Working Translations

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A René Fugler miscellany

March 28, 2025 Shawn P. Wilbur
Back in 2020, I shared a translation of René Fugler’s pamphlet “The Anarchist Question,” as part of the Constructing Anarchisms project. At the time, I made a start at translating “The Forms and Tendencies of Anarchism,” another of his pamphlets, but never found the time to finish the work. This week, I found the time to complete that translation and to supplement it with a odd assortment of other texts by Fugler under his various pseudonyms — René Furth, René Forain, etc.

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Ixigrec (Robert Collino), “Individualism: Crucible of Future Worlds” (1967)

March 28, 2025 Shawn P. Wilbur
Raised outside constraints and distorting systems, giving free rein to their adventurous genius, to their creative spirit, to this explosive force which propels man ever further towards the conquest of life and duration, the strong individualities which we will have been able to favor by our efforts will perhaps justify, — for our sense of causalities and responsibilities — the appearance of intelligence, conscience and goodness in a universe which we know to be without purpose and without gods.

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Working Translations

E. Armand, “Epistle to MM. the Intellectuals” (1919)

February 26, 2025 Shawn P. Wilbur
That we have learned much from this small number of men whom we call Intellectuals because — belonging to the so-called liberal classes — they have made that which relates to the things of Intelligence the great, the principal, the essential business of their life; that we have learned much from them, this is something we cannot deny without missing the most elementary of established facts. And not only have they taught us much, but, whatever the branch of human knowledge to which they were devoted, their example — their example above all — has contributed not a little to forming us. The history of their existence, at once fertile and eventful, has awakened, aroused, created in us the desire to resemble them.

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encyclopedia entries

Anarchist Encyclopedia: Irregular

January 15, 2025 Shawn P. Wilbur
Entries from the Anarchist Encyclopedia IRREGULIER adj. et nom m. Qui ne répond pas aux traits fixés par certaines règles, qui s’écarte de la symétrie, du type convenu, brise la ligne uniformiste : mouvements, marche, physionomie, attitude, conduite, existence, etc., peuvent être ainsi irréguliers. Au point de vue esthétique, l’irrégularité n’est qu’accidentellement (et parfois conventionnellement) un facteur d’inharmonie ; l’accoutumance aux modes disgracieuses et ridicules nous montre combien certaines « lignes » sont dépendantes de l’adaptation… Irrégulier souligne, autant que des écarts de structure et des incompatibités de mœurs ou de moralité, l’indépendance qui dit l’originalité créatrice, la forte personnalité : esprit irrégulier, génie irrégulier. […]
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E. Armand on Anarchist Individualism

December 29, 2024 Shawn P. Wilbur
Links: Encounters with Anarchist Individualism (begins January 1, 2025) E. Armand (project page) What is an Anarchist? (translation in progress) Rambles in the Fields of Anarchist Individualism In preparation for a new project — essentially a year-long return to the “fields of anarchist individualism, involving a reading, revision and annotation of E. Armand’s Anarchist Individualist Initiation — I’ve been working to quickly translate a number of Armand’s other attempts to characterize anarchist individualism, including one that is apparently about to celebrate its hundredth birthday: The ABC of « our » anarchist individualist demands (dated December 31, 1924) (pdf) You’ll find […]
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E. Armand, “Noel! Noel! Noel!” (1900-1935)

December 25, 2024 Shawn P. Wilbur
The anarchist Christmas story is, perhaps, a somewhat unexpected genre, although the opportunities for propaganda are not hard to see. Certainly, it has made sense for anarchist newspapers to mark the holiday season in their own particular way. The result has been tales with names like “Jesus and Bonnot” (linked at the end of this post) — and, come to think of it, perhaps the real surprise is that there doesn’t seem to be a Ravachol Christmas story out there…

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From the Archives

Henri de Saint-Simon (1760 – 1825)

November 3, 2024 Shawn P. Wilbur
Links: Letters from an Inhabitant of Geneva to his Contemporaries (pdf) Researching the background and origins of anarchism means engaging to some extent with the works of most of the so-called “utopian socialists.” In recent years, I’ve had a chance to revisit and translate works by Pierre Leroux, Charles Fourier and some more obscure figure, but hadn’t had a chance to get reacquainted — and better acquainted — with Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon. It has not been the most appealing of side-projects, simply because the literature of Saint-Simonianism is both extensive — 47 volumes in the main […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Benjamin Colin (1818-1884)

October 21, 2024 Shawn P. Wilbur
There are a handful of very early anarchist or at least anarchistic writings identified by Max Nettlau that have remained elusive in my searches. One in particular — “Plus de gouvernement!” by Benjamin Colin — has nagged at me a bit, since I have known that the paper it was published in, L’Homme, journal de la démocratie universelle, was accessible in various forms and included some other anarchism-related content. But I have never got around the making the extra effort or financial outlay necessary to get my hands on it.

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P.-J. Proudhon, Proposal for a Society of the Perpetual Exhibition (1855)

April 18, 2024 Shawn P. Wilbur
The newest draft translation added to the New Proudhon Library project is the proposal for a Society of the Perpetual Exhibition, in answer to a call by Emperor Napoleon III for uses for the Palais de l’Industrie built in Paris for the 1855 World Fair. The project resembles Proudhon’s mutual credit proposals, as well as the various schemes for association proposed by Bellegarrigue in the 1850s.

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