John Philip Clark is a native of the Island of New Orleans, where his family has lived twelve generations since his ancestor Jean-Baptiste Durieux dit Dupré was sent there in 1719 as a forced laborer.
Professor Clark is the Director of the La Terre Institute for Community and Ecology, which sponsors courses, projects, and events in New Orleans, often in collaboration with fellow Louisiana art and activist collective Yes We Cannibal, and on the eighty-eight acre Bayou La Terre in the forests of Mississippi’s Gulf Coast. La Terre Institute’s programs are aimed at social and ecological regeneration and the creation of a cooperative, non-dominating Earth community.
Professor Emeritus at Loyola University New Orleans, John Clark was formerly the Gregory F. Curtin Distinguished Professor of Humane Letters and the Professions, Professor of Philosophy, and a member of the Environment Program. He has written several books, including:
- Max Stirner’s Egoism (1976)
- The Philosophical Anarchism of William Godwin (1977)
- The Anarchist Moment: Reflections on Culture, Nature, and Power (1984)
- Anarchy, Geography, Modernity: Selected Writings of Élisée Reclus (2004)
- The Impossible Community: Realizing Communitarian Anarchism (2nd Ed, 2022)
- The Tragedy of Common Sense (2016)
- Between Earth and Empire: From the Necrocene to the Beloved Community (2019)
In addition, his editing work includes Renewing the Earth: The Promise of Social Ecology (1990), Les Français des États-Unis: D’Hier à Aujourd’hui (1994) (co-editor), A Voyage to New Orleans: Anarchist Impressions of the Old South (2004) (co-editor), and Environmental Philosophy: From Animal Rights to Radical Ecology (4th Ed, 2005) (co-editor).
The writings of his alter ego, Max Cafard, include The Surre(gion)alist Manifesto and Other Writings (2003), FLOOD BOOK (2008), Surregional Explorations (2012), and Lightning Storm Mind (2017).
He is currently at work on many things, including a comprehensive philosophical (re)formulation of a dialectical social ecology, a critique of nihilistic egoism, and a historico-philosophical reflection on culture and crisis in 19th century New Orleans, among others. His areas of interest and research include: dialectical thought; psychoanalytic theory; ecological philosophy; anarchist, utopian, and libertarian thought; Surrealism; the social imaginary; cultural critique; Buddhist, Daoist, and Zen philosophy; the critique of domination; and the crisis of the Earth.
Many of his texts can be found at Academia.edu, and will soon also be housed here. The John P. Clark Papers (1964-2008) are housed at Loyola University in the Monroe Library Special Collections and Archives. He has long been active in the radical ecology and communitarian anarchist movements and is a member of the Education Workers’ Union of the Industrial Workers of the World.
From Around the Internet:
Blog: “It is What It Isn’t” — John’s Blog on Changing Suns Press
Blog: John P Clark’s Blog Archives — John’s PM Press Blog Archive
Song (?): “The Ethos and Community of Anarchy” — Some of John’s speech artistically/musically mixed by Joel Williamson
Video: The Allegory of “The Birds” — A video of John discussing the allegory of The Birds. Videography and editing by Justin Mauck; direction by Nancy Sharon Collins