Talks
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The Mind of a Skeptical Leftist
Interview #69 - Practical Anarchism with Scott Branson
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In a context in which abolitionist discourse is reaching an ever-wider audience, and people’s trust in the state, as a vehicle through which we can hope to achieve meaningful political change, continues to ebb away, we are seeing a renewed engagement with prefigurative politics across the left.
Pluto has always published books from a variety of political tendencies, and that includes anarchism. The label ‘anarchist’ has far from universal appeal, but as Scott Branson argues in their new book, Practical Anarchism: A Guide for Daily Life, the label itself is of secondary importance, and anarchism is something many of us are already practising in our daily lives, whether we realise it or not.
From relationships to school, work, art, even the way we organise our time, the book shows us that anarchism can help us find fulfilment, empathy and liberation in the everyday.
Scott joins us on the show for a conversation about their vision of a ‘practical anarchism’. We discuss the ways in which it is informed by Black and queer feminisms, how we can work to disidentify from the logic of capital and the state, and why we shouldn’t throw out the idea of ‘utopia’ altogether.
Law & Social Change: Abolition for Liberation event 23/02/23
With Scott Branson, Lola Olufemi and Puc Reed. Chaired by Natasha Mutch-Vidal.
The call for abolition is growing, also in the UK. What are the roots of the abolition demand and what are the factors causing it to grow louder? Would abolition leave a gap or should we build ‘alternatives’, or do alternatives already exist and should we expand them, scale them up? What is to be abolished and why? How about family, gender and property for instance? What can we learn from the ‘original’ abolitionists and others who already live, relate and imagine life differently? The Centre for law & Social Change is excited to host this roundtable with speakers Lola Olufemi (organiser, researcher and author of Feminism, Interrupted: Disrupting Power and Experiments in Imagining Otherwise), Scott Branson (artist, podcast host and author of Practical Anarchism: A Guide for Daily life and co-editor of Surviving the Future: Abolitionist Queer Strategies) and Reed Puc (currently writing their PhD thesis at City on Spiderman, policing and abolition). The conversation will be chaired by Natasha Mutch-Vidal of the Centre for Institutional Equity and Inclusion. This event is brought to you by the Centre for Law & Social Change, in collaboration with the Centre for Institutional Equity and Inclusion at City, University of London. It forms part of the Centre for Law & Social Change event series and City’s LGBTQI History Month events. Details: Monday 23 January, 4-6pm at City, University of London, Northampton Square EC1V 0HB. About our speakers: Lola Olufemi is a black feminist writer and Stuart Hall foundation researcher from London based in the Centre for Research and Education in Art and Media at the University of Westminster. Her work focuses on the uses of the feminist imagination and its relationship to cultural production, political demands and futurity. She is author of Feminism Interrupted: Disrupting Power (Pluto Press, 2020), Experiments in Imagining Otherwise (Hajar Press, 2021) and a member of 'bare minimum', an interdisciplinary anti-work arts collective. Scott Branson is a Jewish transfemme anarchist writer, teacher, organizer, musician and artist. Scott's book, Practical Anarchism: A Daily Guide, was just published by Pluto Press. Scott translated The Abolition of Prison by Jacques Lesage de la Haye (AK Press) and Gay Liberation After May '68 by Guy Hocquenghem (Duke University Press). Their co-edited volume, Surviving the Future: Abolitionist Queer Strategies is forthcoming from PM Press. Scott is also a co-host on the anarchist radio show/podcast The Final Straw Radio. Reed Puc is a PhD student at City University of London. Their research focuses on superheroes, policing, and urban life. He is passionate about abolitionist pedagogy and tabletop games as discursive learning technologies. His scholarship on Marvel's The Punisher and queer masculinity has appeared in the Routledge Companion to Masculinity in American Literature and Culture. About the Centre for Law and Social Change Our centre is a hub for connections on the topic of law and social change and a space to generate debate, between scholars, students, lawyers and organisers, with a focus on progressive social change and a commitment to active anti-racist, feminist, and decolonial practice. Follow us on @LawSocialchange
Make it stand out
Featured Speaker
Scott Branson
What happens after protest? How can we perpetuate a social revolution into our daily lives?
These are questions that abolitionists, anarchists, feminists, and queer radicals have been asking, speaking from a place of desire to live more fully in those moments. An everyday anarchism helps us rethink what revolution and transformation can be, starting with our relationships and activities. It doesn’t matter if we smash the state but still can’t take care of ourselves or one another. Looking at how the ingrained state logics silence or erase the ways of organizing our lives that are easier and make more sense, we can see how we can prepare ourselves for liberation.
Join us for an Edinburgh launch of Scott Branson's Practical Anarchism a new book showing that anarchism isn't only something we do when we vote, protest, or read the news.
With practical examples enriched by history and theory, the tips will empower you to break free from the consumerist trappings of our world. Anarchism is not just for white men, but for everyone. In reading this book, you can detach from patriarchal masculinity, norms of the family, gender, sexuality, racialization, individual responsibility, and the destruction of our planet, and replace them with ideas of sustainable living, ties of mutual aid, and the horizon of collective liberation.
Practical Anarchism -- Scott Branson
Today I'm joined by the author Scott Branson to discuss their book Practical Anarchism. Scott and I discuss the similarities between our approaches, as well as some key differences related to terminology. For more from Scott, you can check out The Final Straw Radio, a podcast and radio show that they co-host.Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
GROUNDED FUTURES PODCAST
Episode 21
Sparks In-Between — with Scott Branson
thinking alone is not as exciting as thinking together
Scott Branson, a Jewish transfemme anarchist writer and artist, joined carla and Uli for an inspiring virtual walk to think (and feel) together. They go deep into Trans worlding and talk pathways to gender abolition, discovering voice, embracing not knowing, sampling ideas, learning through play and making mistakes, practical anarchism, and more! This joyful conversation covers a lot of ground, including a poetry reading!
Mentoring Incarcerated Writers
December 15, 2023
Scott Branson and Caits Meissner
In this virtual event, Scott Branson and Caits Meissner will discuss how authors can connect with and mentor incarcerated writers. Hosted in collaboration with Asheville Prison Books Program, the University of North Carolina Asheville’s Prison Education Program, and the Great Smokies Writing Program, this conversation and skill share will give you all the tools you need to cultivate silenced stories.
Caits Meissner is the Director of Prison and Justice Writing at PEN America, where she edited The Sentences That Create Us: Crafting A Writer’s Life in Prison (Haymarket Books, January 2022), of which the Mellon Foundation funded 75,000 copies to reach readers in United States prisons free of charge. Her poems, comics, essays and curation have appeared in The Creative Independent, The Rumpus, [PANK], Harper’s Bazaar, Adroit, Literary Hub, Split This Rock, Bust Magazine, The Normal School, Hobart, and The Guardian, among others.
Scott Branson is a queer/trans anarchist writer, artist, translator, community organizer, and teacher. They translated Jacques Lesage de la Haye’s The Abolition of Prison (AK Press, 2021) and Guy Hocquenghem’s second book of essays addressing the May 1968 uprising in France, Gay Liberation after May ’68 (Duke University Press, 2022), for which they also wrote a critical introduction. Scott is the author of Practical Anarchism: A Daily Guide (Pluto Press, 2022) and is currently working on a book about the institutionalization of queerness for Duke University Press as well as a book on trans-anarcha-feminism. They often contribute to The Final Straw Radio, a weekly anarchist radio show and podcast.
Surviving the City: Communal life and healing in the metropolis in an age of ecological collapse, urban revolt, and an increasingly apocalyptic State
Scott Branson and Peter Gelderloos at Pilsen Community Books in Chicago, IL December 10, 20
Pulling common threads from their recent books, Practical Anarchism: A Guide for Daily Life and The Solutions Are Already Here: Strategies for Ecological Revolution from Below, Scott Branson and Peter Gelderloos will hold a conversation about what we can do now in our revolutionary movements to set our eyes on liberation. We have been sold the lie that the ecological crisis is such a simple problem, it can be solved with consumer solutions and techno-fixes grafted onto our society from above, and that aside from accepting these changes, there is no way to deal with questions of nature and ecology within the city. And we have seen with our own eyes, in our own streets, that we can beat the police, we can take over space, we can topple any monument or burn down any building we want. What is harder is to maintain relationships of solidarity the next day, and the next, and to put the spaces we have liberated to other uses in the long term without the logics of the State coming back in our heads to disrupt our collective action. What would it take to survive the city, to survive the end of the world that colonial capitalism and an increasingly apocalyptic State have in store for us, to treat our surroundings as habitat and foster an ecological, interrelated, communal existence that finally allows us to heal? What means of survival do we already have that can help us prepare so we are not caught on the back foot, always stuck in reaction to crisis? Can we even imagine it?Make it stand out
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Living a World Without a State
Author and educator Scott Branson presents their new book, Practical Anarchism, in conversation with writer Vicky Osterweil.
Practical Anarchism: A Guide for Daily Life shows how anarchism can help you find fulfillment, empathy, and liberation in the everyday. From relationships to school, work, art, even the way you organize your time, Branson provides practical examples enriched by history and theory to empower you to break free.
Scott Branson is a queer and trans writer, translator, teacher, artist, and anarchist organiser, living in Western North Carolina. They translated Guy Hocquenghem's second book, Gay Liberation After May '68, as well as Jacques Lesage De La Haye’s The Abolition of Prison, and co-edited Surviving the Future: Abolitionist Queer Strategies. They are also a frequent co-host on the anarchist podcast The Final Straw.
Vicky Osterweil is a writer, editor, and agitator and a regular contributor to The New Inquiry. Her book In Defense of Looting: A Riotous History of Uncivil Action was released in 2020 by Bold Type Books. Her writing has also appeared in The Baffler, The Nation, The Rumpus, Real Life, and Al Jazeera America.
Writing Sex: Scott Branson
LA Review of Books
WRITING SEX is a series of short interviews with contemporary writers who are breaking new ground in writing about sex and sexuality. Sometimes ribald but always smart, these writers push the limits of our ability to imagine what sex is, what it means, and what it could be. Scott Branson is a queer and trans writer, translator, teacher, artist, and anarchist organizer who is currently living in Western North Carolina. HOST: Jonathan Alexander, Special Projects Editor at LARB and Chancellor’s Professor of English at the University of California, Irvine http://www.the-blank-page.com
Gay Liberation after May '68: A Conversation Between Scott Branson, Yasmin Nair, and Kai Rajala.
Recorded Tuesday July 19th at 5:30 PM PT. This event was hosted virtually by Spartacus Books. Spartacus Books is a collectively run infoshop located on the territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples.
Guy Hocquenghem and the Futures of Gay Liberation
Tuesday, May 10th, 7:00pm – 8:30pm ET
To mark the publication in English of Hocquenghem’s second book, Gay Liberation After May '68 (Duke University Press), panelists will read passages from the collection of manifestos, treatises, and communiqués and discuss both the history and the possible futures of gay liberation.
Guy Hocquenghem was one of the early radical theorists of homosexuality as well as a militant who participated in the May 68 uprising in Paris and the early formation of the Front Homosexual d’Action Révolutionnaire (Homosexual Front for Revolutionary Action). Most of his writing has not been translated into English, though his ideas have still been highly influential on both queer theory and radical queer street action.
Kadji Amin is Associate Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Emory University. He is the recipient of a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship in “Sex” from the University of Pennsylvania and a Humanities Institute Faculty Fellowship from Stony Brook University. His book, Disturbing Attachments: Genet, Modern Pederasty, and Queer History (Duke 2017) won an Honorable Mention for best book in LGBT studies form the GL/Q Caucus of the Modern Language Association. He is currently at work on a second book on “Backwards Trans Theory.”
Max Fox is writer, editor, and translator based in Philadelphia. His translation of Guy Hocquenghem’s The Amphitheater of the Dead (Guillotine Press, 2018) was nominated for a Lamba Literary award. His writing has appeared in Bookforum, The New Republic, The Baffler, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, among others. He edited Christopher Chitty’s posthumous Sexual Hegemony: Statecraft, Sodomy, and Capital in the Rise of the World System (Duke University Press, 2020), and served as Senior Editor at the New Inquiry. He is currently on the editorial collective of Pinko magazine.
Scott Branson is a queer/trans writer, translator, teacher, and anarchist, living in Western North Carolina, and currently lecturer in Gender, Women's, and Sexuality Studies at Appalachian State University. In addition to this book, they translated Jacques Lesage De La Haye’s The Abolition of Prison (AK Press, 2021). Their edited volume, Surviving the Future: Abolitionist Queer Strategies will be published by PM Press in October 2022, and their book, Practical Anarchism: A Daily Guide, will be published by Pluto Press in November 2022.Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Gay Liberation After May 68: A Discussion and Reading of Guy Hocquenghem’s Political Writings
On Wednesday, April 13th at 6 PM EST via Zoom, the NYU Department of Comparative Literature and the program in Poetics & Theory will host Gay Liberation After May 68: A Discussion and Reading of Guy Hocquenghem’s Political Writings with Max Fox, Antoine Idier, and Scott Branson!
Guy Hocquenghem was a French queer revolutionary whose first book Homosexual Desire (1972) set the stakes for radical queer theory as we still know it today. Many of the academic theorists working in his wake are still catching up to his critiques of desire and identity, which have been especially pertinent in the decades in which the gay liberation movement deeply shifted from its original politics to form the LGBT movement we know today. This event helps launch the first English translation of Hocquenghem’s second book, L’Après-mai des faunes (Gay Liberation After May ’68), a collection of political and theoretical texts Hocquenghem wrote during the onset and splintering of the gay liberation movement and the radical women’s movement. Hocquenghem participated in the events of May 68 and the beginnings of the Front homosexuel d’action révolutionnaire (FHAR – Homosexual Revolutionary Action Front), as well as other revolutionary left groups. He was also the first person in the 20th century to “come out” publicly in France. He ceaselessly took a confrontational and revolutionary stance, placing his sexuality—or his relation to desire—at the forefront of a critique of bourgeois society and capitalist domination.
For decades, Homosexual Desire was the only one of his books available in English, first published in 1978 and reprinted, with an introduction by Michael Moon, in 1993. However, Hocquenghem left a rich body of work, including pamphlets, manifestos, journalism, theory, philosophy, and novels which remains untranslated into English. In this talk, two translators and a biographer/editor of Hocquenghem will read selections from Hocquenghem’s work and discuss his thought and legacy, his critique of bourgeois institutions and gender/sexual identity, his valorization of desire, and his revolutionary commitments.
Max Fox is a writer, the editor of Christopher Chitty's Sexual Hegemony, and an editor of Pinko Magazine. He has also translated Guy Hocquenghem's The Amphitheater of the Dead.
Antoine Idier holds a PhD in Social Science. He is currently Head of research at the école supérieure d’arts & médias of Caen/Cherbourg, France. He is the author of several publications on sexuality, politics, the history of ideas, contemporary visual art and literature. He especially wrote a biography of Guy Hocquenghem (published in French in 2017, "Les Vies de Guy Hocquenghem. Politique, sexualité, culture", éditions Fayard) and edited a collection of press articles by Hocquenghem, also in French in 2017, "Un journal de rêve" (éditions Verticales).
Scott Branson is a writer, translator, teacher, and anarchist organizer, living in Western North Carolina. In addition to this book, they translated Jacques Lesage De La Haye’s The Abolition of Prison (AK Press, 2021). Their edited volume, Surviving the Future: Abolitionist Queer Strategies will be published by PM Press in October 2022, and their book, Practical Anarchism: A Daily Guide, will be published by Pluto Press in November 2022.
Thursday, April 7, 2022, 2:00PM to 4:00PM (EDT)
Guy Hocquenghem, Gay Liberation, and the Legacy of May 68
This week the Gender and Its Discontents: The New School Gender and Sexuality Studies Institute spring speaker’s series features Scott Branson, a queer/trans writer, translator, teacher, and anarchist, living in Western North Carolina.
Their translation of Guy Hocquenghem's second book,Gay Liberation After May '68, will be published by Duke University Press in April 2022. They also translated Jacques Lesage De La Haye’s The Abolition of Prison (AK Press, 2021). They co-edited Surviving the Future: Abolitionist Queer Strategies,to be published by PM Press in October 2022. Their book, Practical Anarchism: A Daily Guide, will be published by Pluto Press in November 2022.
The Gender and Its Discontents speaker’s series, is a co-hosted by the Culture and Media department at Eugene Lang College and the Gender and Sexualities Institute at The New School for Social Research, of which the Gender Minor at Lang is a co-partner.
Presented by Culture and Media department at Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts and the Gender and Sexualities Institute at The New School.
On this week’s edition of Coffee with Comrades, we’re doing something a little special. In the first part of Ep. 141, I sat down with Scott Branson to talk about the new English language version of a book they translated for AK Press, The Abolition of Prison, by French revolutionary and prison abolitionist Jacques de la Haye. Scott and I talked about their work translating the new edition, the capaciousness of anarchism and abolition, as well as the cancerous forms of carceral logic that plague the left even to this day. In the second part, I include an English language rendition of a conversation with Jacques de la Haye himself! Then, finally, we close with a French version of that same dialogue.
