Here Are The Young Men is a spew of teenage crisis that Rob Doyle gloriously shapes into a high/comedown sprawl, sweet and agonising in equal measure. Doyle introduces us to Matthew and his mates Cocker, Rez, Jen and Kearney, who, having just finished their Leaving Cert, lurch into the summer of 2003 Celtic Tiger Dublin, riding a violent post-punk wave of excessive drug consumption and crippling youthful cynicism.
“Like, it's great music, but I wish we could hear real music now, instead... [read more]
Heather McRobie, Literary Freedom: A Cultural Right to Literature
reviewed by Katie Da Cunha Lewin
As a resident of Brighton for two years, I had the misfortune to witness the infamous March for England, an ostensibly celebratory event for St. George’s Day organised by the English Defence League (EDL), which was in actuality an excuse for loud racism, left-baiting and violence. As a staunch despiser of the group I, along with most of Brighton, attended the counter-demonstration and witnessed the small collection of (mostly) bald men make their way through the main streets, shouting and... [read more]
Antigoni Memou, Photography and Social Movements: From the Globalisation of the Movement (1968) to the Movement Against Globalisation (2001)
reviewed by Tom Snow
Antigoni Memou’s Photography and Social Movements is published at a crucial moment for thinking the relationship between image production and protest activity. The book focuses on three main events: the general strikes in Paris during May 1968; the Zapatistas uprisings and subsequent declaration of independence in Chiapas Mexico since 1994; and the protests in response the 27th G8 summit in Genoa Italy in 2001. As Memou recalls, Genoa 2001 prefaced a long decade of diverse political uprisings... [read more]
Werner Bonefeld, Critical Theory and the Critique of Political Economy: On Subversion and Negative Reason
reviewed by John P. Merrick
Since the financial crisis of 2008 there has been a reinvigoration of discussions around the importance of Marx and Marxism for any understanding of the workings of capitalism. This reassessment has occurred across the social sciences, but perhaps most importantly within the field of economics, where there is a move by many to see this once-maligned figure return to the canon. However, central to Werner Bonefeld's new book, Critical Theory and the Critique of Political Economy, is the seemingly... [read more]
Robin Mackay & Armen Avanessian (eds.), #Accelerate: The Accelerationist Reader
reviewed by Alex Andrews
Pre-hashtagged and pre-branded, Alex Williams and Nick Srnicek’s ‘#Accelerate: Manifesto for an Accelerationist Politics’ (MAP) dropped onto an unsuspecting internet last year, occasioning commentary, angry denunciations, satire and some acclaim. The central gambit was that in contrast to ‘a folk politics of localism, direct action, and relentless horizontalism’ – the obvious immediate target being 2008’s Occupy protests in the United Kingdom – the political left must embrace... [read more]
Giorgio Agamben, trans. Leland de la Durantaye, The Unspeakable Girl: The Myth and Mystery of Kore
reviewed by Lara Mancinelli
In 1999, Tiqqun, a French collective of philosophers and activists, published Preliminary Materials for a Theory of the Young-Girl, a disjointed text whose grating, repetitious ‘trash theory’ attempts to reveal the consumerist body. This is the body of ‘the Young-Girl’. An ageless, genderless subject, the capitalist system, Empire, constructs her as a ‘model citizen’. Moving within the ‘oblivion of Being’, the Young-Girl is the ‘void’ that ‘THEY maintain in order to hide... [read more]
Sarah Lowndes, All Art is Political: Writings on Performative Art
reviewed by Chris Law
‘It’s been more difficult than pleasurable, actually, being so retrospective […] A complete retrospective would include everything from the beginning to the end. As I’m not dead, that can’t happen to me, and my Tate exhibition is really just a large survey of some selected works.’ Susan Hiller’s comments about her survey exhibition at Tate Britain in 2011 come at the very end of an interview conducted in the same year by Sarah Lowndes, which constitutes the fourth of five chapters... [read more]
Matt Ratto and Megan Boler (eds.), DIY Citizenship: Critical Making and Social Media
reviewed by Danielle Child
DIY Citizenship: Critical Making and Social Media is a collection of 28 short essays that address the multi-faceted ideas of making, design, the digital, media, citizenship and participation (both on and offline), through a critical lens. The volume was conceived after the editors convened a conference of the same name held in Toronto in November 2010. In order to help the reader navigate a diverse range of approaches and topics, the book is divided into four sections: DIY and Activism: New... [read more]
Lisa Appignanesi, Trials of Passion: Crimes in the Name of Love and Madness
reviewed by Polly Bull
In 1871, Christiana Edmunds laced chocolate creams with strychnine and distributed them throughout her hometown of Brighton, hoping to poison her lover’s wife without attracting suspicion. When a young boy died from eating the chocolates, they were traced back to Edmunds and she was charged with his murder.
Edmunds pleaded not guilty, with a defence of insanity. Acquittal on this basis largely rested on proof of her inability, at the time of the crime, to distinguish right from wrong. In... [read more]
Patrick Cockburn, The Jihadis Return: ISIS and the New Sunni Uprising
reviewed by Daniel Whittall
‘The deteriorating situation in Iraq and Syria may now have gone too far to re-create genuinely unitary states.’ So writes Patrick Cockburn towards the end of The Jihadis Return, a remarkably timely intervention that explores the recent history and present dynamics of what Cockburn terms ‘al’Qa’ida type movements’, foremost amongst which is the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS). It is a gloomy prognosis, one which represents the final nail in the already-rotten coffin of... [read more]
