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Angela Nagle
Nagle in 2017
Born	1984 (age 39–40) Texas, U.S.
Alma mater	Dublin City University
Genre	Non-Fiction
Notable works	Kill All Normies

Angela Nagle (born 1984) is an academic and non-fiction writer who has written for The Baffler, Jacobin, and others. She is the author of the book Kill All Normies, published by Zero Books in 2017, which discusses the role of the internet in the rise of the alt-right and incel movements. Nagle describes the alt-right as a dangerous movement, but she also criticizes aspects of the left that have, she says, contributed to the alt-right's rise. Since 2021, she has been publishing articles on a wide range of personal, political and cultural topics via the online publishing platform Substack.

Life

Nagle was born in Houston, Texas of Irish parents, then grew up in Dublin, Ireland. She graduated from Dublin City University with a PhD for a thesis titled 'An investigation into contemporary online anti-feminist movements'.

The alt-right and the culture wars

Nagle's book Kill All Normies: Online Culture Wars from 4chan and Tumblr to Trump and the Alt-Right discusses the role of the internet in the rise of the alt-right and incel movements. She describes the alt-right as a counterculture of young men who reject taboos on race and gender. While many young people in the alt-right started simply as trolls, she says the movement has developed into something much more serious. While she supports identity politics in general, she says that some on the left have contributed to the rise of the alt-right with their "performative wokeness", which often involves censoring people and ganging up on them. She has also expressed concerns about "the woke cultural revolution sweeping Irish society".

The book received many positive reviews, and Nagle became a welcome commentator on the topic of online culture wars. Columnist Ross Douthat of The New York Times praised Nagle's "portrait of the online cultural war". Another New York Times contributor, Michelle Goldberg, wrote that Kill All Normies had "captured this phenomenon". Novelist George Saunders listed Kill All Normies as one of his ten favorite books. A highly negative review was written for the anarcho-communist Libcom.org, which took issue with Nagle's supposed bolstering of right-wing narratives around trans issues and trigger warnings. Fusion Networks' TV documentary Trumpland: Kill All Normies directed by Leighton Woodhouse was based on the Nagle's book.

In May 2018, The Daily Beast and Libcom.org accused Nagle of "sloppy sourcing", including not citing sources and drawing heavily from Misplaced Pages and RationalWiki. Nagle and her publisher both issued detailed statements rebutting the accusations, and The Daily Beast adjusted some of the article's wording.

Open borders

In November 2018, American Affairs published Nagle's essay ”The Left Case against Open Borders.”, in which she voiced opposition to immigration from a left-wing perspective.

The Nation responded with a critical essay, calling it "just one of the volley of pieces by liberals and people to the left of center who have derided the out-of-touch utopianism of open-borders advocates." Author Atossa Araxia Abrahamian identifies former Harvard president Larry Summers, author John Judis, and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton as others promoting similar views. A review in Libcom.org considered Nagle's ideology to be a form of "ethno-nationalism built on cross-class collaboration and the repression of self-organized working class struggle against the ruling class."

Writing in The Independent, Slovenian philosopher and academic Slavoj Žižek commented on the “ferocious attacks on Angela Nagle for her outstanding essay." American cultural theorist and author Catherine Liu defended Nagle, considering her to be "one of the brightest lights in a new generation of left writers and thinkers who have declared their independence from intellectual conformity"

Bibliography

• Nagle, Angela (2017). Kill All Normies: Online Culture Wars From 4Chan And Tumblr To Trump And The Alt-Right. Alresford, UK: Zero Books. ISBN 978-1-78-535543-1.
• Nagle, Angela (2013). "Not Quite Kicking Off Everywhere: Feminist Notes on Digital Liberation" (PDF). Internet Research, Theory, and Practice: Perspectives from Ireland: 157–175 – via ERIC Clearinghouse.

References

1. ^ "Angela Nagle". www.transcript-verlag.de. Retrieved 2019-02-05.
2. ^ Nagle, Angela (2017-08-12). "The roots of the alt-right". Vox (Interview). Interviewed by Illing, Sean. Archived from the original on 2021-07-09. Retrieved 2018-03-14.
3. "Angela Nagle". The Baffler. 2016-03-05. Retrieved 2018-03-14.
4. "Angela Nagle". www.jacobinmag.com. Retrieved 2018-03-14.
5. ^ Gais, Hannah (2017-07-06). "What the Alt-Right Learned from the Left". The New Republic. Archived from the original on 2021-07-09. Retrieved 2018-03-14.
6. Liu, Catherine (2017-07-30). "Dialectic of Dark Enlightenments: The Alt-Right's Place in the Culture Industry". Los Angeles Review of Books. Archived from the original on 2017-07-31. Retrieved 2018-03-14.
7. ^ MacDougald, Park (2017-07-13). "The Unflattering Familiarity of the Alt-Right in Angela Nagle's Kill All Normies". New York. Archived from the original on 2021-07-09. Retrieved 2018-11-28.
8. Angela, Nagle (November 2015). "An investigation into contemporary online anti-feminist movements". doras.dcu.ie. Archived from the original on 2018-03-09. Retrieved 2018-03-14.
9. Nagle, Angela (2020-07-12). "Will Ireland survive the Woke Wave?". UnHerd. Retrieved 2021-12-14.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
10. ^ Davis, Charles (2018-05-20). "Sloppy Sourcing Plagues 'Kill All Normies' Alt-Right Book". The Daily Beast. Retrieved 2018-11-28.
11. "Opinion | Columnists' Book Club". Retrieved 2018-11-28.
12. "Opinion | How the Online Left Fuels the Right". Retrieved 2018-11-28.
13. Saunders, George. "George Saunders's 10 Favorite Books". Vulture. Retrieved 2018-11-28.
14. "5 big problems with Kill All Normies". libcom.org. 2018-05-24. Retrieved 2021-12-15.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
15. "Trumpland: Kill All Normies". IMDb. Retrieved 2020-12-01.
16. Harman, Mike (2013-05-03). "Angela Nagle's Plagiarise Any Nonsense". libcom.org. Retrieved 2021-12-15.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
17. "The Left Case against Open Borders". 2018-11-20.
18. ^ Abrahamian, Atossa Araxia (2018-11-28). "There Is No Left Case for Nationalism". The Nation. ISSN 0027-8378. Retrieved 2019-01-10.
19. Motopu, Comrade (July 15, 2020). "Ethno-Nagleism is the Idpol of fools". libcom.org. Retrieved 2021-12-14.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
20. "The yellow vest protesters revolting against centrism mean well – but their left wing populism won't change French politics". 2018-12-17.
21. Liu, Catherine (July 30, 2017). "Dialectic of Dark Enlightenments: The Alt-Right's Place in the Culture Industry". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved 2021-12-14.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)

Further reading

• "A Q&A with 'Kill All Normies' author Angela Nagle". The Irish Times. Retrieved 2018-03-14.
• Nagle's blog

• Living people
• 21st-century non-fiction writers
• Irish non-fiction writers
• Irish women non-fiction writers
• 21st-century Irish writers
• 21st-century Irish women writers
• People associated with Dublin City University
• 1984 births