Anarchist movements in the contemporary United States may, at first glance, seem unlikely to be fertile spaces for literary creativity. Yet U.S. anarchists have persistently written about their philosophy, their activism, and their everyday lives, producing interventions that demand to be read as specifically literary works. Offering readings of a range of texts never previously considered by literary scholars, the book frames U.S. anarchism since the 1970s as a vitally important site of subversive literary production. It does this through an innovative critical mode aligned with anarchist commitments, in which anarchist writers’ refusal of representation, and their preference for direct action, come to the fore. Offering a series of highly original readings, this study provides fresh insights into the complex roles that literature may play in radical political movements today.
Price: $130.00
Pages: 256
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Imprint: Manchester University Press
Series: Contemporary Anarchist Studies
Publication Date:
15 December 2026
ISBN: 9781526182852
Format: Hardcover
BISACs:
POLITICAL SCIENCE / Political Ideologies / Anarchism, Anarchism, LITERARY CRITICISM / American / General, LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / 20th Century, Pressure groups, protest movements and non-violent action, Literary studies: c 1900 to c 2000
Frankie Hines teaches on the interdisciplinary Foundation Year programme at Birmingham Newman University.
Introduction: Direct action criticism
1 Anarcha-feminist consent zines and the politics of anarchist domesticity
Interlude: Anti-authoritarian didacticism and the how-to mode
2 The black bloc and temporal rupture in the anti-globalisation era
Interlude: George Orwell, Henry Miller and anarcho-nihilism
3 Anarchist dropout narratives and the problem of American complicity
Interlude: Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed and the literature of anarchist failure
Coda: Anarcho-vitalism writes back
Bibliography