Ugly Freedoms

“Ugly Freedoms argues that the history of freedom as ‘a majestic practice’ erases ‘the appalling violence that traffics under its name’ and refuses to dignify as freedom the small but inventive actions whereby courageous people resist domination. Elisabeth R. Anker rectifies both these wrongs. Beginning with Locke’s liberal individual, read through the lens of the Barbadian ‘planters’ who likely inspired it, Anker brilliantly finds in the creases of our history and culture a more just freedom for our own not very beautiful world.” - Bonnie Honig, author of Shell-Shocked: Feminist Criticism After Trump

“Elisabeth R. Anker takes us into unnerving, disconcerting, even disgusting territory to find the hidden treasures in this revelatory new book. Approaching the impasses and confusions of our political present, she draws on the best contemporary political theorists to go significantly beyond them, seeing ‘freedom’ as ugly and ‘ugliness’ as a resource for practices of the free. Read it, teach it, sit with it. Let Ugly Freedoms change the way you think about political possibility.” - Lisa Duggan, author of Mean Girl: Ayn Rand and the Culture of Greed

"Anker's interventions offer a lively, energetic rethinking of the foundations and future of liberalism. Highly recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty." - S. M. Barndt, Choice

“Building on scholarship in Black studies, queer theory, and Indigenous studies, Anker explores the flip side of ugly freedom’s brutality in affirming wayward practices, unrefined affective orientations, opaque gestures, and interstitial acts that are usually obscured and undervalued as instances of lauded freedom. . . . Ugly Freedoms is an exciting and persuasive study that challenges contemporary political theorists to rethink their approaches to the historical problem spaces of freedom.” - Jason Frank, Perspectives on Politics

"Ugly Freedoms is dense and sometimes shocking, and can be a good eye-opener for those who think the freedom some voices express repeatedly can be very different from the freedom others may need, want, or feel." - Nivea Bona, European Journal of American Studies

"Excellent. . . . There is a vision here, one that reveals the fertile ground for community and solidarity, which may be filthy and even shitty, but these are things that we humans and nonhumans have in common, and Anker makes a persuasive case that this is a good place to start." - Kevin Bruyneel, Review of Politics

"Ugly Freedoms stands as a fine demonstration of how objects can be valuable and important sites of analysis. ... [It] provides a good introductory text for those looking to understand the formation of modern American freedom, while serving as an invitation for others to explore additional alternative freedoms."

"Ugly Freedoms is engaged in a project of reorienting readers to already available facts by attending carefully to what has been often dismissed. . . . The book is a bracing reminder that political theorizing benefits from and indeed requires . . . rigorous eclecticism. . . ." - Derek Gottlieb, Comparative Political Theory