Biography

Nathan Crompton is a writer, housing activist, and editor at The Mainlander. He lives and works in Vancouver on the unceded territories of the Coast Salish peoples.

Research Description

My thesis focuses on the rise and fall of twentieth century French autogestion (sometimes translated as “self-management”). I trace the movement’s political origins in the wake of working class self-management after 1968, and its subsequent impact on regionalist, feminist, and anti-racist movements in the second half of the 1970s. Despite frequent associations with the rise of neoliberalism, these diverse social movements both translated and deepened the politics of autogestion. They form a crucial part, I will argue, of autogestion’s unique attempt to reconstruct French socialism outside the confines of both Stalinism and Western social democracy.

Working Dissertation Title

French Self-Management, 1970-1982: The Age of Autogestion from Worker Control to Everyday Life

Publications

Nathan Crompton & Jannie Leung, Chinatown and the Persistence of Anti-Asian Racism (book) Ed. Steff Ling, Translated by Brent Lin (Vancouver: N.O.P.E., 2017)

Nathan Crompton & Kai Rajala, “Battle of 58 West Hastings: The History of a Fight for Housing, 2007–Present,” The Mainlander (July 27, 2016) Retrieved from http://themainlander.com/2016/07/27/battleof58/

Nathan Crompton, “Vancouver, World, Universe,” Birds of Paradise (book) Ed. Danny Cruz and Patrick Cruz (Vancouver: Centre A/Vancouver International Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, 2016) pp. 6-7

Nathan Crompton, “Elegy of the Non-Event: Stan Douglas’ Abbott & Cordova,” Fillip, 20 (Fall, 2015), pp. 109-115

Nathan Crompton & Maria Wallstam, “City of perpetual displacement: 100 years since the destruction of the Kitsilano Reserve,” The Mainlander (July 25, 2013) Retrieved from http://themainlander.com/2013/07/25/city-of-perpetual-displacement-100-years-since-the-destruction-of-the-kitsilano-reserve/

Nathan Crompton, "The Persistence of Anti-Asian Racism: Political Economy of the Empty Signifier," West Coast Line 73 (Spring, 2012) 11 – 16

Nathan Crompton & Andrew Witt, "Recessional aesthetics," October 135 (Winter, 2011) 93 – 116

Talks

“Manfredo Tafuri’s Architecture and Utopia,” Fillip seminar series, Vancouver (November 18, 2017)

 “Notes on Jaleh Mansoor’s Marshall Plan Modernism,” Parallax Study/The New Romantics, Education Series organized by 221a, Vancouver (March 8, 2017)

“Autogestion and the ‘Second Left’ in French Politics, 1973–1982,” Historical Materialism 2016, Toronto conference (May 14, 2016)

 “Remaking Colonial Populism: Fantasy, Mourning, Financialization,” Vancouver Institute for Social Research (May 9, 2016)

 “One hundred years since the destruction of the Kitsilano Reserve,” Field House Talk Series, Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver (September 28, 2013)

“Necessity and uselessness: On art and labour,” Always Working panel organized by Access Gallery, Vancouver (June 23, 2012)

Awards

Simon Fraser University Graduate Fellowship, 2016

William & Jane Saywell Graduate Scholarship, 2016

Graduate International Research Travel Award, 2016

Simon Fraser University Graduate Fellowship, 2015

Dr. J. V. Christensen Graduate Scholarship, 2015

Teaching Assistantships

China Since 1800: HIST 255, Dr. Jeremy Brown (Spring 2016)

Research Assistantships

Research Assistant for Dr. Susan Boyd, School of Public Health and Social Policy, University of Victoria (Fall 2016)