In this essay, Javier Sethness Castro presents a new, queer reading of Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy's life and art. By referencing homoeroticism in Tolstoy's diaries and comparing the anarchist writer's libidinal and political desires with historical and literary examples of uprisings and revolts, Sethness highlights the liberatory potential of queer anarchism and sexual revolution.
Javier Sethness Castro is a primary-care provider, author, and translator. His most recent publications are Queer Tolstoy: A Psychobiography and Eros and Revolution: The Critical Philosophy of Herbert Marcuse.
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Essay #79: Sean Scalmer, ‘Direct Action: The Invention of a Transnational Concept’
Essay #78: Sam C. Tenorio, ‘Black Cataclysm: Anarchism and Ruination’
Essay #77: Nolan Bennett, ‘Alexander Berkman’s Anti-Prison Anarchism’
Essay #76: Peterson Silva, ‘Mechanical Failures and Anarchist Freedom’
Essay #75: Chris Robé, ‘Anarchism, Video Activism and State Repression’
Essay #74: Pranay Somayajula, ‘Nationhood Beyond Nationalism: Towards an Anarchist Politics of Anti-Colonial Liberation’
Essay #73: Christopher Powell, ‘Shame Economies’
Essay #72: Elena Pagani, ‘Interpersonal Freedom as Pluralist Radical Horizontality’
Essay #71: Deric Shannon, ‘The Anarchist Critique of Capitalism’
Essay #70: Sonia Hernández, ‘For a Just and Better World’
Essay #69: Benjamin Franks, ‘Anarchism and Elections’
Essay #68: Carne Ross, ‘Anarchy is Love’
Essay #67: William Marling, ‘Anarchism and Rhetoric’
Essay #66: Rhiannon Firth, ‘Disaster Anarchy’
Essay #65: Gabriele Montalbano, ‘Anarchism and Labour Movements in Tunisia’
Essay #63: Ryan Essex, ‘Anarchy, and Why It Matters for Health’
Essay #62: Clara Vlessing, ‘Remembering Louise Michel: From Anarchist Assassin to Banksy Boat’
Essay #61: Robert Leach, ‘Subverting Good Order’
Essay #60: Chi Shing LEE, ‘Anarchism and Nationalism: Ng Chung-yin’s Anarchist Envisioning of Hong Kong in the Early 1970s’
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