Voltairine de Cleyre’s transnational anarchism

We have never really understood her: even sympathetic writers have misrepresented Voltairine de Cleyre. Was she a self-denying martyr or a Nietzschean egoist? Mired in the nineteenth century, or in advance of her time? Rita Filanti takes on the challenge of representing this anarchist-feminist forerunner in all her complexity, situating her in the transatlantic political networks of her time and place. A frustrating, fascinating figure, de Cleyre has never been given such a full assessment as here.Prof. Jesse Cohn, author of Underground Passages: Anarchist resistance culture 1848-2011Focusing on de Cleyre’s work as translator, educator, and poet, Rita Filanti offers a rich new appreciation of de Cleyre’s anarchism as grounded in the radical traditions of the American transcendentalists, Quakers, and early abolitionists. Filanti’s discussion of de Cleyre’s poetry is fresh and thrilling, showing how her engagement with language upends “the fetish of monolingualism” to celebrate hybrid encounters between equals.Prof. Kathy E Ferguson, author of Letterpress Revolution and Emma Goldman: Political thinking in the streets

Rita Filanti, PhD, is an Independent Scholar based in Bari, Italy.