Anthony Siracusa
Anthony Siracusa has written extensively about the Reverend James M. Lawson, Jr.’s development and diffusion of a theology of nonviolence during the Modern Civil Rights era. Working with Professor Dennis Dickerson, Anthony continues to expand his research to probe the transnational roots of American nonviolence, paying particular attention to continuities and discontinuities between Gandhian nonviolence and the unique brand of political protest developed by African American activists in the decades preceding the Modern Civil Rights Era. Anthony remains chiefly concerned with the intellectual roots of nonviolent power in the US protest tradition, the intersection between religion, politics, and gender in black protest thought, and the critique of liberal politics inherent in the revolutionary nonviolence espoused by black activists in the early 1960s.
Anthony was also the recipient of a 2009 - 2010 Thomas J. Watson Fellowship. Anthony spent his Watson year exploring Bicycle Cultures in 8 countries across 4 continents. He currently serves as the President of Bike Walk Tennessee, a statewide biking and walking advocacy organization that helped Tennessee become the second most bike friendly state in the US South.
Representative Publications
Current Work
“A More Durable Weapon: Religious Discourse, Labor Action, and Nonviolence in the Black Freedom Movement, 1918-1960,” (Dissertation under the Supervision of Dr. Dennis C. Dickerson)
Books
Thomas G. McGowan, Anthony C. Siracusa and Suzanne Bonefas, “Community Engagement Across the Curriculum: Boyer, Integration and the Challenges of Institutionalization,” in Making the Way by Walking: Rethinking Pathways for Community Engagement in Higher Education, eds. Arianne Hoy and Matthew Johnson, (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2013)
Contributor, Photographs of the Memphis World, ed. David McCarthy (Oxford: University of Mississippi Press, 2008)
Book Chapters
“Nonviolence, Black Power, and the Surveillance State in Memphis’ War on Poverty,” in An Unseen Light: Black Freedom Struggles in Memphis, Tennessee, Aram Goudsouzian and Charles McKinney, editors, (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 2018) (Forthcoming)
Contributor of 5 Essays, Photographs of the Memphis World, ed. David McCarthy, (Oxford: University of Mississippi Press, 2008)
Book Reviews
Review of Black Power in the Bluff City: African American Youth and Student Activism in Memphis, 1965 – 1975 by Shirletta Kinchen, Tennessee Historical Review, Spring 2017 (Forthcoming)
Academic Articles
“From Pacifism to Resistance: The Evolution of Nonviolence in Wartime America,” Journal of Civil and Human Rights, Issue 2, Volume 3, May 2017 (Forthcoming)
“’The Doctrine of Truth’s Many Sides:’ Jain Religion, James M. Lawson, Jr., and the Politics of Nonviolence in the Black Freedom Struggle,” Under Review at the West Tennessee Historical Society Papers
“Building the Most Durable Weapon: The Origins of Non-Violence in the U.S. Struggle for Civil Rights,” (Under Review at the Journal of Civil and Human Rights)
“Developing an American Ahimsa: The Rev. James M. Lawson Jr.’s Paradigm of Protest,” (Memphis: Rhodes College, 2009)
“Understanding Militant Non-violence within Memphis’ Modern Civil Rights Movement: The Leadership and Witness of the Rev. James M Lawson Jr.,” (Memphis: Rhodes Institute for Regional Studies, 2007)
Presentations and Conferences
“Howard Thurman and the Politics of Being,” African American Intellectual History Society Conference at Vanderbilt University, March 24 – 25, 2017 (Proposed)
“’The Doctrine of Truth’s Many Sides:’ Jain Religion, James M. Lawson, Jr., and the Politics of Nonviolence in the Black Freedom Struggle,” Graduate Conference in African American History, University of Memphis, February 10 – 12, 2016
"Disrupting the Calculation of Violence: James M. Lawson, Jr. and the Politics of Religious Nonviolence," Ways of Knowing: Graduate Conference on Religion at Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, October 22 – 24, 2015
“’Who Speaks for the Negro?’ Digital Archive,” Digital Humanities and the History of Slavery Workshop to Enhance Research, Collaboration, and Graduate Training, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, October 15 – 17, 2015
“Building the Most Durable Weapon: The Origins of Nonviolence in the Civil Rights Movement,” 99th Annual Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) Convention, Memphis, Tennessee, September 24 – 28, 2014
“Place and Protest: The Centrality of Nashville and Memphis in Civil Rights History,” From Civil War to Civil Rights: Race, Region and the Making of Public Memory, Rhodes College, February 28 – March 1, 2014 Rhodes College
“Developing an American Ahimsa: The Reverend James M. Lawson Jr.’s Paradigm of Protest,” 14th Annual Conference in African American History, University of Memphis, November 1 – 2, 2012 (‘Awarded Memphis State Eight’ Paper Prize)