Matt Hern - Career

Career

Hern has variously been described as a social anarchist, left-socialist, radical democrat, anti-authoritarian and social ecologist. He claims to be comfortable with any of those titles, and happy with none. His writing and organizing reflects a wide-ranging set of interests and themes exploring social and ecological domination, and popular movements toward self-determination.

Hern writes for a wide variety of journals and magazines and is frequently interviewed in major media. He lectures worldwide speaking about ecological urbanism, alternative education, participatory democracy, radical pluralism and organizing and much else. His most recent book is Common Ground in a Liquid City: Essays in Defense of an Urban Future (AK Press, 2009), which explores a radical participatory urbanism in the context of his home city. Other books include Everywhere All The Time (2008), Watch Yourself: Why Safer Isn’t Always Better (2007), Deschooling Our Lives (New Star, 1996) and Everywhere All the Time (AK Press, 2008), Field Day: Getting Society Out of School (New Star, 2003), and two forthcoming titles, Stay Solid (2012) and One Game at a Time (2013).

He writes for a wide variety of journals and magazines and is frequently interviewed in major media. Hern lectures worldwide speaking about deschooling, alternative education, sustainable urbanism, safety/security/risk and participatory democracy.

Hern continues to lecture globally, and teaches in the Urban Studies department at Simon Fraser University, the Education department of the University of British Columbia, and the MBA program at Cape Breton University. He remains on faculty at Prescott College in Arizona and the Institute for Social Ecology in Vermont.