Contr’un

Black and Red Feminism

Feminism in Lyon before 1848: Eugénie Niboyet and Flora Tristan

March 19, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
I’ve posted a working translation of both sections of Maximilien Buffenoir’s “Feminism in Lyon before 1848.” I had worked up the section on Eugénie Niboyet last June, and finally got a chance to finish up the section on Flora Tristan. Those inclined to chase footnotes in the original French may find some interesting material in the archive of L’Echo de la Fabrique. And those interested in Niboyet’s work can read one poem, “The War,” in French or English translation in the Libertarian Labyrinth archive.
Contr'un

Feminism in Lyon before 1848: Eugénie Niboyet and Flora Tristan

March 19, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
FEMINISM IN LYON BEFORE 1848 I. —Feminist Tendencies before 1834. Mme Niboyet. When Fourier and, after him, the Saint-Simonians denounced the inequality of the sexes as a denial of justice, they revived a long-interrupted tradition. After Condorcet, the ardent forerunner of feminism, who was concerned with the role of woman? The Revolution, accustomed to find in her an enemy more often than an ally, had neglected to take her part after the assassination of Marat by Charlotte Corday. Napoleon was not the man to make her a part of his plans. She herself seemed disinterested in her own cause. Enfantin […]
Contr'un

Coeurderoy and Vauthier, “The Barrier of the Combat” (1852)

March 11, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
I’ve posted a working translation of The Barrier of the Combat, by Ernest Coeurderoy and Octave Vauthier. For some explanation of the title, see my earlier post on La Barrière du Combat. The essay, which is aimed at squabbling socialist exiles, ends with Coeurderoy’s famous argument that liberty in Europe could only be made possible if a Cossack invasion first wiped away civilization. Of the early anarchists, Coeurderoy was probably the most accomplished and literary writer, which posed a slightly different set of translation problems than I faced with Bellegarrigue and Déjacque. I’ve learned a number of things about the […]
Contr'un

Transcribing Liberty

March 5, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
There is a new initiative to systematically transcribe the contents of Benjamin R. Tucker’s Liberty, a project near and dear to my heart, but one I’ve never found enough support for to pursue seriously and consistently. Put Transcribing Liberty in your blogroll and show some love for this sort of difficult, and all too frequently thankless, sort of work.
Contr'un

Bellegarrigue’s “To the Point! To Action!!” and “Le Commanditaire”

March 3, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
I’ve posted a revised translation of Anselme Bellegarrigue’s “To the Point! To Action!!” (“Au Fait! Au Fait!!”) It is considerably more finished than the first version, though I reserve the right to come back and tinker with it some more one of these days. I find Bellegarrigue’s prose challenging, but I’ve grown rather fond of his style. He has a lot of the youthful brashness of Déjacque and Coeurderoy, but also a no-nonsense, bottom-line focus which means he often delivers his largely mutualist message in the voice of a jaded trader, and the result is often as entertaining as it […]
Contr'un

Working Translation revisions

February 28, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
As I’ve mentioned, I’m in the midst of a thorough revision of all my working translations. I’ll be making announcements of the major milestones, but I’ve also been marking the links in the side column here in bold as I complete the work. I’ve signed onto a couple of big, exciting translation projects (about which more soon) and turned a couple of important corners in my own work, and want to square away all of this exploratory material, as I start to tackle material in a considerably more systematic manner. And the revised translations will make up the heart of […]
Contr'un

La Barrière du Combat

February 20, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
The title of La Barrière du Combat, a short 1852 work by Ernest Coeurderoy and Octave Vauthier, at first appeared a bit of a mystery to me. It is an attack on various figures associated with the radical left in the French Revolution of 1848, an account of “the last great assault which has just been engaged between the citoyens Mazzini, Ledru-Rollin, Louis Blanc, Étienne Cabet, Pierre Leroux, Martin Nadaud, Malarmet, A. Bianchi (de Lille) and other Hercules of the north.” It was apparently written before many of those figures, and the authors, ended up in exile in England, following […]
Anarchism

The Ungovernability of Anarchism

February 18, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
There is a lesson about anarchism that seems extraordinarily hard to learn, even though we are constantly confronted with it: As a tradition and as an idea, anarchism is essentially ungovernable. As an idea, it is too basic and logical a response to the statist status quo to remain the exclusive domain of any particular class or faction of dissenters. As a tradition, it emerged alongside many of the categories we presently use to distinguish those classes and factions, positing itself, at its origins, as much as an alternative to those classificatory schemes as fodder for their work. When it […]
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From my notebooks

February 17, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
[This may, or may not, end up being part of “Owning Up,” the next issue of The Mutualist, but it seems useful enough to share at this point.] I certainly never anticipated spending years wrestling with property theory, let alone the sort of detailed work that I’ve ended up doing on Proudhon’s property writings, but it has ultimately been a lot of fun, as well as a lot of preconception-stretching, difficult work. My hope, however, is that, thanks to a couple of fortuitous turns in the research recently, pretty much all of the pieces of the puzzle—the elements of a […]
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Pierre Leroux on Joseph Déjacque

February 12, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
 “… one day Déjacque harangued the crowd in the Faubourg Saint-Honore, where he lived, claiming to be a new reincarnation of Christ…” — from an account of Déjacque last days, before he died “mad from poverty.” The biographical details on Joseph Déjacque are scattered, though slowly but surely they’re coming together. And they have surfaced in some interesting places. One of the most interesting, especially for me, is Pierre Leroux’s The Beach at Samarez: A Philosophical Poem, a two-volume work combining a philosophical poem with reminiscences of life among the French exiles in the colony on the isle of Jersey. […]