nerd teacher [books] reviewed Quiet Rumours by Dark Star Collective
An Anthology That Feels Largely Tedious
2 stars
AK Press, when they do anthologies on "niche" topics (that shouldn't be niche but are topics they tend to shy away from having more than three books on, if that), always seems to gravitate toward the same few people for editing. It's whatever, but they also tend to have the same few kinds of essays that always feel like they're doing introductions to whatever topic it is. In this case, this anthology is like doing Anarcha-Feminism 101.
That's not inherently a negative thing (people need to start somewhere), but it is frustrating when the 101 levels keep including the same few people. Emma Goldman is one of those constant inclusions, and I'm kind of tired of it because of how many collections of her work exist. It's so easy to find, and it feels like it's wasting space to have more than one essay by her.
There are also areas …
AK Press, when they do anthologies on "niche" topics (that shouldn't be niche but are topics they tend to shy away from having more than three books on, if that), always seems to gravitate toward the same few people for editing. It's whatever, but they also tend to have the same few kinds of essays that always feel like they're doing introductions to whatever topic it is. In this case, this anthology is like doing Anarcha-Feminism 101.
That's not inherently a negative thing (people need to start somewhere), but it is frustrating when the 101 levels keep including the same few people. Emma Goldman is one of those constant inclusions, and I'm kind of tired of it because of how many collections of her work exist. It's so easy to find, and it feels like it's wasting space to have more than one essay by her.
There are also areas where I think the update really needed to do some work to contextualise and also critique movements they included. The essays around Rote Zora feel very much like the transphobic and anti-sex worker organisations of today (especially when they're constantly talking about sex trafficking or bridal trafficking! because they're ignoring all the trafficking that happens for the purposes of exploiting labour, which is the higher proportion of human trafficking, even of girls and women—this is constantly ignored by people who are anti-sex work). They may have had, like, some good points... but I think the expanded edition really needed to do some work on looking at what these people were doing.
Hell, the previous version contextualised "The Tyranny of Structurelessness" (in "Untying the Knot") so they could include it alongside the response in "The Tyranny of Tyranny." Later expanders could've easily put in some critique on groups that are included because of how they read or how they don't seem to really be engaging with the people they're "protecting" or "saving" by targeting porntraders or traffickers.