Ole Birk Laursen
Biographic Data
| ID | 92289 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Ole Birk Laursen |
| GIVEN NAMES | Ole Birk |
| FAMILY NAME | Laursen |
| SIGNATURE | LAURSEN O B |
| AFFILIATIONS | International Institute for Asian Studies, Leiden University, Leiden, Netherlands |
| ORCID | 0009-0006-8927-843X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 10 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 17 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
‘Deserter in Scandinavia’: Augustin Souchy, Transregional Networks, and the Scandinavian Syndicalist Press, 1914‐1919
This article explores the Scandinavian syndicalist movement during the First World War through the experiences of the German anarchist Augustin Souchy. Exiled to Scandinavia in 1914, his five years in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark illuminate the revolutionary impetus of the Scandinavian syndicalist movement and, simultaneously, the crucial role of the revolutionary press ‐ editors, distributors, translators, contributors, and correspondents ‐ in fo…
Agnes Smedley and the Indian anarchists in Weimar Berlin
This article examines the entangled worlds of anti-colonialism and anarchism in Weimar era Berlin. Looking particularly at Agnes Smedley and her partner in Berlin, Virendranath Chattopadhyaya, as well as M.P.T.Acharya and others, the article explores the ways in which these figures approached the question of anarchism in relation to Indian anti-colonialism. While recent scholarship has focused on Smedley’s– and to some extent Chatto’s– communist …
Anarchy or Chaos: M. P. T. Acharya and the Indian Struggle for Freedom
In this fascinating biography of the Indian revolutionary M. P. T. Acharya (1887–1954), Ole Birk Laursen uncovers the remarkable transnational networks, movements, and activities of India’s most important anticolonial anarchist in the twentieth century. Driven by the urge for complete freedom from colonialism, authoritarianism, fascism, and militarism, which are rooted in the idea and politics of the nation-state, Acharya fought for an internatio…
Spaces of Indian Anti-Colonialism in Early Twentieth-Century London and Paris
Narratives of the Indian revolutionary movement in exile have often focused on abstract notions of ‘London’—with a particular focus on ‘India House’ in Highgate—or ‘Paris’ without taking into account specific geographies of Indian anti-colonialism within these imperial metropoles. Drawing on addresses provided in intelligence reports, this article takes a spatial approach and explores how particular areas of London and Paris enabled the developme…
I have only One Country, it is the World: Madame Cama, Anticolonialism, and Indian-Russian Revolutionary Networks in Paris, 1907-17
In September 1912, the Russian author Maxim Gorky wrote to the Paris-based Indian revolutionary Madame Cama and asked her to write an article on Indian women and their role in the Indian freedom struggle. Their correspondence highlights several issues: Cama's central role among Indian and anticolonial nationalists from across the world in early twentieth-century Paris; the inspiration from the 1905 Russian Revolution and alliances between exiled …
Anarchism, pure and simple’: M. P. T. Acharya, anti-colonialism and the international anarchist movement
In late 1922, the Indian revolutionary M. P. T. Acharya returned to Berlin from Moscow and joined the international anarchist movement. Straddling anti-colonial, anarchist, and pacifist circles in the interwar years, Acharya stands out as a distinctive figure within global revolutionary networks and broadens our conception of the global reach of the international anarchist movement. Staking out a different path towards freedom than most of his co…
Decolonising the state: Subversion, Mimicry and Criminality
This special issue brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars to reflect on the decolonisation of nation-states through acts of subversion, mimicry and criminality in the colonial and postcolonial world. Since the birth of nation-states, emerging in conjunction with the first wave of globalisation and the height of European colonialism in the mid-nineteenth century, avant-gardists have problematised the role of the nation-state. With …
Anarchist Anti-Imperialism: Guy Aldred and the Indian Revolutionary Movement, 1909–14
This article examines the British anarchist Guy Aldred’s involvement in the Indian revolutionary movement from 1909 to 1914 in order to reflect on solidarities and antagonisms between anarchism and anti-colonial movements in the early twentieth century. Drawing on Aldred’s writings, court material and intelligence reports, it explores, first, his decision to print the suppressed Indian nationalist periodical The Indian Sociologist in August 1909 …
Introduction: Comics and The Anarchist Imagination
IntroductionComics and The Anarchist Imagination1 Frederik Byrn Køhlert (bio) and Ole Birk Laursen (bio) This special issue brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars to reflect on comics and the anarchist imagination. The curators of the 2014 British Library exhibition, "Comics Unmasked: Art and Anarchy in the UK," noted that "there has always been a certain anarchic streak" in comics (Gravett and Dunning 74). Indeed, since Ralph Cha…
Postcolonial Anarchographics: Re-drawing History in the Trantraal Brothers' Crossroads
Postcolonial Anarchographics:Re-drawing History in the Trantraal Brothers' Crossroads Ole Birk Laursen (bio) Introduction Focusing on visual and textual representations of squatting and women's resistances against apartheid in the comic book series Crossroads (2014-2016), this article examines how graphic history may enable a more nuanced understanding of anarchic resistances in the postcolonial context. A six-part comic series created by histori…
Comics and the Anarchist Imagination
Reworking Postcolonialism
An interdisciplinary collection of essays, Reworking Postcolonialism explores questions of work, precarity, migration, minority and indigenous rights in relation to contemporary globalization. It brin
Reworking Postcolonialism: Globalization, Labour and Rights
Slavery and the culture of taste
by Simon Gikandi, Princeton and Oxford, Princeton UP, 2011, 386 pp., $45.00/£30.95 (hardback), ISBN 978 0 6911 4066 7 In a time when history curricula across certain countries are returning to more
Networking the globe: Culture, Technologies, Globalization
Thanks are also due to Rehana Ahmed for co-conceptualizing and co-organizing the conference and her input to this special issue. We also gratefully acknowledge the journal editors, Janet Wilson and Chris Ringrose, for their advice, guidance and support in bringing this issue to fruition
Caryl Phillips, David Dabydeen and Fred D’Aguiar: Representations of slavery
by Abigail Ward, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2011, 240 pp., £50.00 (hardback), ISBN 978 0 7190 8275 7 In the last twenty years, numerous black British fictions have explored the histor
Writing Now Review Essay
Gods without Men Hari Kunzru Hamish Hamilton, London, 2011, pb 400pp ISBN 0 2411 4311 7 £12.99 www.penguin.co.uk Celebrate Wha? Ten Black British Poets from the Midlands Eric Doumerc and Roy McFarl
Anarchism and syndicalism in the colonial and postcolonial world, 1870-1940: The Praxis of National Liberation, Internationalism, and Social Revolution
edited by Steven Hirsch and Lucien van der Walt, Leiden, Brill, 2010, 431 pp., €109.00 (hbk), ISBN 978 9 0041 8849 5 In the current age of austerity, when global corporations dominate the flow of c
Slavery and the culture of taste
by Simon Gikandi, Princeton and Oxford, Princeton UP, 2011, 386 pp., $45.00/£30.95 (hardback), ISBN 978 0 6911 4066 7 In a time when history curricula across certain countries are returning to more
Decolonising the state: Subversion, Mimicry and Criminality
This special issue brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars to reflect on the decolonisation of nation-states through acts of subversion, mimicry and criminality in the colonial and postcolonial world. Since the birth of nation-states, emerging in conjunction with the first wave of globalisation and the height of European colonialism in the mid-nineteenth century, avant-gardists have problematised the role of the nation-state. With …
Anarchism, pure and simple’: M. P. T. Acharya, anti-colonialism and the international anarchist movement
In late 1922, the Indian revolutionary M. P. T. Acharya returned to Berlin from Moscow and joined the international anarchist movement. Straddling anti-colonial, anarchist, and pacifist circles in the interwar years, Acharya stands out as a distinctive figure within global revolutionary networks and broadens our conception of the global reach of the international anarchist movement. Staking out a different path towards freedom than most of his co…
Anarchist Anti-Imperialism: Guy Aldred and the Indian Revolutionary Movement, 1909–14
This article examines the British anarchist Guy Aldred’s involvement in the Indian revolutionary movement from 1909 to 1914 in order to reflect on solidarities and antagonisms between anarchism and anti-colonial movements in the early twentieth century. Drawing on Aldred’s writings, court material and intelligence reports, it explores, first, his decision to print the suppressed Indian nationalist periodical The Indian Sociologist in August 1909 …
Caryl Phillips, David Dabydeen and Fred D’Aguiar: Representations of slavery
by Abigail Ward, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2011, 240 pp., £50.00 (hardback), ISBN 978 0 7190 8275 7 In the last twenty years, numerous black British fictions have explored the histor
Writing Now Review Essay
Gods without Men Hari Kunzru Hamish Hamilton, London, 2011, pb 400pp ISBN 0 2411 4311 7 £12.99 www.penguin.co.uk Celebrate Wha? Ten Black British Poets from the Midlands Eric Doumerc and Roy McFarl
Anarchism and syndicalism in the colonial and postcolonial world, 1870-1940: The Praxis of National Liberation, Internationalism, and Social Revolution
edited by Steven Hirsch and Lucien van der Walt, Leiden, Brill, 2010, 431 pp., €109.00 (hbk), ISBN 978 9 0041 8849 5 In the current age of austerity, when global corporations dominate the flow of c
Slavery and the culture of taste
by Simon Gikandi, Princeton and Oxford, Princeton UP, 2011, 386 pp., $45.00/£30.95 (hardback), ISBN 978 0 6911 4066 7 In a time when history curricula across certain countries are returning to more
Networking the globe: Culture, Technologies, Globalization
Thanks are also due to Rehana Ahmed for co-conceptualizing and co-organizing the conference and her input to this special issue. We also gratefully acknowledge the journal editors, Janet Wilson and Chris Ringrose, for their advice, guidance and support in bringing this issue to fruition
Reworking Postcolonialism
An interdisciplinary collection of essays, Reworking Postcolonialism explores questions of work, precarity, migration, minority and indigenous rights in relation to contemporary globalization. It brin
Reworking Postcolonialism: Globalization, Labour and Rights
Introduction: Comics and The Anarchist Imagination
IntroductionComics and The Anarchist Imagination1 Frederik Byrn Køhlert (bio) and Ole Birk Laursen (bio) This special issue brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars to reflect on comics and the anarchist imagination. The curators of the 2014 British Library exhibition, "Comics Unmasked: Art and Anarchy in the UK," noted that "there has always been a certain anarchic streak" in comics (Gravett and Dunning 74). Indeed, since Ralph Cha…
Postcolonial Anarchographics: Re-drawing History in the Trantraal Brothers' Crossroads
Postcolonial Anarchographics:Re-drawing History in the Trantraal Brothers' Crossroads Ole Birk Laursen (bio) Introduction Focusing on visual and textual representations of squatting and women's resistances against apartheid in the comic book series Crossroads (2014-2016), this article examines how graphic history may enable a more nuanced understanding of anarchic resistances in the postcolonial context. A six-part comic series created by histori…
Comics and the Anarchist Imagination
Anarchist Anti-Imperialism: Guy Aldred and the Indian Revolutionary Movement, 1909–14
This article examines the British anarchist Guy Aldred’s involvement in the Indian revolutionary movement from 1909 to 1914 in order to reflect on solidarities and antagonisms between anarchism and anti-colonial movements in the early twentieth century. Drawing on Aldred’s writings, court material and intelligence reports, it explores, first, his decision to print the suppressed Indian nationalist periodical The Indian Sociologist in August 1909 …
Anarchism, pure and simple’: M. P. T. Acharya, anti-colonialism and the international anarchist movement
In late 1922, the Indian revolutionary M. P. T. Acharya returned to Berlin from Moscow and joined the international anarchist movement. Straddling anti-colonial, anarchist, and pacifist circles in the interwar years, Acharya stands out as a distinctive figure within global revolutionary networks and broadens our conception of the global reach of the international anarchist movement. Staking out a different path towards freedom than most of his co…
Decolonising the state: Subversion, Mimicry and Criminality
This special issue brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars to reflect on the decolonisation of nation-states through acts of subversion, mimicry and criminality in the colonial and postcolonial world. Since the birth of nation-states, emerging in conjunction with the first wave of globalisation and the height of European colonialism in the mid-nineteenth century, avant-gardists have problematised the role of the nation-state. With …
Spaces of Indian Anti-Colonialism in Early Twentieth-Century London and Paris
Narratives of the Indian revolutionary movement in exile have often focused on abstract notions of ‘London’—with a particular focus on ‘India House’ in Highgate—or ‘Paris’ without taking into account specific geographies of Indian anti-colonialism within these imperial metropoles. Drawing on addresses provided in intelligence reports, this article takes a spatial approach and explores how particular areas of London and Paris enabled the developme…
I have only One Country, it is the World: Madame Cama, Anticolonialism, and Indian-Russian Revolutionary Networks in Paris, 1907-17
In September 1912, the Russian author Maxim Gorky wrote to the Paris-based Indian revolutionary Madame Cama and asked her to write an article on Indian women and their role in the Indian freedom struggle. Their correspondence highlights several issues: Cama's central role among Indian and anticolonial nationalists from across the world in early twentieth-century Paris; the inspiration from the 1905 Russian Revolution and alliances between exiled …
Anarchy or Chaos: M. P. T. Acharya and the Indian Struggle for Freedom
In this fascinating biography of the Indian revolutionary M. P. T. Acharya (1887–1954), Ole Birk Laursen uncovers the remarkable transnational networks, movements, and activities of India’s most important anticolonial anarchist in the twentieth century. Driven by the urge for complete freedom from colonialism, authoritarianism, fascism, and militarism, which are rooted in the idea and politics of the nation-state, Acharya fought for an internatio…
Agnes Smedley and the Indian anarchists in Weimar Berlin
This article examines the entangled worlds of anti-colonialism and anarchism in Weimar era Berlin. Looking particularly at Agnes Smedley and her partner in Berlin, Virendranath Chattopadhyaya, as well as M.P.T.Acharya and others, the article explores the ways in which these figures approached the question of anarchism in relation to Indian anti-colonialism. While recent scholarship has focused on Smedley’s– and to some extent Chatto’s– communist …
‘Deserter in Scandinavia’: Augustin Souchy, Transregional Networks, and the Scandinavian Syndicalist Press, 1914‐1919
This article explores the Scandinavian syndicalist movement during the First World War through the experiences of the German anarchist Augustin Souchy. Exiled to Scandinavia in 1914, his five years in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark illuminate the revolutionary impetus of the Scandinavian syndicalist movement and, simultaneously, the crucial role of the revolutionary press ‐ editors, distributors, translators, contributors, and correspondents ‐ in fo…
Sociology (12 works) · Political science (10 works) · Anarchism and Radical Politics (9 works) · Art history (8 works) · Art (7 works) · History (7 works) · Law (7 works) · Politics (7 works) · Colonialism (6 works) · History (6 works)