This book offers a profound and necessary re-evaluation of pacifism, positioning it not merely as a negative stance against war, but as a comprehensive philosophical orientation toward living and ethical engagement.
This book was originally published as a special issue of Angelaki: Journal for Theoretical Humanities.
This book offers a profound and necessary re-evaluation of pacifism, positioning it not merely as a negative stance against war, but as a comprehensive philosophical orientation toward living and ethical engagement. Moving beyond conventional political and historical limitations, the collection interrogates the radical intellectual and practical potential of non-violence in the twenty-first century.
The contributions explore historical reappraisals—from reintroducing the Quaker pacifist Jonathan Dymond to considering Tolstoy in relation to critiques of Eurocentrism. Contemporary articulations of non-violence are examined, including anarcho-pacifism and feminist counternarratives emerging from movements like the Arab Spring. The book expands the scope of violence and pacifist resistance, questioning whether the ethical imperative of pacifism must extend to include refusal of violence against animal life and the inanimate, thereby embracing ecological and environmental justice.
This collection addresses academics, researchers, and advanced students in philosophy, political theory, peace studies, and environmental studies. It serves as essential reading for courses on pacifist philosophy, nonviolent resistance, and contemporary political thought, offering a revitalisation of pacifist knowledge as a critical counterforce to aggressive politics.
This book was originally published as a special issue of Angelaki: Journal for Theoretical Humanities.
Introduction
1. Reintroducing Jonathan Dymond (1796-1818): A Quaker
Pacifist Powerhouse
2. Pacifist Historiography: Anabaptist Historiography
Between Normativity and Description and Beyond Neutralization and
Polarization
3. Bethinking Ourselves: Tolstoy, Pacifism, and Critiques of
Eurocentrism
4. Anarcho-Pacifism: The General Strike and its Aftermath in
Arnold Rollers The Social General Strike
5. Making Time for Peace: Virginia
Woolf, Pat Barker, and Peace Time
6. Portrait Of a Pacifist as a Young Man
7. Feminist Voices of Dissent: Counternarratives of Pacifism from The Arab
Spring
8. SanSiIn-Ship? Towards A Meditational Ethics of Custodianship
Nicholas Birns is a literary scholar specializing in postcolonial and Australian literature. He authored Theory After Theory (2010), Contemporary Australian Literature (2015), and The Hyperlocal in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Literary Space (2019). Co-editor of The Cambridge Conpanion to the Australian Novel (2023) and Teaching Australian and New Zealand Literature (2016), he has published widely on writers ranging from Roberto Bolaño to Agatha Christie. He teaches at NYU.
John Kinsella, world-renowned Australian poet, novelist, critic, and ecological activist, holds a fellowship at Churchill College, Cambridge. His recent works include three collected poetry volumes: The Ascension of Sheep (2022), Harsh Hakea (2023), and Spirals (2024); the critical work Legibility: An Anti-Fascist Poetics (2022); the verse novel Cellnight (2023); the novel The Mahler Erasures (2024);The Darkest Pastoral: Selected Poems (2025) and a collection of new poetry, Aporia (2025). He has written over 70 books and is Emeritus Professor of Literature and Environment at Curtin University, Australia.
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