Contr’un

Contr'un

Ezra Heywood to “The Revolution,”

July 6, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur
This letter from Ezra H. Heywood is the first fruits of several days spent researching in Eugene, OR and Berkeley, CA, over the last couple of months. When I discovered that both André Léo and Jenny d’Héricourt had corresponded with the American women’s rights papers The Revolution and The Agitator, and that both papers had published partial translations of André Léo’s La femme et les mœurs, it became obvious that I needed to track those papers down. I was already familiar with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Parker Pillsbury’s paper, The Revolution, which contained contributions by Ezra Heywood, Josiah Warren, C. […]
Black and Red Feminism

Feminism in Lyon before 1848 — Eugénie Niboyet

June 6, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur
This short account of the life of Eugénie Niboyet is the first part of an article that appeared in the Revue d’histoire de Lyon (Vol. 7, 1908, pp. 348-358). The second half of the article focuses on Flora Tristan in Lyon in 1844—which will be at least slightly more familiar subject-matter for most people—but the lesser-known Mme. Niboyet was really one of the most formidable figures of feminism in the 19th century. She was a prolific writer, editor, and translator. She organized around women’s issues, pacifism and the abolition of the death penalty. She had close ties to most of […]
Contr'un

Charles Fourier on the Pear-Growers’ Series

June 3, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur
This illustration of Fourier’s theory of the play of passional attractions and progressive series is something I have referred to in the past, in “The Lesson of the Pear-Growers’ Series.”Ian Patterson has done a lovely, complete translation of it for the Cambridge edition of The Theory of the Four Movements, but I’ve wanted for some time to spend enough time with the French to work up a usable translation of my own, since I expect to have recourse to the example again in forthcoming work. Working through Fourier’s prose is at once maddening and delightful, since there is frequently a […]
Contr'un

Proudhon’s critics

June 1, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] Contr’un Revisited: [commentary coming soon] [/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] As I’ve mentioned, I’m working on assembling—and in some cases, translating—responses to Proudhon’s work, with particular emphasis on those responses that really help to contextualize and illuminate that work. In some cases that means tackling head-on some of the thorniest problems posed by Proudhon’s method, the sheer bulk of his output, and, of course, his various failures as a consistent libertarian. The trajectories of my various Proudhon-related projects seem fairly obvious—to me at least. The thing I started with “The Gift Economy of Property” isn’t […]
Contr'un

Corvus Editions/research polls

May 31, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur
If you look at the side-bar of the blog, you’ll find a poll, asking for input on what sorts of materials I should be giving priority in the Corvus Editions project. I’ve been running a similar poll on Facebook, but would like input from a broader audience. So far, translations seem to be the priority for my FB readers, and my own sense is that translations will continue to be a central focus of the project, so I’ve added another poll, directly below the first, about translation priorities.
Contr'un

Fundamental Principles of Socialism (1849)

May 30, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur
Here’s another translation from the work of Proudhon’s associate, C.-F Chevé, the statement of principles from Le Socialiste : journal de l’égal-échange [The Socialist: Journal of Equal-Exchange], which he co-edited. This is taken from the first issue, July 1849. Some differences with Proudhon’s position will be immediately obvious, not the least of which is his tendency to use “anarchy” in the sense of disorder (although, to be fair, Proudhon and nearly all the anarchists of his generation also did this from time to time.) This “general account” is actually fairly lengthy, and was serialized over multiple issues. I’ve provided this […]
Contr'un

Proudhon, What is Government? What is God?

May 26, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur
Proudhon’s essay “What is Government? What is God?” appeared first in the Voix du Peuple, November 5, 1849, then as the preface to The Confessions of a Revolutionary, as well as in the Melanges volumes of the Lacroix collected works. It was the occasion for one of the more important responses by Pierre Leroux—a response which seems to have influenced William Batchelder Greene.
Contr'un

Maxime Leroy, Stirner vs. Proudhon (1905)

May 26, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur
I’ve posted a working translation of Maxime Leroy’s essay,  “Stirner vs. Proudhon,” which originally appeared in 1905 in La Renaissance latine. The essay is really not much about Proudhon, and is perhaps ambivalent in its approach to Stirner, but it is certainly interesting enough to have been worth the work.
Black and Red Feminism

From “L’Opinion des Femmes,” August 1848

May 16, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur
These two short articles by Désirée Gay (Jeanne Desirée Véret Gay, 1810-1891) appeared in the August 1848 issue of L’Opinion des Femmes, which seems to have been a kind of testing of the waters before the launch of the official “First Year” of the paper. That issue had been preceded by a 4-page “Prospectus,” written by Jeanne Deroin, and the paper was essentially a continuation of La Politique des Femmes, but there was still a certain amount of work to do setting the tone for the project, and Gay seems to have taken on much of that work in the […]