Biography
Dr. Kirwin Shaffer is a professor of Latin American studies. He holds a Ph.D. in Latin American History from the University of Kansas and has conducted research across the Caribbean Basin. He teaches courses on Latin American and Caribbean history, Latin American studies, global terrorism, tyranny and freedom, globalization, global cinema, and U.S. history and politics.
Shaffer is a recent Fellow with the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies of the Humanities and Social Sciences in Amsterdam. He has been recognized numerous times for his teaching, including being chosen as a Penn State Alumni Association Teaching Fellow. He has taken students to the United Nations and other international agencies in Switzerland, historic sites in Mexico City, and the United Nations in New York.
When not teaching, Shaffer conducts research on transnational anarchism in the Americas. He has published five books on the themes of anarchism and resistance politics in Latin America and the Caribbean. His sixth book on Spanish and Latin American anarchist militants, edited with two scholars in Spain, will be published in 2026. Shaffer is currently writing a seventh book that explores a Latin American anarchist approach to global history titled The World through Anarchist Eyes: Latin American Anarchism and Global History and exploring a project on food and anarchism in Latin American history (tentatively titled Feeding Rebellion, Cooking Up a Revolution: The Cultural Politics of Anarchist Food Workers and Activists in Latin America, 1900 - 1960).
Research Interests
Dr. Shaffer's research interests include Caribbean history and Latin American anarchism.
Publications
Books
Anarchist Militants: Biographies, Historiographies, and Transnational Lives. Amparo Sánchez Cobos, Kirwin R. Shaffer, and María Migueláñez, eds. Ithaca: PM Press, forthcoming 2026.
A Transnational History of the Modern Caribbean: Popular Resistance across Borders. Palgrave Macmillan/Springer, 2022.
Anarchists of the Caribbean: Countercultural Politics and Transnational Networks in the Age of US Expansion. Cambridge University Press, 2020.
Black Flag Boricuas: Anarchism, Antiauthoritarianism, and the Left in Puerto Rico, 1897-1921. University of Illinois Press, 2013 / 2020.
Anarchist Cuba: Countercultural Politics in the Early Twentieth Century. PM Press, 2019.
In Defiance of Boundaries: Anarchism in Latin American History. Co-edited with Geoffroy de Laforcade. University Press of Florida, 2015 / 2017.
Anarchism and Countercultural Politics in Early Twentieth-Century Cuba. University Press of Florida, 2005.
Book Chapters
“¡Viva la anarquía! ¿Arriba los bolcheviques? Anarquistas caribeños, la Revolución Rusa y la Amenaza Roja, 1917-1924,” Santiago Aránguiz Pinto, ed. La Revolución Bolchevique, el régimen soviético y el anarquismo en América Latina (1917-1955), Santiago, Chile: RIL Editores, 2025: 89-132.
“Anarchist Media, Cuba’s War for Independence, and the Forging of a Radical Transnational Latinidad” for Cambridge Latinx Literature in Transition. Kenya Dworkin and Elisa Sampson Vera Tudela, eds., Cambridge University Press, 2025: 252-270.
“Libertarian Entanglements in the Caribbean: Transnational Transfers, Geopolitical Imaginaries, and Anarchist Media in Havana” in Politics of Entanglements in the Americas: Transnational Flows and Local Perspectives Ed. Lukas Rehm, Jochen Kemner, Olaf Kaltmeier. Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2017: 171-186.
“Introduction: The Hidden Story Line of Anarchism in Latin America” (co-written with Geoffroy de Laforcade) in In Defiance of Boundaries: Anarchism in Latin American History. Geoffroy de Laforcade and Kirwin Shaffer (eds). University Press of Florida, 2015/2017: 1-22.
“Rebel Soul: Cultural Politics and Cuban Anarchism, 1890s-1920s” in In Defiance of Boundaries: Anarchism in Latin American History. Geoffroy de Laforcade and Kirwin Shaffer, eds. University Press of Florida, 2015/2017: 142-161.
“Panama Red: Anarchist Politics and Transnational Networks in the Panama Canal Zone, 1904-1913” in In Defiance of Boundaries: Anarchism in Latin American History. Geoffroy de Laforcade and Kirwin Shaffer, eds. University Press of Florida, 2015/2017: 48-71.
“An Anarchist Crucible: International Anarchist Migrants and Their Cuban Experiences, 1890s-1920s” in The Handbook on Cuban History, Literature, and the Arts: New Perspectives on Historical and Contemporary Social Change. Maricio A. Font and Araceli Tinajero, eds. Paradigm Press, 2014: 79-91.
“Latin Lines and Dots: Transnational Anarchism, Regional Networks, and Italian Libertarians in Latin America,” Zapruder World: A Transnational Journal for the History of Social Conflict Volume 1 (June 2014): online at http://www.brianjgriffith.com/ZWdev/content/kirwin-r-shaffer-latin-line…
"Tropical Libertarians: Anarchist Networks in the Circum-Caribbean, 1900-1915” in Trajectories of Freedom: Caribbean Societies, 1907-2007. Alan Cobley and Victor C. Simpson, eds. The University of the West Indies Press, 2013: 26-41.
Edited Journal Volumes
Guest Editor, Anarchist Developments in Cultural Studies, Volume 2024, Number 2, 2024 and author of the Introduction: “Anarchist Antiauthoritarian and Antifascist Cultural Politics in Europe and the United States, 1890s-2020s,” 9-22.
Guest Editor, Anarchist Developments in Cultural Studies, Volume 2023, Number 2, 2023 and author of the Introduction: “Anarchist Cultural Politics in Latin America: An Introduction,” 9-31.
Education
Ph.D., Latin American History, University of Kansas, 1998