July 10, 2025

#Interview

Pierre-Héli Monot was recently interviewed by Einsichten about the research project “The Arts of Autonomy”. The interview is available in German and in English.

December 12, 2024

#New Publication: Welcome to Fear City

A further installment of The Arts of Autonomy: A Living Anthology of Polemical Literature is now online. The anthology is expanded on a rolling basis and is hosted on the Hypotheses platform: https://artsautonomy.hypotheses.org/

October 18, 2024

#New Publication: Murray Rothbard's Populist Blueprint

David Bebnowski recently published an essay in the special issue "(Re)Imagining Flyover Fictions" of the Journal of the Austrian Association for American Studies (JAAAS). In his essay "Murray Rothbard's Populist Blueprint: Paleo-Libertarianism and the Ascent of the Political Right", David offers a close reading of the 1992 pamphlet "Right-wing Populism: A Strategy for the Paleo Movement" by libertarian intellectual Murray Rothbard. By focusing on the key strategic considerations contained within the pamphlet and its political implications, David shows that Rothbard designed a new – and by now very familiar – route to political influence for the Right. Central to Rothbard's strategy was "outreach to the rednecks," who served as a constituency for an emerging "paleo-coalition" of paleo-conservatives and paleo-libertarians. These strategic goals proposed ways for the American Right to appeal to the "real people" as the core imaginary in populist politics. Relying on the concept of flyover, David shows that these right-wing libertarian ideas made it possible to position conservative politics and the political Right as anti-establishment forces advocating for the interests of Middle Americans. Donald Trump's political ascent is characteristic of this vision.

October 19, 2024

#New Publication: Activist Writing: History, Politics, Rhetoric

We are happy to announce the publication of our edited collection Activist Writing: History, Politics, Rhetoric, edited by Pierre-Héli Monot, David Bebnowski, and Sakina Shakil Gröppmaier. This collection is published open-access by intercom Verlag (Zurich).

Historically, the printed word is arguably the single most important infrastructure for activist politics. The essays gathered in this volume explore crucial examples of activist writing in sociological, historical, and literary-theoretical perspective. Together, they show that manifestos, pamphlets, open letters, and polemical speeches have left a significant imprint on the political fabric of Modernity. As a political practice, pamphleteering has continually remoulded available forms of democratic participation, thus fundamentally shaping contemporary concepts of activism.

With contributions by David Bebnowski, Dustin Breitenwischer, Sakina Shakil Gröppmaier, Laura Handl / Carsten Junker, Pierre-Héli Monot, Stefanie Kremmel, Nils C. Kumkar, Juliane Prade-Weiss / Vladimir Petrović, Florian Sedlmeier, Christoph Streb, and Daphne Weber. Find out more here.

October 2024

#New Publication: Murray Rothbard and the New Right-Wing Populism

David Bebnowski recently published an essay in the online edition of the German newspaper DIE ZEIT together with Quinn Slobodian (Boston University). In their essay, David and Quinn focused on the libertarian intellectual Murray Rothbard and his influence on the global New Right. By paying special attention to Rothbard's 1992 pamphlet "Right-wing Populism: A Strategy for the Paleo Movement," they outline strategic considerations behind the political ascent of politicians like Donald Trump and Argentinian president Javier Milei. But the impact of right-wing libertarianism was not limited to politics in the Americas: around 2000, the German New Right also remodeled itself in line with the rising influence of Rothbard's libertarian movement. Thus, these libertarian approaches also help to explain the founding and rise of the German far-right party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).

June 28

#New Publication – Hedwig Dohm

David Bebnowski recently published an essay in the German newspaper Neues Deutschland on the early German feminist Hedwig Dohm on the occasion of the 105th anniversary of her death. In the essay, David focuses on Dohm’s rhetorical vehemence, her political radicality, and recalls that she was one of the most determined and earliest advocates of female suffrage in 19th-century Germany.

May 16, 2024

#New Publication – Radical Press and Radical Pressure

David Bebnowski recently published a new essay entitled “Radikaler Druck – Druckerzeugnisse und Radikalitäten in der zweiten Welle des Feminismus in den USA" (en. "Radical Press and Radical Pressure. Printed Matter, Pamphlets and Radicalities in US Second Wave Feminism"). The second wave of feminism, starting in the 1960s and continuing through the 1970s, was a period of feminist resurgence. Contemporaries witnessed an emerging network of radical feminists who fiercely attacked male-centred society and intensely questioned the roles women had traditionally played in the United States. The semantic identity of pressure and the press in German (Druck) allows for the application of the term “Druckerzeugnisse” in order to analyze the functions of pamphlets across a range of radical feminist activism. The essay draws on influential pamphlets by groups such as the Redstockings, Cell 16, The Feminists or individual authors such as Valerie Solanas or “Joreen”. By analyzing these pamphlets, the essay follows three aims. Firstly, the second wave of feminism is portrayed as a densification of radical feminist discourse. Secondly, similarities between a variety of feminist self-understandings are traced. Thirdly, the different, often opposing political standpoints are pointed out in order to map the networks of radical feminism. The essay was published in the Austrian Journal of Historical Studies as apart of the special issue Was ist radikal?, edited by Theresa Adamski and Gabriella Hauch. The journal features a host of contributions from different authors that shed light on different understandings of radicalism. All articles are available open access.

May 15, 2024

#New Publications

Three further installments of The Arts of Autonomy: A Living Anthology of Polemical Literature are now online. The anthology is expanded on a rolling basis and is hosted on the Hypotheses platform: https://artsautonomy.hypotheses.org/

October 16, 2023

#New Publication – The Riot Grrrl Manifesto

September 11, 2023

#New Publication – Recoding the Proletariat

David Bebnowski recently published a new essay entitled "Die Umkodierung des Proletariats: Druckerzeugnisse im Kampf der NSDAP um die Arbeiterschaft" (engl. "Recoding the Proletariat: NSDAP Pamphlets in the Fight to Win over the Working Class"). By analyzing selected pamphlets (“Druckerzeugnisse”) from the election campaigns for the decisive German elections in the early 1930s, the article depicts efforts of the German fascist party NSDAP to target working class voters and win their support. Bebnowski shows that the NSDAP reminded workers of the revolutionary ideals of the labor movement. In this way, the party was able to depict the social democratic SPD and the communist KPD as traitors to the cause of revolutionary labor and set itself apart as a political alternative to established politics. Although the NSDAP was not able to win over a majority of working-class voters, it made significant gains that contributed to the Nazi seizure of power. The essay has been published in the book Kleinformate im Umbruch: Mobile Medien für Widerstand und Kooperation (1918–1933) (engl. Short Formats in Upheaval: Mobile Media for Resistance and Cooperation [1918-1933]) (eds. Caroline Adler, Maddalena Casarini, and Daphne Weber, Berlin: De Gruyter 2023). The book features a host of contributions from different authors that shed light on the crisis of the Weimar Republic through the lens of short formats. All articles are available open access.

hinese fiction, such as writings by Yu Hua, Mo Yan, Su Tong, Yan Lianke and Sheng Keyi, that looks back on periods of ideological ferment.

June 23, 2023

#New Publication: „Mit Druckerzeugnissen Druck erzeugen”

David Bebnowski has published a new essay entitled "Mit Druckerzeugnissen Druck erzeugen ‒ Flugschriften als Quellen für die Intellectual History der Neuen Linken als Konfliktgeschichte." The piece uses the double meaning of the word "Druck," which in German signifies "print" and "pressure"; this doubleness is also reflected in other languages (such as "press" and "pressure" in English). David exercises this non-hierachical dual meaning of "Druck" to subsume different genres of pamphletary literature under the term "Druckerzeugnisse." This conceptual umbrella, it is argued, includes pieces of literature that express the standpoints of actors involved in political conflicts. Thus, examining "Druckerzeugnisse" provides an opportunity to study the articulation of political conflict and can contribute to an understanding of intellectual history as a history of conflict. David demonstrates his thesis on pamphlets from the German New Left ranging from the 1950s to the 1970s, while the narrative he presents challenges existing views of a rise and fall of a leftist project and the often-connected diagnosis of the Long Sixties. The essay is published in the most recent volume of the "Internationales Archiv für Sozialgeschichte der deutschen Literatur."

May 10, 2023

#New Publications: A Living Anthology of Polemical Literature

Two further installments of The Arts of Autonomy: A Living Anthology of Polemical Literature are now online. The anthology is expanded on a rolling basis and is hosted on the Hypotheses platform: https://artsautonomy.hypotheses.org/

February 22, 2023

#New Publications: A Living Anthology of Polemical Literature

December 19, 2022

#New Publications: A Living Anthology of Polemical Literature

The next three installments of The Arts of Autonomy: A Living Anthology of Polemical Literature are now online. In this series of publications, we provide basic editions of polemical texts. Massively polemical texts inherently pose specific risks to scholarly work, not only because they may be subjected to censorship, but also because they may pose liminal-case problems to methodology and are often poorly edited. We provide quotable editions of historically important texts, including an introduction and contextual sources.

The anthology is expanded on a rolling basis and is hosted on the Hypotheses platform: https://artsautonomy.hypotheses.org/

September 13, 2022

#Publication: “Writing in Privacy to Mass Publics: The Pamphleteer as an Activist Writer”

David Bebnowski has published a new essay entitled “Writing in Privacy to Mass Publics: The Pamphleteer as an Activist Writer.” The essay argues that pamphleteering confronts us with a specific dialectic between the private and the public. Even though pamphlets are directed at mass publics, pamphleteers often refer to their inner self, thus exposing seemingly private beliefs to a large audience. This essay analyzes three seminal pamphlets in different media environments that have essentially turned their authors into pamphleteers, such as Martin Luther with his 95 Theses and footballer Mesut Özil with the resignation from the German national football team he published on Twitter. This essay is part of the first issue of the Privacy Studies Journal (PSJ), published by the Centre for Privacy Studies at the University of Copenhagen. The journal is edited by Mette Birkedal Bruun and Natália da Silva Perez. The Centre for Privacy Studies offers creative conceptual insights into privacy from different scholarly angles and opens up new discussions on the relationship between private and public.

August 31, 2022

#Publication: “Nationalismus und radikale Arbeiterorganisation”

David Bebnowski has published a new essay entitled “Nationalismus und radikale Arbeiterorganisation: Ein ‘pamphletary event’ um die IWW im Jahr 1918”. From a historical perspective, the essay focuses on conflicts surrounding the radical syndicalist union Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) at the end of World War I, as the union was tried under federal law due to its opposition to an engagement of the U.S. in the war. David argues that these conflicts surrounding the IWW must be analyzed through the lens of nationalism as a major force in U.S. politics. Using the conceptual framework of the pamphletary event that is central to the project, the essay discusses two pamphlets that took opposing stances in arguing either in favor of, or and against the IWW. Gaining empirical insights from the conceptual framework of the pamphletary event, this essay demonstrates that historical inquiry into pamphlets offers fresh views on historical events. This essay is published both online and as part of the forthcoming issue of the German journal Arbeit – Bewegung - Geschichte (ABG)that centers on labor history. Aside from David’s essay, the main focus of the issue lies on antifascism and offers various takes on the historiography of a movement that is often perceived to be controversial. David’s essay is accessible here.

Picture: “Grand picnic and re-union of all the radicals of the city of Chicago” (1918), Industrial Workers of the World, Political Posters, Labadie Collection, University of Michigan.

August 31, 2022

#New Publications: Émile Zola and Mesut Özil

The first two installments of The Arts of Autonomy: A Living Anthology of Polemical Literature, edited by Pierre-Héli Monot, are now online. In this series of publications, we provide basic editions of polemical texts. Massively polemical texts inherently pose specific risks to scholarly work, not only because they may be subjected to censorship, but also because they may pose liminal-case problems to methodology and are often poorly edited. We provide quotable editions of historically important texts, including an introduction and contextual sources.

The anthology is expanded on a rolling basis and is hosted on the Hypotheses platform:

https://artsautonomy.hypotheses.org/

April 21, 2022

#Publication – Kill Lists: Ideas of Order in the Pamphlet

Pierre-Héli Monot has published a short article on the blog of the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities Essen (Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut Essen). The article discusses list-making in the pamphletary tradition and its social uses. While Émile Zola’s “J’accuse…!”, published in 1898, turned away from the grandiose abstractions of the Third Republic (“freedom”, “liberté“, “justice”, “rational debate”, etc.) and named names instead, Theodore Kaczynski imitated the formal aspects of philological commentary – its orderly lists, its footnotes, its fastidiousness. Both uses of list-making remain prevalent modes of address in the contemporary public sphere. Find the article here.

March 22, 2022

#Publication – Power, Polemic, and the Right to Home: Race and the Reterritorialization of Post-Katrina New Orleans

Sakina Shakil Gröppmaier has published an essay on the role of polemic in catastrophe-driven discourse and crisis-driven real-world action. Her essay focuses on post-Katrina New Orleans, arguing that the loss of home on a collective, exigent scale incurred by Hurricane Katrina resulted in racialized efforts to reterritorialize the city, and that the polemical turn in post-Katrina discourses effectively hinted at the onset of such efforts. The essay is part of the collection Perspectives on Homelessness (Winter Verlag, 2022), edited by Anna Flügge and Giorgia Tommasi, which explores "homelessness both as a literal state of being unsheltered and as the modern and contemporary condition of being and/or feeling estranged from society."

April 15, 2021

#Recent Publication – Maximalist Expectations in an Age of Anti-Populism

Pierre-Héli Monot has recently published a short essay on “populism” as a political signifier. This essay argues that the conceptual framing of the term does not account for its social uses and that it hence lacks consistency as a descriptor. In order to contain and criticize the regressive political phenomena that have marred democratic societies in recent years, scholarly discourse should develop a better conceptual apparatus and avoid the inadvertent conflation of progressive and regressive movements. Instead, scholarly discourse should pay attention to the vast body of polemical, high-circulation literature that has influenced public debates in recent years, as it provides essential signposts for a clearer theorization of politically regressive phenomena in democratic societies. This essay was published in an issue of American Studies edited by Cedric Essi, Heike Paul, and Boris Vormann. The entire issue is worth reading, as it provides a great overview of positions on the current state of liberal democracies, including contributions from Linda Trinh Võ, Saskia Sassen, Donald Pease, Richard Sennett, and Siri Hustvedt, among many others.

January 9, 2021

#Publication – “Can Machines Be Free? Outlines of an Artifical Autonomy”

Pierre-Héli Monot has recently published an essay on competing conceptions of autonomy in the philosophical tradition. The main focus is on the disagreement between philosophical constructions of autonomy in the Enlightenment (Kant and Rousseau) and the ongoing autonomization of machines, institutional processes, military weapons, and deliberative processes in the public sphere. This essay, entitled “Can Machines Be Free? Outlines of an Artifical Autonomy,” discusses the differentialist arguments proposed by Rousseau and Kant in order to stabilize distinctions between humans and machines. Since the early automata of the Enlightenment, mechanical imitations of humans have not sought to reproduce their cognitive dispositions (“artificial intelligence”): machines have sought to reproduce the way humans conceive of freedom (“artificial autonomy”). Luddite, liberal, anticapitalist, anarchist, or socialist fights for “freedom” and against machines and their owners are consequently fights in the name of a “freedom” that machines and their owners have coproduced.