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The Situationist International

The Situationist International

A Critical Handbook

Edited by Alastair Hemmens and Gabriel Zacarias

Up-to-date collection on the Situationist International, rethinking their relevance for today

From its foundation in 1957 to its self-dissolution in 1972, the Situationist International established itself as one of the most radical revolutionary organisations of the twentieth century.

This book brings together leading researchers on the SI to provide a comprehensive critical analysis of the group’s key concepts and contexts, from its relationship to earlier artistic avant-gardes, romanticism, Hegelianism, the history of the workers’ movement and May ’68 to the concepts and practices of ‘spectacle’, ‘constructed situations’, ‘everyday life’ and ‘détournement’. The volume also considers historically underexamined areas of the SI, including the situation of women in the group and its opposition to colonialism and racism.

With contributions from a broad range of thinkers including Anselm Jappe and Michael Löwy, this account takes a fresh look at the complex workings of a group that has come to define radical politics and culture in the post-war period.

Alastair Hemmens is Lecturer in French at Cardiff University School of Modern Languages.

Gabriel Zacarias is Professor in the Department of Art History at the University of Campinas, Brazil.

Introduction: The Situationist International in Critical Perspective - Alastair Hemmens and Gabriel Zacarias
PART I: KEY CONTEXTS
1. Debord’s Reading of Marx, Lukács and Wittfogel: A Look at the Archives - Anselm Jappe
2. The Unsurpassable: Dada, Surrealism and the Situationist International - Krzysztof Fijalkowski
3. Lettrism - Fabrice Flahutez
4. The Situationists, Hegel and Hegelian Marxism in France - Tom Bunyard
5. The Situationist International and the Rediscovery of the Revolutionary Workers’ Movement - Anthony Hayes
6. The Shadow Cast by the Situationist International on May ’68 - Anna Trespeuch-Berthelot
7. The Situationists’ Anti-colonialism: An Internationalist Perspective - Sophie Dolto and Nedjib Sidi Moussa
8. Gender and Sexuality in the Situationist International - Ruth Baumeister
9. Revolutionary Romanticism in the Twentieth Century: Surrealists and Situationists - Michael Löwy
PART II: KEY CONCEPTS
10. The Spectacle - Alastair Hemmens and Gabriel Zacarias
11. The Constructed Situation - Gabriel Zacarias
12. Unitary Urbanism: Three Psychogeographic Imaginaries - Craig Buckley
13. The Abolition of Alienated Labour - Alastair Hemmens
14. Détournement in Language and the Visual Arts - Gabriel Zacarias
15. The Situationists’ Revolution of Everyday Life - Michael E. Gardiner
16. Radical Subjectivity: Considered in its Psychological, Economic, Political, Sexual and, Notably, Philosophical Aspects - Alastair Hemmens
17. The ‘Realisation of Philosophy’ - Tom Bunyard
18. Recuperation - Patrick Marcolini
19. Internationalism - Bertrand Cochard
Bibliography
Notes on Contributors
Index

Published by Pluto Press in Apr 2020
Paperback ISBN: 9780745338897
eBook ISBN: 9781786805454

135mm x 215mm