This year’s theme of the Ethnic and Third World Literatures Review of Books, “Everyday Anarchy”: Communities in Action during a Pandemic of Unrest, is an invitation to interrogate and highlight radical scholarship that seems especially relevant during the turbulence of the year 2020—from the global pandemic and its lethal mishandling to the police killing of George Floyd and the massive waves of protests to the election of Joe Biden as the 46th president of the United States. By borrowing Saidiya Hartman’s phrase “everyday anarchy,” which she uses to describe and celebrate the radical lives and actions of ordinary Black women, we move beyond conventional definitions of anarchy that focuses on the “bad” and the “criminal,” and instead, investigate what everyday anarchy, such as instances of civil disobedience and challenges to the status quo, may look like. We also pay special attention to the “everyday” in everyday anarchy, and invite considerations of political action and radicalism in seemingly minor, ordinary, and ephemeral experiences.

Table of Contents (pages correspond with print version)