The Anarchism and Punk Book Project

A long overdue update …

The book launches in Manchester/Salford and San Francisco in November last year were great (thanks to everyone who hosted us and everyone who came along). Here, have a few pictures:

But enough of this dwelling in the past – what’s next?

We’ll be announcing details of two further events very soon, one online on 13th March, one in Athens on 10th April. Keep your eyes peeled.

And Book 3 is congealing itself into material existence – it may or may not be titled Punk Anarchy in Action! We’re aiming to have it out by the end of 2025, but there’s work to do before we get that far.

We have two book launches coming up to celebrate the publication of DIY or Die! Do-it-yourself, do-it-together and punk anarchism, in the UK and US:

Join co-editor Will Boisseau and chapter contributors Ashley Morgan (Running Punx) and David Kay (Under the Pavement community radio) at the Manchester/Salford Anarchist Bookfair.

Saturday 2nd November @ 1pm

People’s History Museum

Left Bank, Manchester, M3 3ER

(UK distribution by Active Distro)

Join co-editor Jim Donaghey at Bound Together Anarchist Bookstore in San Francisco.

Friday 15th November @ 7pm

Bound Together Bookstore

1369 Haight Street, San Francisco, CA 94117

(US book distribution by PM Press)

Listen in to this adapted version of the introduction to DIY or Die!, titled, ‘DIY: A Radical Culture and Ethic Beyond Punk‘, published as part of the  Anarchism Research Group‘s Anarchist Essays series:

And we’ll be doing a bit of a launch event at the Manchester/Salford Anarchist Bookfair on Saturday 2nd November. Co-editor Will Boisseau will be chatting with chapter contributors Ashley Morgan and David Kay. If you’re in the vicinity, come and say hi!

DIY or Die! Do-it-yourself, do-it-together & punk anarchism has been making its way out into the world. Visit these venerable distributors to pick up your copy:

UK:  Active Distribution and PM Press

US: PM Press

France: Stonehenge

Catalunya: Virus and La Ciutat Invisible

… and it’s left a big dent in the planet’s surface:

Just shy of 600 pages, packed full of all your favourite punk and anarchy! (You can read the contents list here.)

It’s currently available to buy from Active Distribution (our publisher comrades) and PM Press in the UK for just £9 (cover price is a tenner). It will be on its way to other parts of the world very soon.

Stay tuned for news of book launches and other such festivities.

Up the punx!

Book 2 is coming along nicely – it’s gonna be a 600-page whopper! (News on publication date to follow.) In the meantime, whet your appetite with this list of chapter titles:

• Foreword: Commodified from head to toe? Hell no – here come the DIY squads! – Mita (Needle ‘n’ Bitch Collective, Indonesia)
• Introduction: If I Had a Hammer … the radical potential of do-it-yourself (beyond punk) – Jim Donaghey, Will Boisseau and Caroline Kaltefleiter
• Chapter One: Autonomy in the capital: the short life and sudden death of an anarchist punk centre in London, UK – Rich Cross
• Chapter Two: From punk to squat: the (re)birth of Social Centres and the role of anarcho-punk in 1980s Italy – Giulio D’Errico
• Chapter Three: What are punk spaces? Where are punk places? Heterotopias of Leipzig, Germany – Yannleon Chen
• Chapter Four: Building a more caring and accessible future: successes and failures of squatted and autonomous spaces in London, Amsterdam and Berlin – Efa Thomas
• Chapter Five: The construction of social and urban alternatives through anarchism and punk in Madrid, Spain, during the 1980s – Blanca Algaba Pérez
• Chapter Six: First there was Amparo, then it was Ronda Atocha … What will be next? Anarchism, punk and squatted Social Centers in Madrid, Spain – David Prieto Serrano, David Álvarez García and Gomer Betancor Nuez
• Chapter Seven: Autonomous Social Centres and squats as rhizomatic real utopias: the case of Athens, Greece – Yorgos Paschos
• Chapter Eight: Transgressive street intervention as a form of anarchist (in)direct action and embodied punk philosophy in Buenos Aires (Argentina) and New York City (United States) – Hugh Sillitoe
• Chapter Nine: Punk spaces in Bogotá, Colombia during the Covid-19 pandemic: reflections on solidarity and mutual aid – Minerva Campion (translated by Maxwell Woods)
• Chapter Ten: The Wuhan punk scene in autonomous community and film: anarchism and Covid-19 in the People’s Republic of China – Emily Jane O’Dell
• Chapter Eleven: Suburban Scream: the noise of resentment and revolt in the São Paulo metropolitan region, Brazil – João Augusto Neves Pires (translated by Raíssa Koshyiama)
• Chapter Twelve: Smashing whiteness: race, class, and punk culture in the Love and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation (North America, 1989-1998) – Spencer Beswick
• Chapter Thirteen: Band praxis: punk and the anarchist squint – DaN McKee
• Chapter Fourteen: Under the pavement, the beach! Punk, anarchism and community organising in North West England – David Kay
• Chapter Fifteen: ‘I’m a pink prole threat’: revolution, Marxism and anarchism in the French punk scene – Christophe Becker (translated by Luke Ray Di Marco Campbell)
• Chapter Sixteen: Running Punks as an anarchistic rejection of traditionally sporty endeavour – Ashley Morgan
• Chapter Seventeen: Beyond anarchy: skateboarding and punk politics in Barcelona, Catalunya – Oriol Batalla
• Chapter Eighteen: Cyberpunk and industrial music: dethroning the megatechnics – Johan Eddebo
• Chapter Nineteen: Hip hop’s ‘punk moment(s)’? Punk aesthetics and anarchistic lifestyle in SoundCloud rap – Max Tretter

The beautiful new autumn issue of Réfractions journal is entirely dedicated to punk and anarchism, including new (abridged) translations into French of Bakunin Brand Vodka and The Punk Anarchisms of Class War and CrimethInc.

They’ve also reviewed Smash The System! and you can read that review in full here. It’s in French, mind you, so for the benefit of any non-Francophones, they said it’s really good and you should read it.

Here’s what else you can find in the très punk issue of Réfractions:

Bonne lecture!

 

Book 2 of the Anarchism and Punk Book Project is in the works – to be titled:

DIY or Die! Do-It-Yourself, Do-It-Together & Punk Anarchism

The cover will (probably) look like this:

We’ll keep you posted – but while you’re fidgeting in eager anticipation, here are some other cool things that have recently entered material existence:

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Markus Lundström has published a very interesting chapter about the relationships between punk and anarchism in Sweden, which is available Open Access here:

Lundström, M. (2023), ‘When Anarchism Met Punk’, in Hill, H. and Pinto, A. B. (eds) Social Movements in 1980s Sweden: contention in the welfare state, London: Palgrave MacMillan.

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A Polish translation of Ruud Noys’ What is Anarchist Music? has been published by Wolna Oficnya Wydawnicza as Czym Jest Muzyka Anarchistyczna?:

The publishers did a talk about it at the Wrocław Autonomous Bookfair last weekend (2-3 September) and will do so again at the Warsaw Independent Bookfair this weekend (9-10 September)  – you can email them at wolnaoficynawydawnicza@riseup.net

Caroline Kaltefleiter and Spencer Beswick at the book talk at Autumn Leaves in Ithaca, NY in May.

Jim Donaghey with Jay Kerr, Jak Hutchcraft and Liv Wynter at the book talk at the Cowley Club in Brighton in March.

And at Specialist Subject Records in Bristol, also in March.

Thanks to everyone who hosted our events!

Join Caroline Kaltefleiter (Anarchism and Punk Book Project co-editor) at a book launch for Smash the System! Punk Anarchism as a Culture of Resistance at Autumn Leaves, also featuring contributing author Spencer Beswick.

Caroline Kaltefleiter will give framing comments on Smash the System!, which offers a snapshot of anarchist punk as a culture of resistance across the globe. In these diverse and internationalist chapters we witness struggles against racism and colonialism in South Africa, resistance to neo-liberalism and state oppression in Latin America, resistance to police brutality and capitalism in Western, Central and Southeast Europe, struggles for equality and against patriarchy in the US, and anarchist resistance against injustice and authoritarianism in Asia.

Spencer Beswick will discuss his chapter (to be published in Book 2 in the series) titled ‘Smashing Whiteness: Race, Class, and Punk Culture in the Love and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation (1989-1998)’.

Friday May 5
6:00-7:30pm

Autumn Leaves Books
115 E. State St.
The Commons

More info here