Fair Use Blog

Now available thanks to Shawn P. Wilbur at Contr'un:

I've been spending a lot of time this month working on the "Black and Red Feminism" project, trying to expand the pilot pamphlet into something a little more broadly representative, for release as a small hardcover volume. That's meant a lot of exploring, a few new figures of the "usual suspects" gallery here, and a little burst of new translations, like the Séverine story I just posted, and a Paule Mink story I hope to complete tomorrow. While I have not been looking as closely at the male feminists of the 1848 and Paris Commune periods, a few individuals have certainly caught my eye. Jules Allix is at the very top of that list, as much for his personal peculiarities as for his feminism. I have a women's rights address that I'm hoping to include in the "Black and Red Feminism" sampler, and I'm assembling the pieces for a collection of Allix's "scientific" writings for late-summer release, but here's a bit of (not entirely sympathetic) biography, to introduce Comrade Allix.

from "THE MEN OF THE COMMUNE"

ALLIX.

8th arrondissement. — 2,028 votes.

Allix (Jules) had one of the most curious physiognomies that we have studied. Born September 9, 1818, at Fontenay (Vendée), Allix called himself a professor; indeed, he formerly taught reading in fifteen lessons, and had occupied himself with universal physics. Allix was recognizable among all his colleagues for his eccentricities: he constantly held in his hand a pince-nez that he leveled, with an imperturbable aplomb, at those who found themselves in front of him. He also had a mania for always wanting to talk, and his colleagues tried in vain to cure him of that malady, a true calamity for those obliged to listen to him.

Allix stood, in 1848, as a candidate in Vendée for the Constituent ...

Read the whole thing at Contr'un.