Sex & Anarchy

July 28, 10:53 AMSF Literary ExaminerSonny Smith

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Alexander Berkman

If you’ve ever thought about sex, or dreamed of having sex, if you’ve ever thought about anarchy, or dreamed of anarchy, there is a special society for you. For you and me. For all of us. The Alexander Berkman Social Club will meet this Thursday night to discuss both of these oft-elusive experiences.

The Russian immigrant Alexander Berkman, the world’s most famous anarchist, once shot Henry Frick, the worlds most loathsome capitalist. Berkman also had a romance with Emma Goldman, the other most famous anarchist, as well as a fellow Russian immigrant. Berkman was released from prison (for trying to kill Frick) in May 1906 and upon regaining his freedom, Berkman joined Goldman as one of the leading figures of the anarchist movement in the US. 

Together they published the radical journal, Mother Earth as well as books such as Goldman's Anarchism and Other Essays (1910) and Berkman's Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist (1912). They also helped organize industrial disputes. At the outbreak of World War I they both became involved in the campaign to keep the United States out of the conflict. Berkman moved to San Francisco and in January, 1916, started a new anarchist journal, Blast.

The Alexander Berkman Society meets once a month to talk about anarchy. Imagine a time when it was actually dangerous to be an anarchist, not a bohemian posture but an actual option. Now the country is pretty well resigned to democrats and republicans, but for a brief time anarchy had balls. Which brings us to one of the readers, Terence Kissack, author of Free Comrades: Anarchism and Homosexuality in the United States. Kissack will read, as well as Jessica Moran, former assistant editor of the Emma Goldman Papers Project and Joey Cain, co-founder of the Edward Carpenter Forum . All three will focus on anarchist ideas about and responses to sexuality. Music will be provided by Jesse Quatro of the insane band Hammers of Misfortune.