Counting himself as a boring liberal who would usually dismiss the likes of thinkers such as Emma Goldman as the radical fringe, Don Herzog purports to engage with Goldman's work in order to interrogate the political centrality of reasonableness among liberals and deliberative democrats. Casting Goldman as a lovesick radical, Herzog invites us to read her activism and politics as an affective stance resulting in an accurate critique of the Soviet state. This move countenances Herzog's perverted depiction of Goldman as (...) a swooning girl in love with anarchism and authorizes his lack of engagement with her searing political critique of capitalism and liberal democracy. Hence, Herzog's strategy--to read Goldman's politics as an emotional stance--serves to undermine precisely the sort of political engagement he claims to celebrate. (shrink)

Government, media, and medical accounts of Emma Goldman converged to create her public presence in the U.S. as a "dangerous individual." The prevailing discourses constituted Goldman as violent, utilizing her alleged menace to distract attention from far more egregious violence against labor by state and corporate forces. Goldman responded by denying, confronting, and redirecting the alarmed gaze toward greater risks left underarticulated in hegemonic accounts. Goldman's bold confrontations with authorities constituted a kind of anarchist parrhesia, fearless speech, a relentless truth-telling (...) practice that risked her own security in pursuit of her "beautiful ideal." The labor of remembering America's history of class violence hones our attention to the complex discursive processes by which some historical facts come to count in prevailing narratives, while others fade into obscurity. (shrink)

This article considers the importance of the anarchist thinker and activist Emma Goldman for contemporary feminist theory and politics. Initially concerned with how Goldman’s views on power and change help us reconsider our own history and present, the author shifts gears in the course of the article to think aspects of her thought that are less easily reclaimed. Exploring her own and others’ desire for Goldman to resolve current difficulties within and beyond feminism, the author highlights the problems this desire (...) presents for both our understanding of the past, and our ability adequately to engage the present. Focusing instead on the importance of fantasy in our accounting for the relationship between past and present, the author explores our desires to consign judgement and essence to another era. (shrink)