Max Blechman Papers
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Abstract
Max Belchman is an anarchist philosopher, author and editor. Drunken Boat was an anarchist journal edited by Blechman. Blechman also produced the anarcho-green journal SURGE. The collection contains correspondence, writings, ephemera and graphics relating to Drunken Boat, to Max Blechman's various activities, to the journal SURGE, and to Students Urging Resistance and Green Escalation.
Biographical Note
Max Blechman (1971-), the editor of Drunken Boat, was born in New York City. He attended the Putney boarding school in Putney Vermont, received his BA at Eugene Lang College/New School for Social Research in 1994, and in that year moved to France and studied at the Sorbonne where he was awarded two degrees in philosophy. He is currently completing a Ph.D thesis on Rousseau at the Center for Research on Modern European Philosophy at Kingston University in the UK. His Drunken Boat publications are Drunken Boat: An Anarchist Journal of Literature and the Visual Arts (1991), Drunken Boat: Art, Rebellion, Anarchy (1994) and Revolutionary Romanticism: A Drunken Boat Anthology (1999). He has since published essays in political philosophy, aesthetics and utopia, mostly in the French press, twice guest-edited with Michael Lowy the French philosophical and literary journal, Europe, and recently translated and introduced Miguel Abensour's Democracy Against the State: Marx and the Machiavellian Moment (2011).
Drunken Boat appeared in the three book-length volumes listed above. In addition to Blechman, contributors included Paul Avrich, Hakim Bey, Diane Di Prima, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Judith Malina, Gary Snyder, and George Woodcock. SURGE was an anarcho-green periodical published by students of the Putney Boarding School in Putney, Vermont. There was one published issue and one unpublished issue. SURGE was also the acronym for two organizations, Students Urging Realism Growth and Evolution, which later became Students Urging Resistance and Green Escalation.
Arrangement
Arranged in two series: I, Drunken Boat and Max Blechman's Activities; and II, SURGE. Each is arranged alphabetically.
Scope and Contents
Series I, Drunken Boat and Max Blechman's Activities, contains correspondence, writings, graphics, ephemera and materials relating to this short-lived anarchist arts-related periodical, New York based but international in scope, and to the various activities of its editor, Max Blechman. Series II, SURGE, contains ephemera and other materials relating to this also short-lived anarcho-green periodical and to Students Urging Resistance and Green Escalation. This is a rich collection for the study of late twentieth century and Beat Generation anarchism, especially in relation to the arts. Series III consists of a flyer and a poster.
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Conditions Governing Access
Materials are open without restrictions
Conditions Governing Use
This collection is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use materials in the collection in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
Preferred Citation
Identification of item, date; Max Blechman Papers; TAM 567; box number; folder number; Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
The provenance of this collection is unknown, although materials appear to have been mailed to the Tamiment Library from Chicago on October 16, 2011. The accession numbers associated with this collection are 2011.009 and 2023.015.
Audiovisual Access Policies and Procedures
Audiovisual materials have not been preserved and may not be available to researchers. Materials not yet digitized will need to have access copies made before they can be used. To request an access copy, or if you are unsure if an item has been digitized, please contact Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, special.collections@nyu.edu, 212-998-2596 with the collection name, collection number, and a description of the item(s) requested. A staff member will respond to you with further information.
About this Guide
Processing Information
Decisions concerning the provenance, arrangment, and description of this collection before 2023 are unknown. An early note from an archivist suggests that the donor provided a detailed, partial item-level inventory, and that the original order was modified, chiefly by moving some of the items originally listed under SURGE to the first series, Drunken Boat and Max Blechman's Activities. In 2023, rolled posters were identified in a staff member's office, flattened by conservators, and intellectually incorporated into the collection as Series III.
