#54: Autonomy in the UK with Seth Wheeler

For this week's episode, Seth Wheeler joins Matt and Tony Iantosca to discuss his work as an archivist, writer, and organizer of creative autonomy in London.

We talk about how social movements retain and transmit historical memory; the contemporary nostalgia for the party form and trade unionism; and the role counterculture plays in cultivating radical subjectivities.

READINGS:

--"A Thousand Little Machines" - Jamila Squire & Seth Wheeler, 2024: https://www.e-flux.com/notes/593806/a-thousand-little-machines

--"Against The Grain: Archiving anarcho-punk" - Seth Wheeler, 2025: https://www.thewire.co.uk/in-writing/collateral-damage/against-the-grain-archiving-anarcho-punk

--"No Job, No Rent: I Was a Full-Time Militant in the Nineties" - Seth Wheeler, 2023: https://novaramedia.com/2023/05/17/no-job-no-rent-i-was-a-full-time-militant-in-the-nineties/

--"Food Price Hikes, Social Composition and Auto-Reduction" - Seth Wheeler & Jamila Squire, 2023: https://notesfrombelow.org/article/food-price-hikes-social-composition-and-auto-reduc

Seth Wheeler sits on the editorial board of agit press, a small DIY publishing house dedicated to learning from the history of 'working class autonomy'. Seth volunteers his time at the MayDay Rooms, an archive and organising space for social movements and experimental cultures based in London, where he is currently building a dedicated archive of anarcho-punk. He often writes about the history of autonomy as a political current, with a strong focus on culture as a site of radical potential and as a mode of class struggle.

Tony Iantosca is a writer, researcher, and poet who lives and works in Brooklyn.

Agit Press: https://www.agitpress.net/

MayDay Rooms: https://maydayrooms.org/

In and Against the State: https://www.plutobooks.com/product/in-and-against-the-state/