Chris Sciabarra

In this essay, the authors analyze and interpret facsimiles of important original documents—published here for the first time—that are deeply relevant to the education of the young Ayn Rand at the University of Petrograd. This definitive reading of source material provides significant documentation of Rand’s courses, teachers, and textbooks—and what she might have learned from them. Other original source materials are revealed to advance further investigations of this key period in Rand’s life. Recent commentary on Rand’s education in Gary H. Merrill’s book, False Wisdom, is also considered.

Sciabarra responds to critics of the second edition of his book, Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical: Wendy McElroy, who reviewed the book for The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, and Shoshana Milgram and Gregory Salmieri, whose most recent criticisms appear in A Companion to Ayn Rand. Sciabarra defends both his historical and methodological theses, situating the book within a trilogy of works that define and defend “dialectical libertarianism,” which eschews utopian thinking and embraces a fully radical mode of inquiry. Sciabarra argues that dialectics—the art of context-keeping—figures prominently throughout Rand's literary and philosophical corpus.

This review of Free Market Revolution: How Ayn Rand’s Ideas Can End Big Government, by Yaron Brook and Don Watkins, lauds its virtues, while criticizing its tendencies toward a partial and one-sided understanding of the nature of the revolution it extols. In bracketing out a deeper analysis of the role of business in the creation of modern corporatist political economy and the debilitating effects of war and the national security state on markets at home and abroad, the authors ultimately fail to provide the more robust defense of freedom that Rand’s project implies.

Chris Matthew Sciabarra surveys discussions of Ayn Rand in the literature on Progressive rock music. He examines critically Edward Macan's Rocking the Classics: English Progressive Rock and the Counterculture, Paul Stump's The Music s All That Matters: A History of Progressive Rock, Carol Selby Price and Robert M. Price's Mystic Rhythms: The Philosophical Vision of Rush, Bill Martin's Listening to the Future: The Time of Progressive Rock, 1968-1978 (1998), and Durrell S. Bowman's essay on the rock band Rush in Kevin Holm-Hudson's Progressive Rock Reconsidered. He argues that the authors show varying degrees of understanding of Rand's brand of "redemptive politics."

This article surveys the exponential increase in Rand references in scholarly and popular sources to illustrate her cultural ascendancy as an iconic figure. Special attention is paid to Rand's impact on popular literature, television, cartoons, and illustrated media, including comics. Rand's own involvement in illustrated presentations of her ideas is explored, as is her influence on such comic artists as Steve Ditko, Frank Miller, and others. Nathaniel Branden's insights on the role of comics in projecting heroic values are also addressed

Since 1999, The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies has published over 250 essays, written by over 130 authors, working across scholarly disciplines and specialties. Starting in 2013 with Volume 13, Number 1, the JARS Foundation will begin a collaboration with Pennsylvania State University Press. PSUP will manage distribution and subscription fulfillment for print and online editions, while the Editorial Board will focus exclusively on journal content. Extensive digital dissemination and preservation of the journal is guaranteed through PSUP partnerships with JSTOR and Project Muse, and the dark archivingofall journal back issues at Stanford's CLOCKSS.

Chris Matthew Sciabarra responds to Roderick Long's review (Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, Spring 2001) of his Total Freedom: Toward a Dialectical Ubertarianism. Sciabarra argues that the dialectical stress upon context-keeping encompasses both analytic and synthetic activities. He defends his interpretations of Aristotle, Marx, Rothbard, and internal relations, and presents a radical dialectical libertarian alternative— a conception of freedom that is not merely political or economic but also psycho-epistemological, ethical, and cultural

In an examination of recently recovered materials from Russian archival sources, Sciabarra expands on his earlier studies of Rand's secondary and university education in Silver Age Russia (see the Fall 1999 Journal of Ayn Rand Studies essay, "The Rand Transcript"). He uncovers new details that are consistent with his historical theses, first presented in the 1995 book, Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical. He reexamines the case for a connection between Rand and N. O. Lossky, and proposes a possible parallel between Lossky and a character Rand called "Professor Leskov" in an early draft of the novel, We the Living

This thesis develops a radical critique of utopian thinking by examining the dialectical and dualistic methodological elements in Hayekian, Rothbardian, and Marxian theory. Utopianism is defined as an abstract, dualistic, ahistorical form of social thought. Its central failure is its inability to resolve the polarity between its progressive intentions and the emergent, unintended consequences of human interaction. It grants to men an illusory degree of cognitive efficacy in its construction of a new society. Radicalism, however, recognizes socio-historical conditions in any attempt to dialectically transform them. The Hayekian, Rothbardian and Marxian projects are appraised in their capacity to transcend the methodological pitfalls of utopianism. ;The comparison between Hayek, Rothbard and Marx is unusual precisely because each is a major figure in a distinctly different tradition of social analysis. Hayek exemplifies the "evolutionist" perspective which synthesizes insights from Burke, Popper, Polanyi and Scottish liberalism. Despite its inadequate analysis of the state and classes, and its dualistic distinction between "spontaneous" and "designed " order, Hayek's framework constitutes a highly dialectical critique of utopianism which has provocative parallels with the Marxian critique. ;Though Hayek and Rothbard share a belief in free market processes, Rothbard embraces a libertarian perspective which synthesizes the insights of Austrian economics, New Left historical revisionism, and the natural rights philosophies of John Locke and Ayn Rand. Rothbard shares many of the progressive goals of Marx, but his anarchist utopia is an outgrowth of an ahistorical, abstract, dualistic methodology. Rothbard's analysis is far more radical when it uncovers important dialectical relationships between the "coercive" state and the "voluntarist" market. ;Marx's dialectic offers a profoundly radical mode of inquiry. In contrast to both Hayek and Rothbard, Marx views the duality between state and market as historically specific to capitalism. Taking full cognizance of the evolutionist perspective, Marx proposes the immanent emergence of a communism that consists in the triumph of conscious human agency. Yet, Marx's project grants to man a cognitive efficacy which may be beyond his capacity. ;The thesis attempts to transcend the utopian limitations of Hayekian, Rothbardian, and Marxian theories through the development of a truly radical methodology

Sciabarra replies to the seven respondents to his Fall 2002 essay on Rand, Rush, and progressive rock music. He defends the view that Rand's dialectical orientation underlies a fundamentally radical perspective. Rand shared with the counterculture—especially its libertarian progressive rock representatives—a repudiation of authoritarianism, while embracing the "unknown ideal" of capitalism. Her ability to trace the interrelationships among personal, cultural, and structural factors in social analysis and her repudiation of false alternatives is at the heart of that ideal vision, which transcends left and right