Situationist International Anthology - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0939682044 ISBN 13: 9780939682041

Publisher: Bureau of Public Secrets, 2006

Synopsis

Literary Nonfiction. Politics. Critical Theory. Art. In 1957 a few European avant-garde groups came together to form the Situationist International. Picking up where the dadaists and surrealists had left off, the situationists challenged people's passive conditioning with carefully calculated scandals and the playful tactic of detournement. Seeking a more extreme social revolution than was dreamed of by most leftists, they developed an incisive critique of the global spectacle-commodity system and of its "Communist" pseudo-opposition, and their new methods of agitation helped trigger the May 1968 revolt in France. Since then—although the SI itself was dissolved in 1972—situationist theories and tactics have continued to inspire radical currents all over the world. The SITUATIONIST INTERNATIONAL ANTHOLOGY, generally recognized as the most comprehensive and accurately translated collection of situationist writings in English, presents a rich variety of articles, leaflets, graffiti and internal documents, ranging from early experiments in "psychogeography" to lucid analyses of the Watts riot, the Vietnam War, the Prague Spring, the Chinese Cultural Revolution and other crises and upheavals of the sixties. For this new edition the translations have all been fine-tuned and over 100 pages of new material have been added.

About this title

Language Notes:

Text: English, French (translation)

Review:

"The accused have never denied the charge of misappropriating the funds of the Strasbourg Student Union. Indeed, they openly admit to having made the union pay nearly 5000 francs for the printing of 10,000 pamphlets, not to mention the cost of other literature inspired by the 'Situationist International.' These publications express aims and ideas which, to put it mildly, have nothing to do with the purpose of a student union. . . . Rejecting all morality and legal restraint, making sweeping denunciations of their fellow students, their professors, God, religion, the clergy, and the governments and political and social systems of the entire world, these cynics do not hesitate to advocate theft, the destruction of scholarship, the abolition of work, total subversion, and a permanent worldwide proletarian revolution with 'unrestrained pleasure' as its only goal." -- Judge Llabador, Strasbourg District Court 1966

About this edition

• Publisher: Bureau of Public Secrets
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0939682044
• ISBN 13: 9780939682041
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 532
• Editor: Ken Knabb