connections among anarchists on the streets and in the academy, to sharpen the anarchist critique of the present, to deepen our understanding of the origins and history of anarchism, to stimulate further activism, and to present the anarchist vision to a wider audience. The conference will take place on the campus of Pitzer College, which is one of the five undergraduate institutions collectively known as the Claremont Colleges, and the host of Anarchy Archives.
The conference will begin with some culture jamming of our own. Students at Pitzer have begun organizing a "Whirl" down the aisles of a local marketing behemoth where we will form a conga line with empty shopping carts and raise awareness about the high cost of low prices. Then, there will be continuous live music, films, presentations and discussions. The topics will be as wide ranging and diverse as the anarchist movement itself. If you would like to present a formal paper, make an informal presentation about activist projects, join a panel discussion, or simply soak up all the conference has to offer, please contact Dana Ward dward@pitzer.edu as soon as possible. There is no formal deadline or format for proposals, but the earlier you respond, the easier it will be to schedule presentations. If all you want to do is attend the conference, it would greatly facilitate planning if you would also contact Dana Ward
Transportation
The closest airport is Ontario Airport (ONT), roughly seven minutes away from campus. You can also fly into LAX, but it will take an hour aboard an expensive shuttle to get to Pitzer.
By car, you can take either Interstate 210 (Towne exit) or Interstate 10 (Indian Hill exit) to get to Claremont. Click these links for driving directions and maps.
By bus, you can come into the Claremont Bus station, then take the local 480/481 bus to campus.
Claremont Dial-a-Ride will take you anywhere in Claremont for $1.25. It will take up to 45 minutes to be picked up on spur of the moment calls, but you can arrange for specific pick-up times in advance which will pick you up promptly at the arranged time. Their number is (909) 623-0183.
During the conference we will also have limited shuttle service between campus and where ever you are staying. The vans will be available around lunch time and dinner time.
Accommodations
There are not a lot of good options for housing. If you have funding for the conference, then your best bet is the Claremont Inn. It is within walking distance from Pitzer, and they are giving us a conference rate of $99. If you want to book at the Claremont Inn, please contact dward@pitzer.edu.
There are also three other hotels that are not as nice, indeed one is reknown for its "hourly" traffic, but the rooms are serviceable, cost $65 a night and there is a bus that runs every ten minutes to campus which takes about ten minutes (and you'll have to walk a few blocks across campus to get to Pitzer). The hotels are the Ramada Inn, Howard Johnson's Express, and Hotel Claremont. Just Google the hotels in Claremont and they will come up, but tell them you are attending the conference at the Claremont Colleges and you will get the discounted rate of $65 including tax.
I have also arranged a limited number of spaces in private homes that colleagues and students will make available. In some cases there are beds, in others it will be sofas, floors, or tents in the back yard. If this suits your needs, then please contact dward@pitzer.edu as soon as possible.
Meals
We will have access to fairly cheap meals on campus in the cafeteria (Breakfast, $3.00; Lunch, $5.00; Dinner, $7.00, brunch on Saturday is $5, and it's an "all you can eat" set up with accommodation for all types of diets). There are also other on-campus eateries, and there are a few places in walking distance from campus. The Grove House (Building 8) is a Green & Green craftsman house that serves good lunches. The Gold Student Center has a grill for lunches. The street north of campus, Foothill Blvd (Route 66) has a couple places to eat at the intersection of Claremont and Foothill Blvds.
Child Care
Child care can be arranged if you let us know your needs in advance.
Conference Center
Throughout the meeting the conference center with book exhibits, organizations' tables, and continuously running films will be at the McConnell Living Room (North side of Building 8), located at the center of the Pitzer campus. The main rooms for sessions are Avery Auditorium (Enterance on the ground story at the Northeast and Northwest sides of Building 6) and the Founders Room, second floor of McConnell (Building 8). The evening films will be shown in the Broad Performance Space at the Edyth and Eli Broad Center (Building 1). Since parking permits are required for the Parking lot, the best place to park is to the East of Campus on Claremont Blvd., just 50 meters from McConnell Center.
- Edythe and Eli Broad Center
- Scott Hall
- Bernard Hall
- Fletcher Hall
- Broad Hall
- Avery Hall
- Sanborn Residence Hall
- McConnell Center
- Holden Residence Hall
- Gloria and Peter Gold Student Center
- Mead Residence Hall
- Grove House
- W. M. Keck Science Center
- Pellissier Mall (The Mounds)
Preliminary Schedule
Note: This schedule is subject to change. There will also be films and other events scheduled throughout the conference.
Thursday, April 13
1:15-2:15 Avery Auditorium: John Clark: "Utopian Dreams and Nightmares"
Utopian visions can be either a mode of liberation, creative imagination, and the striving toward a new reality, or a mode of escapism, reactivity, self-indulgence and denial of reality. The focus of the talk will be on the relation between utopianism and "topianism"--the rootedness in, appreciation of, and deep exploration of realities (and surrealities) of place, locality and region.
2:30-4:30 Session A, Avery Auditorium: Anarchist Theory
Alex Prichard on Proudhon
Mitch Verter on Ricardo Flores Magon and Magonismo today
2:35-4:30 Session B, Fletcher 106 (Building 4): Politics in the Movement
Travis Tomchuk on "Agitators of Alien Birth: Representations of Anarchists in
Early Twentieth Century Canadian Print Media"
In this presentation I will argue that the portrayal of anarchists as violent
foreigners was integral to the creation of political citizenship in Canada. Anarchists
who found themselves on the margins of Canadian society helped to shape the centre by
illuminating the limits of the status quo.
Erik Andersen on "Authority and Leadership"
The fundamental difference between authority and leadership hinges on the means
or the reason by which a person comes into this coordinating position. Authority
is a privilege of command accorded to a person or group based on some preexisting
condition. On the other hand, leadership is a responsibility placed upon a person or
group that shares the goals and the project of all involved.
5:00-6:00 WhirlMart demonstration: gather in Avery Auditorium
8:00-10:00 Film: Emma Goldman, an Exceedingly Dangerous Woman, Mel Bucklin, 2003.
Broad Performance Space (Building 1)
Friday, April 14
9:00-10:00 Avery Auditorium: Alan Antliff on Porous Anarchy
Allan Antliff will discuss the anarchism of the early 20th century anti-colonial activist Ananda Coomaraswamy, who combined calls for an anti-industrial, anti-colonial revolution in India with a parallel revolution in the industrial West.
10:00-12:00 Session A, Avery Auditorium: Spreading the Word
Chuck Munson on Infoshops
AK Press on Publishing Anarchist Works
AK Press collective members present their relationship to the
book trade and the anarchist movement as both a publisher and
distributor. Questions that will be addressed include: What is the
structure of AK Press and how does it reflect anarchist commitments?
what is the role of an anarchist propagandist within capitalism?
What problems/contradictions does that entail? How does AK Press
respond to recent changes in the book industry? What is the
importance of publishing (both self- and with ak press)? How does
one go about doing that?
Tommy Bigfinger and Ramie Becker on "The Efficacy of Culture Jamming"
Dana Ward and John Clark on publishing collective proposal.
10:00-12:00 Session B, Founders Room, 2nd floor of McConnell: Theory and Practice
Matt Lucas on Nietzche
Richard Day on Gramsci
Taylor Smith on John Cage
12:00-1:15 Lunch Break
1:30-2:30 Avery Auditorium: Sharon Presley: Voltairine de Cleyre's Legacy: Her Relevance for Today"
Many of the issues that Voltairine de Cleyre struggled with are still being debated today. Her thought-provoking challenges to the conventional thinking of her day are no less radical now as then. Her insights into political, social, religious, and feminist controversies are still fresh and relevant, and remain unconventional and challenging for both anarchists and nonanarchists alike.
2:45-5:00 Session A, Avery Auditorium: Organizing
Ben Shepard on Play
Annie Ross on "War is the Expletive": acts of war, nuclearism, gmo seeds, herbicides,
pesticides, pollution, indifference to needs, and colonization as manufactured goods
of the modern age.
Saab Lofton, "Is the pen TRULY mightier than the sword (or the gun, bomb, etc.)?"
Sarah Coffey on "Legal work in movement building and organizing."
How can we make the legal system and the state respond to us instead of the other
way around, how can we proactively insert ourselves in the legal process to keep
people out of jail instead of supporting people once they're in, and how do we keep
movements from shifting to primarily jail support once organizers are targeted by the state?
2:45-5:00 Session B Founders Room, 2nd floor of McConnell: Anarchist Research
Stevphen Shukaitas on Militant Research
Louis F. Gaudet on Anarchists in Academia
Bill Zoda on Anarchism in academia
8:00-10:00 Films: Fury over Spain, Louis Frank, Adrien Porchet, Spain, 1938.
Land and Freedom, Tierra y libertad, Ken Loach, UK 1995.
Broad Performance Space (Building 1)
Saturday, April 15
9:00-10:00 Avery Auditorium: Cindy Milstein: New Anarchism
Over the past few years, anarchism has emerged as one
of the most compelling currents within today's
anti-capitalist milieu. With its emphasis on
participation and prefigurative politics, anarchism
has contributed to diverse experiments in horizontal
organization as well as social power, alongside or in
solidarity with a variety of anti-authoritarian
movements worldwide. It has also brought a refreshing
wave of utopian thinking to a tired Left. And perhaps
for the first time in its own history, anarchism is
all that much more relevant and even workable in this
era, variously labeled the network society, the
information age, or simply globalization. This talk
will explore the outlines of what's been called "the
new anarchism," including whether it's new at all,
against the backdrop of the present moment, in an
attempt to capture some of the vibrancy and even
innovations of Ñ and tensions within Ñ contemporary
anarchism.
10:15-12:00 Avery Auditorium: Race, Gender, Class and the Environment
Lynn Owens, New Orleans after Katrina
Anjali Nath, on "Anarchism: A Multicultural Perspective"
Mathew Romain, on "Intentional Communities: Grassroots Infrastructure Against Capitalist
Hegemony." This presentation will attempt to illuminate the possibilities of co-operative
and collective living to create sustainable regional communities in facilitating efforts to
confront and defeat global corporate rule in the context of white-supremacist-capitalist
-patriarchy.
Shawn McDougal, Building a culture of critical, courageous, compassionate engagement across
boundaries
12:00-1:00 Lunch Break
1:00-2:15 Avery Auditorium: Marcus Page on "A Peace of Anarchy, Ammon Hennacy" Film and discussion. Released last year: "A Peace of the Anarchy," is a quick trip through 20th Century American radical history, with a special focus on Ammon Hennacy. The film features Starhawk, Carlos Cortez, Dorothy Day, David Dellinger, Kathy Kelly and Karl Meyer."
2:30-5:00 Session A, Avery Auditorium: Anarchism and Latin America
Dana Ward on “Recuperated” Factories in Argentina
Daniel Olmos on The World Social Forum, Horizontality and Autonomy
Film: "The Take"
2:30-5:00 Session B, Founders Room, 2nd floor of McConnell: Anarchism and economics
Tom Wetzel on Workers Liberation and Post-Capitalist Ecomomics
Philip Osborn on the Corporation as an Artificial Person
7:00-Midnight Broad Performance Space (Building 1): Party and Films
Living Room, Liz and Courtney, USA 2005
Resist!, 2003, Belgium, 1990