Anarchism and the Question of Postmodernity

The recent emergence of a ‘postanarchist’ discourse raises the question of how anarchism relates not only to ‘postmodernity’ but to ‘modernity’ itself. While anarchism is a product of and heir to a still-contested Enlightenment legacy, it cannot be reduced to a simplistic repetition of modernity’s inaugural themes. Conversely, postmodern theory fails to make important distinctions in conceptualizing power, subjectivity, identity, and values, depriving us of resources for thinking collective action and revolutionary transformation. * Eduardo Colombo, born in Buenos Aires and living in Paris, is a psychoanalyst affiliated with the Quatrieme Groupe, an association formed by breakaway participants in Jacques Lacan’s Ecole Freudienne (including Cornelius Castoriadis). A longtime activist who has worked in the French CNT and the FORA, Colombo is author of La volonte du peuple: Democratie et anarchie (Editions Libertaires, 2007) and L’Espace politique de l’anarchie: Esquisses pour une philosophie politique de l’anarchisme (Atelier de Creation Libertaire, 2008) as well as many publications on psychoanalytic theory and practice. * Jesse Cohn teaches courses in American fiction, literary theory, and popular culture at Purdue University North Central in Indiana. He is one of the founding members of the North American Anarchist Studies Network and has served as an editorial board member for Continuum Books’ Contemporary Anarchist Studies series, Affinities: A Journal of Radical Theory, Culture, and Action, and the International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest, 1500 to the Present. Notable publications include Anarchism and the Crisis of Representation: Hermeneutics, Aesthetics, Politics (2006) and Underground Passages: Anarchist Resistance Culture, 1848-2011 (2014).