"Pure psychic automatism" as Breton called this artistic practice was modified over the years by Breton himself and auto-critiqued in subsequent writings, the most extensive of which can be found in What Is Surrealism? edited by Franklin Rosemont. The Surrealists championed Art Naivete as well as non Western art from Africa, Asia, the Americas and Polynesia.
As for music, it wasn't until the 1950s that the Surrealists discovered jazz in the form of Be Bop, Hard Bop and the Cool jazz of the Miles Davis school, and continuing to promote free jazz in the 60s and after.
For a comprehensive overview of Surrealism as both an artistic and political practice this issue of Race Traitor will suffice: https://libcom.org/files/Race%20Traitor%2009%20(1998%20Summer).pdf
One tiny correction-- my dad's name was Abel MEEROPOL --- my original birth parents were Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and my original name was Michael Rosenberg (my brother and I decided to keep our adoptive name out of love and respect for our parents Abel and Anne . We always joked that if we wanted anonymity we could change our names back to Rosenberg!)
For those interested, there is a fabulous documentary about Strange Fruit that was made by filmmaker Joel Katz --- I highly recommend it. THis was the first time, I have seen the You Tube of the magnificent SALT tribute to Strange Fruit --- brilliantly done ---
THANK YOU so much, Comrade John --- My brother's and my wonderful father Abel was SO PROUD of that song --- it is wonderful to see it living on and on as a strong weapon in the struggle for justice.
On Wed, Dec 29, 2021 at 12:36 PM John A Imani <johnaimani3@...> wrote:
Among others, Nina Simone (in 1965) notably covered "Strange Fruit", the lyrics of which were authored by Abel Rosenberg, who with his wife, adopted the orphaned children of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. That I think showed great courage.
Looking at this I came across an artistic rendition of the backstory of Comrade Meeropol's lament. Part documentary/part hip hop rap. IMO, it is exactly what is missing, artistically, in this our movement, right now. Those of my age would remember fondly the inspiration that the objectification of our rails against the inhumanity of capitalism as reflected in and giving guidance to the music of our time.
GAVIN O’TOOLE looks at a graphic biography of Diego Rivera, who put his art in the service of revolutionary ideas
Diego Rivera paints The History of Mexico in the stairwell of the National Palace in Mexico CityPhoto: Drawings: Jose Luis Pescador
Diego Rivera Francisco de la Mora and Jose Luis Pescador Self Made Hero £16.99
THERE is no simple way to characterise Diego’s Rivera’s politics for, like Mexico’s revolution itself, these reflected complex and contradictory struggles.
Officially at least, in the context of the nascent post-revolutionary state, his most celebrated murals advanced a unifying, ethnically informed nationalism that gave new value to the oppressed, indigenous/mestizo masses on behalf of a victorious (mostly criollo) elite.
Revolutionary nationalism, as it became known, was a generous patron, and the “social realism” of the large, public murals of Mexico’s most influential 20th-century artist are how he is remembered.
Influenced originally by his father’s liberalism — which in Mexico spelt anarchism — Rivera himself, however, was an avowed communist whose fixation on Russia’s Bolshevik Revolution and the possibilities offered by the Soviet Union never faded.
Yet his art divided Soviet critics, helping to explain why Rivera left the USSR after visiting it feeling sad and resentful.
Trotsky, his guest, regarded his friend as a political dilettante prone to blunders, while writing of him that “in the field of painting, the October revolution has found her greatest interpreter.”
Their eventual disagreement was not helped by Rivera’s support for Juan Andreu Almazan, the wealthy fascist aspirant for the ruling party’s presidential nomination in 1940.
The most important contribution of Diego Rivera, a graphic biographical novel by Francisco de la Mora and Jose Luis Pescador, is that it draws attention to the most consistent thread running through the artist’s outlook, which helped him achieve universal recognition — the search for a way to reverse the bourgeois separation of art and life.
This explains why Rivera rejected cubism then applied his creativity to constructing a new consciousness among campesinos and workers. His greatest works are orations invoking their potential to lead humanity into a material world abundant with potential.
While Rivera expressed this through the local guise of Mexican modernism, that does not detract from his global influence, just one example of which can be found in the Marx Memorial Library in London.
De la Mora tells a skilful linear narrative tracing the exploits of this larger-than-life figure prone to ill-advised outbursts and energetic bursts of work, sex and debate fuelled by tequila.
Pescador carries this forward through animated, accessible images — a fitting and exciting way to tell a story that complements a long Mexican tradition of popular illustration.
At a deeper level, however, this book is a welcome reminder of the epic role art can still play in the service of revolutionary ideas.
Among others, Nina Simone (in 1965) notably covered "Strange Fruit", the lyrics of which were authored by Abel Rosenberg, who with his wife, adopted the orphaned children of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. That I think showed great courage.
Looking at this I came across an artistic rendition of the backstory of Comrade Meeropol's lament. Part documentary/part hip hop rap. IMO, it is exactly what is missing, artistically, in this our movement, right now. Those of my age would remember fondly the inspiration that the objectification of our rails against the inhumanity of capitalism as reflected in and giving guidance to the music of our time.
Cultural References from this song are listed here.
Gil Scott-Heron (born April 1, 1949) is an American poet, musician, and author known primarily for his late 1960s and early 1970s work as a spoken word soul performer and his collaborative work with musician Brian Jackson. His collaborative efforts with Jackson featured a musical fusion of jazz, blues and soul music, as well as lyrical content concerning social and political issues of the time, delivered in both rapping and melismatic vocal styles by Scott-Heron. The music of these albums, most notably Pieces of a Man and Winter in America in the early 1970s, influenced and helped engender later African-American music genres such as hip hop and neo soul. Scott-Heron’s recording work is often associated with black militant activism and has received much critical acclaim for one of his most well-known compositions “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”. On his influence, Allmusic wrote “Scott-Heron’s unique proto-rap style influenced a generation of hip-hop artists”. (From the official Gil Scott Heron Website)
Gil Scott Heron Portrait in lyrics, by David Hollier.
Dredged this up to try to recall my little article on the reach of surrealism into the US left but that turns out to be far from the best thing in it. Thus here's the link to the whole RACE TRAITOR issue
A NOTE TO RACE TRAITOR READERS In 1993 Race Traitor published an article by the Chicago Surrealist Group on the Los Angeles Rebellion of 1992.Three years ago we published a special issue called Surrealism: Revolution Against Whiteness, edited by Franklin Rosemont
of that group.Now we
From: marxmail@groups.io <marxmail@groups.io> on behalf of ratbagradio via groups.io <ratbagradio@...> Sent: Wednesday, December 29, 2021 9:19 AM To: marxmail@groups.io <marxmail@groups.io> Subject: Re: [marxmail] Surrealism
Just to clarify. 'Surrealism' initially was set up as a sect -- and DADA to some degree also. Like a club. Indeed an exclusive club in the case of French Surrealism which even expelled members.
What I was getting at was whatever the creative impetus was -- as it is easy to get distracted by the end product images and texts and try to force various artists together into a set format. It probably also stands out more as a counterpoint to socialist
realism or to various similar realist movements.
Essentially, what is important is, i reckon, the concept of
automatism which was celebrated as the primary means by Andre Breton. The craetive means. That rather than the imagery which can vary so much. It's improvisation without premeditation.
Where differences occur is in the type of inputs allowed.
In part this is why Surrealism was so easily akin to
Art Naivete -- because there the artist is not sullied by rigorous training, and in the case of folk suffering from psychosis, more rawly exposed to their inner life.
So it's easy to associate The Beats with Surrealism...or many aspects of modern cinema -- very signiicant , i think, in some of Hithcock's films or even in many Film Noirs. It's Expressionism plus...In music, even Kurt Weill has been called a surrealist composer.
I'd even consider Frank Zappa of that ilk...albeit more Dadaist.
A very interesting read on uses of the neo-liberal tool of Special Economic Zones. I have been doing a lot of research on them since Venezuela is now in its second wave of use under the Maduro government, which has not been working out well ( Venezuela even has a marine SEZ in development) This is from the dissertation and not the book which much more information ...Cort
Regimes of Dispossession: Special Economic Zones and the Political Economy of Land in India By Michael James Levien
Since the 1970s, India had produced some of the world’s most well-known and ground-breaking anti-displacement struggles—most famously the Narmada Bachao Andolan, the anti-dam movement originating in central India’s Narmada Valley (Baviskar 1995), and the Chipko movement against forest enclosures in the Himalayan regions of Garhwal and Kumaon (Guha 1989). However, the small handful of relatively isolated—and typically unsuccessful—struggles against the high-modernist projects of the Nehruvian state were, in the 2000s, joined by endemic resistance across India to projects of an increasingly private and less productive character. While the more high-profile struggles might number in the dozens, the national and regional press increasingly confronted readers with daily coverage of opposition to privately-built highways, real estate projects, factories, power plants, urban expansion and, above all, to Special Economic Zones. Most remarkably, farmers were not always losing.
On March 14, 2007, India’s simmering “land wars” exploded into the center of national attention. In an orchestrated early morning attack, police and party cadre of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M)) massacred fourteen farmers, raping and assaulting many more, in the villages of Nandigram, West Bengal. The farmers of Nandigram, mostly Muslims and lowercaste Hindus cultivating small parcels of rice-paddy, had been refusing to relinquish their land for a private Special Economic Zone promoted by the (Suharto-linked) Salim Group of Indonesia.
The announcement by the Communist-led (Left Front) West Bengal government that it planned to acquire 10,000 acres of land for the SEZ prompted farmers to dig up the entry-roads to their villages and to refuse access to government officials and CPI(M) party cadre. What followed was asymmetrical trench warfare, culminating with the fatal March assault.
Isn't that famous Chinese propagandist Vijay Prashad and so called commmunist, a long-time member of the CPI(M)?...hmmm
From: H-Net Staff via H-REVIEW <h-review@...> Date: December 29, 2021 at 10:44:49 AM EST To: h-review@... Cc: H-Net Staff <revhelp@...> Subject:H-Net Review [H-Nationalism]: Bare on Thomas, 'Kincraft: The Making of Black Evangelical Sociality' Reply-To: h-review@...
Todne Thomas. Kincraft: The Making of Black Evangelical Sociality. Durham Duke University Press, 2021. 264 pp. $26.95 (paper), ISBN 978-1-4780-1178-1.
Reviewed by Daniel Bare (Texas A&M University) Published on H-Nationalism (December, 2021) Commissioned by Douglas I. Bell
In this ethnographic study of black evangelical religious kinship, Todne Thomas, associate professor of African American religious studies at Harvard Divinity School, offers a welcome and compelling window into a faith community all too often obscured in the US racial-religious landscape. In contrast to wider scholarship that too often propounds "the monolithic construct of the 'Black Church'" (p. 13), Thomas insightfully traces how both white evangelical and Afro-diasporic influences shape the worldview of black evangelicals, with a particular eye toward their language and practice of spiritual relationality and "family." Thus, the book hinges on Thomas's examination of "kincraft"-a "collective relational ethos" driving black evangelical visions of family to stretch beyond popular "Christian constructs of nuclear kinship" and "the heteronormative family" (p. 5). Identifying this concept of kincraft as "an Afro-diasporic religious phenomenon" (p. 15), she illustrates how black evangelical sociality both reproduces and challenges elements of white mainstream US evangelicalism and evangelical family values.
Thomas's analysis centers on two Atlanta-area black evangelical congregations: Corinthian Bible Chapel (CBC), a majority African American church, and its "sister church," Dixon Bible Chapel (DBC), which is predominately Afro-Caribbean in membership. More than a year of participant-observation, as well as interviews and other archival research, undergirds her detailed and nuanced look at the life of these congregations. Dividing her six-chapter analysis into two equal parts, Thomas designs part 1 to examine the larger historical, ideological, and ethno-racial contexts for CBC and DBC members' expressions of kinship and evangelicalism, before turning in part 2 to a series of narrower ethnographic portraits illustrating the day-to-day practices of kincraft within these black evangelical communities.
Chapter 1 locates the CBC and DBC evangelicals' expansive views of spiritual kinship--their construction of one another as, for instance, "spiritual parents," "spiritual children," "brothers and sisters in Christ," and so on--as an intersection of three major worldviews: the ecclesiology of the Plymouth Brethren tradition from which these congregations trace their roots, the neo-evangelical moral emphasis on the normative nuclear and heteropatriarchal family, and Afro-diasporic practices of nonbiological kinship. While members of CBC and DBC reflect typical neo-evangelical attitudes regarding the moral value of the nuclear family and the perceived threat of secular culture, they also uphold the Brethren concept of universal Christian relatedness and Afro-diasporic notions of extended kinship to create a "relational ethos" that is "not easily compartmentalized," but which still functions to attend to "the material and political conditions shaped by racialization" (p. 54). This leads immediately into the subject of chapter 2, a fascinating historical analysis of the missionary work of CBC's and DBC's founder, Brethren evangelist T. Michael Flowers, an Afro-Bahamian whose mission took him from the Caribbean to Michigan and eventually to the American South. Flowers's Brethrenism continually pressed his ministry toward the idea of universal Christian family and led him to criticize the racialized religion he encountered in the South--both the segregated exclusivism of white churches as well as the avowedly black religious contexts that had arisen as a result of racism and racialization.
Such an outlook from the churches' founder sets the stage for chapter 3's consideration of the interplay between religious kinship and racial identity. While the members of CBC and DBC "consider shared spiritual kinship rather than ethnicity and race to be the most authentic basis for their group identity" (p. 83), nevertheless, racial experiences and dynamics still impact the expressions of spiritual kinship. For one thing, their twin experiences of racial exclusion from white evangelicals (on account of their race) and religious marginalization from other black Christians (on account of their perceived proximity to the whiteness of mainstream evangelicalism) provide black evangelicals with the common social experience of possessing a "doubly minoritized" identity (p. 92). But even so, the evangelicals of CBC and DBC also negotiate internal ethnic distinctions that affect congregational and interpersonal boundaries. Ethnic tensions between African American and Afro-Caribbean evangelicals, which Thomas ties in part to these different groups using different "grammars of blackness" (p. 97), evidently played a role in DBC splitting off as a separate congregation from CBC in 1991. Yet an attitude of institutional silence about ethnic differences, at least in the hearing of outsiders, also marked this as a family affair, thus representing a generative strategy of sociality and kinship. Even amid ethnic tensions, these black evangelicals understood their common religious identity to represent "an 'otherness' than can be chosen" (p. 104), in contrast to other social identities, and thus Thomas warns that scholars "must resist the uncritical application of ethno-religious and racio-religious lenses that try to define black evangelical communities straightforwardly as the product of ethnic and racial formations" (p. 84).
As Thomas transitions into part 2, the sharper focus on quotidian examples of kincraft in CBC and DBC life becomes immediately evident as a major strength. Chapter 4 traces connections between the community's biblicism and gendered ideals of brotherhood, drawing a constellation between biblical literalism, fraternalism, and gendered ideas of institutional authority. Bible studies and other Bible-based rituals function as markers of religious belonging, spaces of community formation and socialization, and sites that reify the expectation of male leadership and the shared fraternal labor of biblical interpretation. Thus the textual practices, within a framework of literalist interpretation, create "gendered zones of spiritual kinship" within the community. With this in mind, chapter 5 moves to consider the ways that churchwomen craft spiritual relationships and connect the church to the day-to-day functions of the domestic sphere. Suggesting that DBC sisters' domestic labors might be reconsidered in a sacramental framework, Thomas presents the churchwomen's daily practices of "walking together," visiting one another, cooking for one another, and other forms of hospitality as "the corporealization of community" (pp. 146-147). Moreover, churchwomen's practice of "experiential rituals" of "everyday religious kinship"--practices like creating networks of "prayer partnerships" or mentoring younger Christians through "spiritual motherhood"--illustrate the types of influence and spiritual authority available to black evangelical churchwomen, even in an ecclesiastical context that centers male pastoral leadership. Finally, chapter 6 explores the tensions at play as black evangelicals embrace the mainstream heteronormative nuclear family ideal amid a discursive landscape that often forwards the trope of the "dysfunctional black family" as a major element of American discourses about the proper boundaries of "the family" (p. 170). Thomas argues that black evangelicals mobilize spiritual kinship through "the creation of emergent networks of support" and "confessional intimacy" to navigate this landscape (p. 195); such an approach allows them to also interject critical visions of the US racial-religious landscape, as when T. Michael Flowers expressed that neo-evangelical focus on "the family" was "displacing a proper prioritization of God-focused piety, salvation, and evangelism" (p. 177).
Among the obvious strengths of Thomas's work are the significant scholarly interventions and the compelling intimate portraits generated by her methodological approach. Her foregrounding of black evangelicals as a group to be seriously studied rather than marginalized or ignored forwards considerations of diversity within the ranks of both evangelicalism and black Christianity--group identities that are often treated as largely monolithic. She makes this point deftly when considering the variety of political perspectives she observed within DBC and CBC during the 2008 presidential election cycle, noting that black evangelicals "cannot be neatly mapped onto the political axis of the Right, nor can black Christians in the US be located on the Left, or depicted as prioritizing a single set of 'racial' or 'religious' sentiments or positions in the election process" (p. 12). In addition to the needful focus on black evangelicals, within the realm of kinship studies Thomas's work also offers a self-conscious and powerful critique of the language of "fictive kinship." She argues that describing nonbiological familial ties as "fictive" marginalizes these kinship practices as non-normative and functionally "delegitimizes some of the social ties that have been vital to black social life" (p. 49). The book makes a strong case for the legitimacy of the ties of "spiritual kinship" as not merely "fictive," but as real, binding, and legitimate. These arguments are reinforced by the strength of Thomas's fieldwork, which entailed more than a year of interviews and participant-observation. Many of the most poignant, compelling, and convincing moments in the book come from the words or actions of the members of CBC and DBC themselves, mediated through Thomas's interviews or keen observations. As a result, these black evangelicals emerge as real people, three-dimensional figures, rather than stereotypes or caricatures.
At the same type, prospective readers must also consider that the book is heavily theorized, leading at times to pages that are dense with terminology that may not be easy or familiar to a popular, non-academic audience. On the one hand, this does help situate the work deeply within a wide array of scholarly discourses, but it also potentially limits the appeal to those without specialization or scholarly background. Moreover, Thomas's treatment of spiritual kinship and evangelicalism raises additional questions about the disjunctions and potential overlaps between black and white evangelicals. For instance, terminology like "brothers and sisters in Christ," "spiritual parents," "prayer partners," and so on can also be found in various white evangelical circles. While Thomas convincingly demonstrates the significance of these kinship ties in black evangelical life, including their significance in the context of a racialized US culture, it would be fascinating and helpful to evaluate the similarities and differences in how black and white evangelicals utilize and conceptualize these expressions of spiritual family. Perhaps this could be an avenue for future scholarship to build on Thomas's work.
Ultimately, _Kincraft_ represents a welcome and significant step forward in the study of both American evangelicalism and black Christianity. It brings a degree of nuance and complexity to issues that are often treated as straightforward, and encourages readers to reconsider their assumptions about the relationship between racial identity, religious identity, politics, culture, and conceptions of what it means to be "family." While best suited for an academic audience, the book's overarching conclusions and its compelling ethnographic portraits of black evangelicals represent points of interest for wider audiences as well.
Citation: Daniel Bare. Review of Thomas, Todne, _Kincraft: The Making of Black Evangelical Sociality_. H-Nationalism, H-Net Reviews. December, 2021. URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=56563
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
For the end of the year, Clearing the FOG speaks with economist Richard Wolff about the current state of United States capitalism. Wolff explains that the United States is experiencing the greatest crisis in its history – a severe economic crisis at the same time as a pandemic, as well as the climate crisis. This is unprecedented. Unlike the great depression in the last century, when the wealth divide shrank, inequality is worsening. On top of that, US empire is in decline. Wolff discusses the current state of inflation and supply chain disruption and the forces behind them. Instead of facing up to these realities and learning from the experiences of other countries, such as China, and even our own past, the ruling class is in denial and continues on the same path that created the current situation. Wolff talks about what we need to focus on going forward.
Just to clarify. 'Surrealism' initially was set up as a sect -- and DADA to some degree also. Like a club. Indeed an exclusive club in the case of French Surrealism which even expelled members. What I was getting at was whatever the creative impetus was -- as it is easy to get distracted by the end product images and texts and try to force various artists together into a set format. It probably also stands out more as a counterpoint to socialist realism or to various similar realist movements. Essentially, what is important is, i reckon, the concept of automatism which was celebrated as the primary means by Andre Breton. The craetive means. That rather than the imagery which can vary so much. It's improvisation without premeditation. Where differences occur is in the type of inputs allowed. In part this is why Surrealism was so easily akin to Art Naivete -- because there the artist is not sullied by rigorous training, and in the case of folk suffering from psychosis, more rawly exposed to their inner life. So it's easy to associate The Beats with Surrealism...or many aspects of modern cinema -- very signiicant , i think, in some of Hithcock's films or even in many Film Noirs. It's Expressionism plus...In music, even Kurt Weill has been called a surrealist composer. I'd even consider Frank Zappa of that ilk...albeit more Dadaist.
I am currently reading Love & Math by Edward Frenkel. There’s lots on math as such, but also his memoirs of growing up in the USSR and trying to make his way as a mathematician.
Below are two more books with personal memoirs. It’s been years since I read Soul to Soul. A very interesting story set partly in the US and partly in the USSR. A married couple, a black, man and a Jewish woman, left the US to live in the USSR in the 30’s. Their story is told by their granddaughter.
Having lived in RI all my life, this is actually very reminiscent of what happened when The People's Republic of Massachusetts had a special election following the death of Ted Kennedy, ultra-right winger Scott Brown won the seat for a term before being ousted by Elizabeth Warren. In my (admittedly cynical) view, I honestly believe the Democrats and the insurance industry breathed a sigh of relief when Kennedy died and was replaced by a Tea Partier. Kennedy had been promoting single-payer Medicare for All since the middle of the Dubya administration and, had he not been felled by cancer, he could have very likely been the pivotal figure to stop Obama from passing Mitt Romney's Heritage Foundation-minted healthcare plan, the Affordable Care Act. In the calculus of the Democrats, they need these right wing victories in order to prevent their progressive legislators and voters from getting anything done. Perhaps I am too jaded but I have been watching this circus for so long that it is becoming a predictable script.
Having lived in RI all my life, this is actually very reminiscent of what happened when The People's Republic of Massachusetts had a special election following the death of Ted Kennedy, ultra-right winger Scott Brown won the seat for a term before being ousted by Elizabeth Warren. In my (admittedly cynical) view, I honestly believe the Democrats and the insurance industry breathed a sigh of relief when Kennedy died and was replaced by a Tea Partier. Kennedy had been promoting single-payer Medicare for All since the middle of the Dubya administration and, had he not been felled by cancer, he could have very likely been the pivotal figure to stop Obama from passing Mitt Romney's Heritage Foundation-minted healthcare plan, the Affordable Care Act. In the calculus of the Democrats, they need these right wing victories in order to prevent their progressive legislators and voters from getting anything done. Perhaps I am too jaded but I have been watching this circus for so long that it is becoming a predictable script.
Liberal Zionism is collapsing into the Palestinian solidarity movement everywhere but Washington-- Beinart
Palestinian human rights activist Fadi Quran describes his detention by Homeland Security at the Dallas airport in October at the behest of the Israeli government as a supposed terrorist-- a US lieutenant told Quran his hands were tied to interrogate Quran after an ally filed the claim. While Lara Friedman of the Foundation for Middle East Peace says the Biden administration will spend no energy on Palestinian rights.
I think (again without much evidence just my gut) that too many Democrats stayed home because Trump was not on the ballot --
This is where the DEMS have to stop bringing a wiffle ball bat to a knife fight --- They should have exposed Youngkin's courting the Trumpist voters while keeping Trump at arms length --- If the DEMS want to really fight Trumpism they have to embrace the progressive wing of the party and emphasize turning out blacks, especially women --- IN 2022, it is essential that the anti-Trump forces tie every REpublican to Trump and Trumpism --- that is already energizing the extreme right wing and if the DEMS are more tied to their corporate interests than to their political futures then they will in the end be complicit in the transformation of our bastardized "democracy" into something much more authoritarian (I call it fascism -- but I understand it's not 1930s European style fascism for the reasons that have been mentioned time and time again on this list).
