Anonymous

Thomas DeGloma is associate professor of sociology at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York. He is the author of Seeing the Light: The Social Logic of Personal Discovery and coeditor of Interpreting Contentious Memory: Countermemories and Social Conflicts Over the Past and The Oxford Handbook of Symbolic Interactionism.

• Chapter 1. Anonymous ActsThe Social Dynamics of Anonymous ActsNaming, Namelessness, and Pseudo-NamesFreedom and Constraint in the Breach of Personal Identity The Exhibitionist and the Voyeur: Anonymity and Information Control Impersonal Agencies: Someone, Anyone, Everyone, and No One Culture and Meaning in the Performance of Anonymity Outline of the Book Chapter 2. Protective Anonymity Concealed Authorship and the Performance of Elena FerranteSocial Ethics of AnonymityAnonymous Altruism and CharityThe Screened Confession and the MasqueradeThe Impartiality of Impersonality and the Performance of Academic Evaluation Anonymous Communities and ForumsAnonymous Therapeutics and the Case of Alcoholics AnonymousComputer-Mediated Anonymous ForumsAnonymous Consumption and ExchangeExploiting Protective AnonymityChapter 3. Subversive AnonymitySubversive Art and Literature Masked Social Movements and Anonymous Rebellion The Religious, Theatrical, and Festive Roots of Masked Social Protest Masked Movements and Their Subversive World Orders The Anonymous Performances of Ku Klux Klan Terror Performing the Digital Guerrilla Insurgency: The Hacker Networks of Anonymous The Klan and Anonymous: Shared Characteristics of Subversive Anonymity FBI Counterintelligence and the Anonymous Subversion of Subversive Activity Chapter 4. The Anonymity of Social Systems Institutions and Systems as Cover Representations Wall Street and the Financial Crisis Corporate Personhood and Electoral Politics The NSA, Big Tech, and Electronic Surveillance Distance Killing and the Nation at WarThe Modern State as “Humane” Executioner Anonymous Labor and Systems of ProductionChapter 5. The Anonymity of Types and Categories Typification and Social PerformanceAnonymous Others in Situated Encounters The Anonymity of Class and Occupation Anonymous Sex Racial Typification, Law Enforcement, and Police Violence Cisgaender Typification and the Segregation of Public Restrooms Analytic Typifications Chapter 6. The Social Contradictions of Our Hidden Identities Unmasking Acts Acknowledgments Notes ReferencesIndex

“Anonymous does what sociology does best: to take a concept (in this case anonymity and pseudonymity) and explore it as a performative practice, a practice of sociality, and as linked to institutional structures. This book is a major addition to the sociological canon.”