Max Stirner

Anarchism

In this course, Professor Ruth Kinna (Loughborough University) explores the idea of anarchism. In the first five modules, we introduce five key figures in anarchist thinking: Max Stirner (1806-65), Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809-65), Mikhail Bakunin (1814-1876), Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921), and Emma Goldman (1869-1940). After that, we spend five modules exploring four key principles in anarchism: rejection of the state, liberty, economic freedom and utopianism. In the eleventh, twelfth and thirteen modules, we think about six different types of anarchism – individualism, collectivism, communism, egoism, social anarchism and syndicalism – before turning in the final four modules to explore seven key concepts in anarchism: power, authority, government, the state, altruism, autonomy and direct action.

Max Stirner

In this module, we introduce the figure of Max Stirner (1806-65), focusing in particular on: (i) Stirner’s affiliation with a group known as the Young (or Left) Hegelians, which also included Karl Marx (1818-83) and Friedrich Engels (1820-85); (ii) Stirner’s 1844 work ‘The Ego and its Own’ and the concept of dialectical egoism; and (iii) the rediscovery of Stirner’s work in the 1890s by John Henry McKay.