Dissertation: "Writing against Democracy: Anarchist Literature and the Aporia of Representation, 1880-1930"

Certified Spring 2012

Dan Colson completed his doctoral work in the Department of English in Spring 2012. His dissertation, "Writing against Democracy: Anarchist Literature and the Aporia of Representation, 1880-1930," argues that, while anarchism posed a significant threat to American democracy during this period, it never materialized as a sustained political movement or literary tradition. "Writing against Democracy" explains this absence, suggesting that the nation's representational logic foreclosed upon anarchism while leaving an archive of anti-government "texts"—a residual challenge to American democracy. This anarchist literature, then, reveals the problem of anarchism: the paradox of challenging representative governance through representational aesthetic forms. Since joining Emporia State University's Department of English, Modern Language, and Journalism the Fall of 2012, Dan has continued his research on the wide-ranging impact anarchism had on American literature and culture from the Civil War to WWII. His published work has appeared in Radical Teacher, Studies in American Naturalism, Philip Roth Studies, and the AAUP Journal of Academic Freedom, amongst other journals.