At the turn of the millennium, David Graeber wrote a short essay, ‘Are you an Anarchist? The Answer may Surprise You!’ Dismissing cliches about bomb-throwers and masked agitators, he imagined a few scenarios about everyday life to explain anarchist principles. The object was to show that anarchism is a friendly, commonsense politics.

This course makes a similar pitch: anarchy is for everyone.

There’s no dress code, no programme, no party dues. But anarchism takes a particular squint at the world and the ways we conduct our public affairs, and it challenges some deeply held ideas about freedom, ownership and political responsibility.

These sessions unpack some of those ideas to explain anarchist perspectives and consider how they can change the everyday to make it better!

Ruth Kinna is a political theorist at Loughborough University, home of the anarchism research group. She teaches an undergraduate courses in history of ideas and anarchism. Her research encompasses the history of anarchist ideas and contemporary anarchist politics. She is the author of The Government of No One (Pelican, 2019) and Great Anarchists (Dog Section Press, 2020) and co-editor of the scholarly journal Anarchist Studies.

Lesson Three: Sharing (19 minutes)