Anarchist Essays

In this essay, Michael Grooff argues for a bipartite reading of Kropotkin’s account of sympathy, the mechanism behind the evolutionary mutual aid principle. Incorporating both simulation as well as perception in our analysis solves the problem of animal sympathy and provides a better account of sympathy as the basis of anarchist morality. Michael Grooff is a PhD researcher in fundamental and practical philosophy at the Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany. Grooff's most recent publications are Sympathy as the Engine of Mutual Aid: Reading Kropotkin's Bipartite Account of Sympathy and Freedom of Recreation: A Critique of the Prohibition, Decriminalization, and Legal Regulation of Psychedelics for Recreational Use. Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Bluesky @anarchismresgroup.bsky.social Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.  

In this essay, Alejandro Forero examines how bourgeois criminology weaponized positivist science to pathologize dissent, pseudoscientifically labeling anarchists as "born criminals" to justify state repression and legal exclusion. In response, Spanish anarchists repurposed evolutionary theory to propose the total abolition of prisons, advocating for a society rooted in mutual aid, rational education, and the elimination of the social inequalities that breed crime. Alejandro Forero is Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Barcelona. His most recent publications on the topic are: (2025) Anarchism and the Abolition of the Criminal Justice System: The Struggle for the Discourse on Evolution and Social Order in Spain., in Envisioning Abolition (edited by David Scott and Emma Bell), and 2023 “The new man and the abolition of punishment: Hulsman’s approach and its similarities with the anarchist tradition” in Pain in Vain: Challenging the Penal System, Towards the Abolition of Punishment: On the Legacies of Louk Hulsman.   Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Bluesky @anarchismresgroup.bsky.social Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.  

In this essay, Ruby Tuke argues that the political philosopher, author and proto-anarchist William Godwin’s critique of punishment, alongside his commitment to a form of community-rooted justice guided by rational moral judgement, offers a striking yet overlooked antecedent to contemporary penal abolitionist debates. Ruby Tuke is a writer and researcher currently working at the intersection of nineteenth‑century radicalism and contemporary penal abolitionist thought. Her most recent publication is a chapter in Envisioning Abolition, edited by David Gordon Scott and Emma Bell (Bristol University Press, 2025). Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Bluesky @anarchismresgroup.bsky.social Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.

This essay introduces Envisioning Abolition, arguing that modern penal abolitionism has deep roots in nineteenth and early twentieth-century anarchist and libertarian socialist thought that challenged prisons, punishment, and state coercion. It highlights how the traditions of red and black converge around a shared commitment to equality, freedom, and the abolition of punitive justice systems. David Gordon Scott,  Chair of the Weavers Uprising Bicentennial Committee and The Open University. His most recent books include Abolitionist Voices (Bristol University Press, paperback March 2026) Emma Bell, Professor of Contemporary British Politics, Université Savoie Mont Blanc, France. She has also recently published Policy Press | Commons, Citizenship and Power - Reclaiming the Margins, Edited by Filippo Barbera and Emma Bell  Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Bluesky @anarchismresgroup.bsky.social Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.

In this essay, Roberta Cesana examines the relationship between anarchism and print culture through the figure of Leda Rafanelli (1880–1971). It shows how writing, printing, and publishing functioned as forms of self-construction, shaping Rafanelli’s identity as a militant, an intellectual, and a professional. Roberta Cesana is Associate Professor of History of Bibliography, Books and Publishing at the University of Milan. She is President of Apice. Her recent work focuses on women’s roles in editorial production and includes L’altra metà dell’editoria. Le professioniste del libro e della lettura nel Novecento (Ronzani, 2022) and Libri e rose. Le donne nell’editoria italiana degli anni Settanta (MUP, 2024), both co-edited with Irene Piazzoni. Her essay on Inge Schöntal Feltrinelli as Publisher has been included in The Edinburgh Companion to Women in Publishing 1900-2020 (EUP, 2024). She has published articles and essays on Leda Rafanelli in journals and edited volumes and is currently working on a monograph on the subject. Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Bluesky @anarchismresgroup.bsky.social Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.

In this essay, Vincent Bouchard and Asia Matthews discuss how contemporary anarchism can be used as a framework to rethink how we teach mathematics at the university level. At its core, anarchism aims at aligning thoughts and actions, and we argue that an anarchist viewpoint on undergraduate mathematics may offer a path toward a more equitable, horizontal and human-centred approach. This is not an essay about math: this is about how it is taught, and why it matters! Vincent Bouchard is Professor in the Department of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences at the University of Alberta (personal website: https://sites.ualberta.ca/~vbouchar/). Vincent's publication list is freely available on arXiv.org at https://arxiv.org/a/bouchard_v_1.html . Asia Matthews is a professor of mathematics and interdisciplinary educator. She worked at Quest University Canada until recently, and is now a free agent. You can find her on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/asiamatthews/. Asia and Vincent's recent publication, "An Anarchist Approach to the Undergraduate Mathematics Curriculum", on which this essay is based, was published in the Canadian Journal of Science, Mathematics and Technology Education (2025) and is freely available on arXiv at https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.18811. Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Bluesky @anarchismresgroup.bsky.social Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.

In this essay, Eleanor Strangways explores the collaborations between anarchists and anti-imperialists in Britain during the Second World War. The essay begins by examining publications on imperialism within War Commentary, before turning to the participation of anti-imperialist activists in both the publication and anarchist meetings, including George Padmore, Jomo Kenyatta, and Chris Jones. Eleanor Strangways is a final-year PhD student at Loughborough University and the author of the recent article, 'Anarchism, Anti-Militarism, and the British Empire: The Case of War Commentary and the Freedom Defence Committee', which forms the basis of this episode. Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Bluesky @anarchismresgroup.bsky.social Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.

In this essay, Sean Ketteringham examines the anarchist and anti-imperial politics which informed the work of Henri Gaudier-Brzeska (1891-1915), the French modernist sculptor who was based in London for the final and most productive years of his life. By suggesting several new models for Gaudier-Brzeska's Maquette for a Large Basin (referred to until recently as Maquette for a Bird Bath), the essay nuances readings of how anarchist revolutionary principles of direct action and anti-statist transnational solidarity shaped the artist's approach to primitivism, labouring bodies, and classicism.  Sean Ketteringham is Assistant Curator at Henry Moore Institute, Leeds. His first monograph, Architectures of Identity: Imperial Decline and the Homes of English Modernism, is forthcoming with Oxford University Press. He will join the University of Birmingham as a Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow in May 2026. Thanks are due to the following people for their generous help and feedback in support of this work: Rebecca Beasley, Holly Bird, Jennifer Johnson, Clare O’Dowd, Evelyn Silber and Sarah Turner as well as to the two anonymous reviewers and the editorial staff at Sculpture Journal for the many improvements they suggested to the version of article that appeared in print. Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Bluesky @anarchismresgroup.bsky.social Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.  

In this essay, Maria Chomard examines the transatlantic anarchist mutual aid initiative after World War II, focusing on its attempted reunification and the tensions between universalist politics and Jewish postwar relief. Through this case, she argues that the Holocaust constituted a structural rupture in anarchism’s social and moral economy, reshaping practices of solidarity and contributing to the movement’s postwar crisis. Maria Chomard is a historian with a Ph.D. from the University Paris 8 Vincennes — Saint-Denis, specializing in transatlantic Jewish anarchism. She recently published “To Save the Saviors: Reorganizing Anarchist Solidarity in Europe after World War II,” in S. Korbel and P. Strobl (eds.), Practices of Reunification: The Continuation of Refugee Life after 1945 (Routledge, 2025). Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Bluesky @anarchismresgroup.bsky.social Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.  

In this essay, Ruth Kinna and Simon Stevens discuss their article Anarchism: war, violence and scapegoating - an analysis of power, violence and government irresponsibility. They talk about issues that inspired the article and the central claim, namely that violence does not turn solely on its performance, but on the embrace of an ethic of violence that empowers transgressive action without necessarily exposing law breakers to the punishing violence of the state.  Ruth Kinna is a political theorist and member of the Anarchism Research Group at Loughborough University. She is the author of The Government of No One. Her co-authored book with Alex Prichard (Exeter) Constitutionalising Anarchy is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press.  Simon Stevens is a political philosopher and member of the methods in Normative Political Theory Group (ECPR). His research lies in normative political theory, with particular interests in democratic theory, political methodology, and public political philosophy. He has published on civil disobedience, homelessness, epistemic authority, and marginalisation in journals including Contemporary Political Theory, Theoria, Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, and the Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour. He is the author of Political Theory: Why Big Ideas Matter (SAGE, 2025) and has published recent work on [https://doi:10.1017/pub.2025.10079]public political philosophy, moral sentimentalism, and live action roleplay in the Public Humanities journal published by Cambridge University Press. Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Bluesky @anarchismresgroup.bsky.social Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns).