Professor Ruth Kinna

Ruth is a political theorist and historian of ideas specialising in historical and contemporary anarchism, nineteenth and early twentieth-century socialist thought, utopianism, and political militancy. She is co-editor of the journal Anarchist Studies and editor of the Bloomsbury series, Radical Subjects.

Ruth graduated from Queen Mary, University of London with a 1^st class degree in History and Politics. She completed her doctoral research at Nuffield College, Oxford, funded by the Social Science Research Council.

Principal Awards

• 2023-24 ISRF Mid-Career Fellowship
• 2016 ESRC Transformative Research Award 
• 2015 ISRF ‘Art, Activism and Political Violence’
• 2005 British Academy, ‘Early Writings on Terrorism’
• 1993 British Academy ‘Mutual Aid in Historical Context’

Ruth’s first book, William Morris: The Art of Socialism, was published in 2000 with University of Wales Press. She has since published Kropotkin: Reviewing the Classical Anarchist Tradition (University of Edinburgh, 2016), and two introductions to anarchism: The Beginner's Guide to Anarchism (Oneworld, 2005/2009) and The Government of No One (Pelican, 2019, shortlisted in 2020 for the Bread and Roses Award for Radical Publishing). 

Ruth is also the author of Great Anarchists (Dog Section Press, 2020), a collection of short, accessible essays on leading nineteenth and twentieth century activists, illustrated by Clifford Harper and co-author of Anarchic Agreements, a guide to anarchist constitutionalising.

She is editor of Continuum/Bloomsbury Companion to Anarchism (2012/14) and co-editor of Anarchism and Utopianism (Manchester University Press, 2009), Libertarian Socialism: Politics in Black and Red (Palgrave & PM Press, 2012), Anarchism 1914-18: Internationalism, Anti-militarism and War (Manchester University Press, 2017), Handbook of Radical Politics (Routledge, 2019) and Cultures of Violence (Routledge, 2020).

Ruth has written for The Conversation, Strike! Magazine, The Big Issue, Novara Media and Dope.

She has appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Ideas in Our Time, most recently to discuss the Haymarket Affair, and Start the Week, BBC Radio 3’s Free Thinking and the How the Light Gets in 

Festival, 2021 and 2023.  Online interviews include Five Books on Anarchism and Russell Brand’s Under the Skin.

She is currently compiling the Penguin Book of Anarchism and co-authoring a book on anarchist constitutionalising with Alex Prichard (Exeter).

Ruth has been involved in programme design and curriculum development throughout her career. She currently teaches on the Department’s undergraduate programmes and uses inclusive curriculum and course design methods with final year students.

Management of Teaching and Learning and Student Engagement

• 2011-14 Associate Dean for Teaching, School of Social, Political and Geographical Science.
• 2010-11 Associate Dean for Teaching, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities
• 2015 Academic partner in the Consent initiative, with Loughborough Students Union Women’s Network
• 2011-17 Member, Validation Committee British University in Egypt
• 2007-09 Co-ordinator, Department Teaching and Learning Committee
• 2007-08 Politics Subject Specialist, British University
• in Egypt
• 2005 University teaching prize
• 2003-07 Department Undergraduate Programme Director
• 2000-12 Member, University Access to Learning Committee
• 2002-03 Member, University Widening Participation Group
• 2000-09 University Teaching Assessor
• 1997-2001 Final Year Tutor/Director of Studies
• 1995-97 Co-chair, Department Teaching and Learning Committee  
• 1995 Flexible Learning Initiative Representative

Public Engagement

• 2024 How to be an anarchist, a short course for the Idler. 
• 2021 Incite seminars
• 2020 The anarchy night school – Five Weeks of Anarchy hosted by Five Leaves Bookshop, Nottingham
• 2019 Massolit lectures on anarchism for A level politics
• 2015/2019 Co-author with Uri Gordon of the Political Studies Association Teachers’ Topic Guide on Anarchism and Ideology.

Current Doctoral Researchers

• Isobel van Hagen, “Practical Anarchist Approaches to Gendered Violence in the ‘Alegal’ Space”
• William Godfrey: “Towards a materialist animal liberation”
• Sam Garrett: “Political subjectivity and identity politics in contemporary radical organisation’

Ruth sits on supervision committees at the California Institute of Integral Studies, USA, University of Guelph, Canada, University of Helsinki and University Paul Valéry, Monpellier 3 France.

• ‘Kropotkin and the Anarchist Case for Penal Abolition’ forthcoming in David Scott (ed.) Abolitionist Voices, Bristol University Press.
• Simon Stevens and Ruth Kinna, R. ‘Anarchism: war, violence and scapegoating’. Contemporary Political Theory, online first, 2024 https://doi.org/10.1057/s41296-024-00704-1
• José Gutierrez and Ruth Kinna, ‘Anarchism and the National Question: Historical, Theoretical and Contemporary Perspectives’ Introduction to the Themed Section in Nations and Nationalism, 29 (1), 2023: 121-130
• ‘Emma Goldman’ in Manjeet Ramgotra and Simon Choat (eds) Rethinking Political Thinkers (Oxford University Press, 2023)
• Ruth Kinna, Alex Prichard, Thomas Swann and Seeds for Change (co-ed) Anarchic Agreements: A Field Guide to Collective Organizing, (PM Press, 2022) 
• ‘Peter Kropotkin and Communist Anarchism’, in Marcel van der Linden (ed.) Cambridge History of Socialism, (Cambridge University Press, 2022) 331-354
• The Government of No One: The Theory and Practice of Anarchism (Penguin, 2019) 
• ‘What is Anarchist Internationalism?’ Nations and Nationalism, 27 (4) (2021): 976-991