The Anthropology of Freedom

Instructor: Dr. Eleanor Finley is a political anthropologist and activist who has been speaking and writing about social ecology, radical municipalism, and democratic confederalism for more than a decade. Her book, Practicing Social Ecology: From Bookchin to Rojava and Beyond, provides a beginner’s introduction to social ecology both as a body of ideas and as a global constellation of social movements. She has recently lectured at George Mason University and serves as a board member at the Institute for Social Ecology. She completed her PhD in anthropology from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 2025.

Details: 8 Week discussion-based seminar with lectures and readings. Requires that students conduct approximately 20-30 pages of reading per week. Start Date: July 8, 2026. Class meets weekly on Wednesdays at 6pm ET / 3pm PT.

Summary: This class explores the affinity and complementarity between social ecology and the modern social science discipline of anthropology. Students will gain familiarity with the anthropological concepts, frameworks, and empirical claims woven throughout the works of Murray Bookchin, such as his conceptions of hierarchy, civilization, and stateless “organic society.”

Students will also gain a foundation in the history and central concepts and concerns of radical anthropology from the 1960s to the present. This course is book-ended by two central texts: Bookchin’s 1982 volume The Ecology of Freedom and David Graeber’s and David Wengrow’s book, The Dawn of Everything, (2021). Together, we will look for parallels, tensions, and contradictions, using new archaeological insights as a sounding board against Bookchin’s earlier conclusions.

Format: The Anthropology of Freedom is a discussion-based seminar with readings, lectures, and discussion. It is oriented towards students who already have a foundation in social ecology. Through this course, students will gain familiarity with anthropological concepts as they appear in the philosophy of social ecology, as well as social ecology’s novel contributions to how we understand humanity, society, and social evolution.