Daniel Fairfax: The Red Years of Cahiers du cinéma, 1968-1973, 2 vols. (2021)

2 December 2021, dusan

“The uprising which shook France in May 1968 also had a revolutionary effect on the country’s most prominent film journal. Under editors Jean-Louis Comolli and Jean Narboni, Cahiers du cinéma embarked on a militant turn that would govern the journal’s work over the next five years. Inspired by Marxist and psychoanalytic theory, the “red years” of Cahiers du cinéma produced a theoretical outpouring that was seminal for the formation of film studies and is still of vital relevance for the contemporary audiovisual landscape.

The Red Years of Cahiers du Cinéma (1968-1973) gives an overview of this period in the journal’s history and its aftermath, combining biographical accounts of the critics who wrote for Cahiers in the post 1968 period with theoretical explorations of their key texts.”

Publisher Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam, 2021
Film Culture in Transition series
ISBN 9789048543908 (vol. 1), 9789048543915 (vol. 2)
427 & 455 pages
HT Quentin Darcq

Publisher (vol. 1)
Publisher (vol. 2)
OAPEN (vol. 1)
OAPEN (vol. 2)
WorldCat (vol. 1)
WorldCat (vol. 2)

Volume I, Ideology and Politics: PDF, PDF
Volume II, Aesthetics and Ontology: PDF, PDF

See also: Cahiers du Cinéma, vols. 1–4.

Dejan Sretenović: Red Horizon: The Avant-Garde and Revolution in Yugoslavia, 1919–1932 (2021)

12 August 2021, dusan

Red Horizon is the first study to focus on the Yugoslav avant-gardes from the perspective of the history of left-wing political ideas. Bearing in mind that the Yugoslav avant-gardes were politically oriented towards the radical left, and considered the aesthetic revolution an integral part of the social revolution, the book explores the modes of manifestation of the ideas of Marxism and anarchism in the programmes and activities of the avant-gardes, ranging from Expressionism, through Zenitism, Dada, Hipnism, Constructivism to Surrealism. The policies of the Yugoslav avant-gardes are considered in the context of European avant-garde currents and ideational struggles on the left cultural front, as well as in the light of the development of Marxist aesthetics and the attitudes organised Communism assumed towards modern art. The book is structured in the form of a historical-theoretical narrative, starting from the interpretation of the avant-garde and Communism as the two great epic narratives of the 20th century, and telling of the rebellions, dreams, conflicts, victories and defeats of those who wanted to radically change the society and art of their epoch.”

Publisher kuda.org, Novi Sad, 2021
Red Publications series
Translated by Katarina Radović
ISBN 9788688567244
228 pages

Publisher

PDF (4 MB)

Cedric J. Robinson: Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition (1983–)

8 February 2021, dusan

“In this ambitious work, Cedric Robinson demonstrates that efforts to understand black people’s history of resistance solely through the prism of Marxist theory are incomplete and inaccurate. Marxist analyses tend to presuppose European models of history and experience that downplay the significance of black people and black communities as agents of change and resistance. Black radicalism must be linked to the traditions of Africa and the unique experiences of blacks on western continents, Robinson argues, and any analyses of African American history need to acknowledge this.

To illustrate his argument, Robinson traces the emergence of Marxist ideology in Europe, the resistance by blacks in historically oppressive environments, and the influence of both of these traditions on such important twentieth-century black radical thinkers as W. E. B. Du Bois, C. L. R. James, and Richard Wright.”

Foreword by Robin D. G. Kelley
Publisher Zed Press, London, 1983
487 pages

Second edition
New Preface by the author
Publisher University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, NC, 2000
ISBN 0807848298, 9780807848296
xxxiii+436 pages

Third edition, Revised and updated
New Preface by Damien Sojoyner and Tiffany Willoughby-Herard
Publisher University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, NC, 2021
ISBN 1469663724, 9781469663722
liii+436 pages

Commentary: Robin D. G. Kelley (Boston Review, 2017), .

Reviews: Cornel West (Monthly Review, 1988), Black Perspectives roundtable (2016): Paul Hébert, Joshua Guild, Jennifer L. Morgan, Carole Boyce Davies, Austin McCoy, Robyn C. Spencer; Bedour Alagraa (CLR James Journal, 2018), Austin Smidt (PPE Sydney, 2020), Minkah Makalani (Boston Review, 2021).

Publisher
WorldCat (2nd ed.)

PDF (2nd ed., 2000, 14 MB)
PDF (3rd ed., 2020, 4 MB)

See also Robinson’s An Anthropology of Marxism (2001).