Conference Organizer Report Back

Organizer Report-back from the Inaugural North American Studies Network Conference

Jesse Cohn, Luis Fernandez, Nathan Jun, Deric Shannon, Abbey Willis

November 21st and 22nd marked the dates of the Inaugural North American Anarchist Studies Network Conference in Hartford, Connecticut. We came together to organize this conference in order to begin the development of this larger project–the network–which we hope will serve as a space for the development of intellectual work on and within anarchism. Further, in the organizing committee, the conference, and the network we have consciously included academics as well as grassroots scholars. As anarchists, we feel that academic institutions should not have a privileged role in the production of knowledge and hope that the network can serve as a point of rupture with the notion that intellectual work is limited to academic institutions.

The conference drew around 300-350 participants over the course of the two days of the conference. The numbers of panels, workshops, and paper presentations were well beyond our expectations and this cannot be stressed enough in conference attendance (we expected somewhere between 80-120 people). Since the conference, through the email list, we have seen the development of two working groups: one centered around anarchist cultural studies and another on archiving anarchist work. The website for the network is being developed through the current blog site and members of the network have started an initiative for popular education (to be announced).

Audio/Video recordings of panels at the NAASN conference

These projects have a lot of info up on them, recordings of a few NAASN panels being just some of the amazing stuff on these sites.
Thanks, Charngchi!
http://www.youtube.com/user/Chomskyan
http://authoritysmashers.wordpress.com

Inaugural North American Anarchist Studies Network Conference Schedule!!

Schedule For the Inaugural Conference of the North American Anarchist Studies Network

We are pleased to announce the schedule for our first conference. Again, bear in mind that the response to our call was overwhelming. Therefore, we had to schedule many things at once. This was the only way to accommodate the many outstanding proposals that we accepted. Also, please note, these sessions will be moderated and THIS CONFERENCE WILL RUN ON TIME. We encourage people to return to this schedule before traveling to Hartford in case the schedule must be altered in some way.

Conference Information

Greetings and welcome to our first update!

We want to announce some of the confirmed happenings at our inaugural conference, give the address and times of the event(s), as well as pass along some hotel information for people who need to arrange housing.

First and foremost, THANK YOU to everyone who submitted papers and/or panels for the conference. The response was overwhelming, to say the least. Right now, we have confirmed panels and workshops on:

Call for Papers, Presentations, Panels!!!

Call For Papers, Presentations, Panels!!

The 1st North American Anarchist Studies Network Conference

Association Nord-Américain des Etudes Anarchistes

Asociación Norteamericana de Estudios Anarquistas

When: November 21st and 22nd, 2009

Where: Hartford, Connecticut USA: at Charter Oak Cultural Center (21 Charter Oak Ave.)

We are pleased to announce the beginning of the North American Anarchist Studies Network (NAASN). We see this as a space to develop theoretical and empirical work that pays critical attention to anarchism and items of interest to the anarchist milieu. Likewise, we see the creation of this network as a way for North American anarchists who do scholarly work to be able to support each other in our endeavors and create a space for critical dialogue and reflection.