Jules-François Dupuis (Raoul Vaneigem): A Cavalier History of Surrealism (1977–) [DE, EN, RU]

“A down-and-dirty survey of the Surrealist movement written under a pseudonym in 1970 by leading Situationist theorist Raoul Vaneigem.

Intended for a high school readership, and dashed off in two weeks, Vaneigem’s sketch bars no holds: disrespectful in the extreme, blistering on Surrealism’s artistic and political aporias, and packed with telling quotations, it also gives respect where respect is due.

Locating Surrealism’s “original sin” in its ideological nature, Vaneigem clearly identifies the “radioactive fragment of radicalism” that the movement never managed completely to shed. If you want an unequivocal answer to the question—”What was living and what was dead in Surrealism?”—look no further.

And for readers interested in the Situationists, this short book sheds a great deal of light on their attitudes, negative and positive, towards their Surrealist predecessors.”

First published in French as Histoire désinvolte du surréalisme, Paul Vermont, Nonville, 1977.

English edition
Translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith
Publisher AK Press, 1999
ISBN 1873176945, 9781873176948
131 pages
via ZineLibrary.info, HT esco_bar

Review: Frédéric Thomas (Dissidences, 2013, FR)

Publisher (EN)
Publisher (FR, 2013)
Publisher (RU, 2014)

German: PDF (trans. Pierre Gallissaires and Hanna Mittelstädt, 1979, 160 MB, added on 2020-8-28)
English: PDF, HTML, PDF (trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith, 1999)
Russian: PDF (trans. Maria Lepilova, 2014, added on 2020-8-28)

John Zorn (ed.): Arcana V: Musicians on Music, Magic & Mysticism (2010)

“For centuries musicians have tapped into mysticism, magic and alchemy, embracing ritual, spell, incantation and prayer, and experimenting with esoteric approaches to harmony, pitch and vibration. In recent decades, avant-garde musicians have rediscovered these overlaps, as occultism has reinvented itself–through Buddhist and other Asian influences, Thelema and Chaos Magic–to accommodate cultural strains from psychedelica through Punk and Industrial music. This special edition of John Zorn’s much acclaimed Arcana series focuses on the magical aspects of the act of making music. Neither historical overview nor musicological study, it illuminates the sympathies between music and the esoteric tradition with the help of today’s finest experimental musicians and occultists. Among these are William Breeze, Gavin Bryars, Alvin Curran, Fred Frith, Sharon Gannon, Larkin Grimm, William Kiesel, Yusef Lateef, Frank London, Meredith Monk, Mark Nauseef, Pauline Oliveros, Genesis P-Orridge, Terry Riley, David Toop, Greg Wall, Peter Lamborn Wilson and Z’ev.”

Publisher Hips Road/Tzadik, 2010
ISBN 0978833791, 9780978833794
459 pages
via joandleefe

Review: Geeta Dayal (Rhizome, 2010).

Publisher

PDF (removed on 2013-12-28 upon request of the distributor)

Frances A. Yates: The Art of Memory (1966–) [EN, ES]

In this classic study of how people learned to retain vast stores of knowledge before the invention of the printed page, Frances A. Yates traces the art of memory from its treatment by Greek orators, through its Gothic transformations in the Middle Ages, to the occult forms it took in the Renaissance, and finally to its use in the seventeenth century. This book, the first to relate the art of memory to the history of culture as a whole, was revolutionary when it first appeared and continues to mesmerize readers with its lucid and revelatory insights.

Publisher Ark Paperbacks, an imprint of Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1966
ISBN 074480020X
400 pages

Frances Yates and the Mnemonic Works of Giordano Bruno (François Quiviger, Warburg Institute, includes Yates’ reconstruction of Bruno’s memory wheel from De Umbris Idearum)

The Art of Memory (English, 1966/1999)
El arte de la memoria (Spanish, trans. Ignacio Gómez de Liaño, 2005)