The Libertarian Left:
Free-Market Anti-Capitalism, The Unknown Ideal
Sheldon Richman

Ron Paul’s 2008 presidential campaign introduced many people to the word
“libertarian.” Since Paul is a Republican and Republicans, like
libertarians, use the rhetoric of free markets and private enterprise,
people naturally assume that libertarians are some kind of quirky
offshoot of the American right wing. To be sure, some libertarian
positions fit uneasily with mainstream conservatism—complete drug
decriminalization, legal same-sex marriage, and the critique of the
national-security state alienate many on the right from libertarianism.

"Surrealism in the Arab World"
Maroin Dib, Abdul Kadar El-Janabi, Faroq El Juridy, Fadil Abas Hadi, Farid Lariby & Ghazi Younis

The current resurgence of surrealism in the Arab world is a revolutionary development of the greatest significance, demonstrating once more that the strategy of the unfettered imagination is always and necessarily global.

We publish here in English translation a manifesto in which our Arab comrades express their unequivocal interventionist orientation, sharply defined against their specific political and cultural background.

"Surrealism, Politics and Culture"
Neil Matheson

The celebrated photographs of André Breton, Diego Rivera and Léon Trotsky posing together in Mexico in 1938, at the time of their joint manifesto Pour un Art révolutionnaire indépendant, are usually seen as emblematic of a certain convergence of culture and revolutionary politics – and yet, paradoxically, most accounts of Surrealism’s engagement with politics pose the tide of revolutionary fervour as already receding by 1935, while 1938 has also been viewed as the year that Surrealism made the volte-face ‘from the street to the salon.’ A re-appraisal of Surrealism’s troubled relationship with political activism and organised politics has been long overdue, and therefore a collection which sets out not only to analyse in depth some of the key themes and crucial moments in that engagement, but also to rethink the condition of ‘the political’ itself in its relationship with culture, is to be welcomed.

"The Nile of Surrealism: Surrealist Activities in Egypt"
Abdel Kader El-Janabi

[Part of this paper was read on the 26th September 1987 at the conference: The Triumph of Pessimism, held at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver.]

I. In his first letter to Georges Henein, sent on April 8 1936, André Breton had this to say: The imp of the perverse, as he deigns to appear to me, seems to have one wing here, the other in Egypt (1). Here André Breton foretold in a sense the course the surrealist intention would take in Egypt from 1936 to 1952. The purpose of this paper is to present a critical survey of surrealism in Egypt, in which we will see that, in spite of the protagonists’ original aim to allow surrealism to break through Egyptian reality in the hope of making it respond to the needs of a society undergoing what some historians have aptly phrased the crisis of orientation (2), their efforts finally turned out, ephemeral, to be, though very resounding, flappings of Breton’s wing. What seems to have happened was a settling of accounts in favour of surrealist creation as part of the French presence in Egypt, rather than a communication with the native that would take account of the emancipatory message of surrealism. On the contrary, what was communicated to the Egyptian public was rather the narrative of progress under the sign of Reason than the liberating sign of the Irrational. We will see in due course that the blame for such a paradox should not be placed entirely on the proponents of surrealism in Egypt, but rather on the inherently closed character of Arabic society in the face of occidental innovation, the fact being that this society would dismiss any such form of innovation. Our concluding remarks will address the question of the inherent failure of Occidental modernity in so far as it dreams of playing a significant role in an alien context. For though it may play such a role, it is on condition that it renounces, both in theory and practice, its fundamental given.

"Egyptian Surrealism and 'Degenerate Art' in 1939"
Don LaCoss

“A group of artists that has been formed in Egypt which calls itself the ‘Degenerate Art Group’ is now in the process of breaking up,” began a report by ‘Aziz Ahmad Fahmi in Cairo’s al-Risala in early July 1939. “It has failed to find the support it had hoped for among artists, the media, and the general public. Not one writer, journalist, or other visitor has called at its headquarters in the Shari‘ al-Madbagh building to hear what its members have to say.”

Fahmi, an arts critic on al-Risala’s editorial board, went on to explain why he felt that, fundamentally and conceptually, this had been a doomed project from the start. He wrote that the kind of degenerate art that this group was calling for was not possible because the term itself is oxymoronic: True art could never be degenerate, since, by definition, art is the supreme expression of the human spirit, and as such it is “honest,” “elevated,” and “high-minded” - it could never be “degraded” or “corrupt” in the way that degenerate things are. The value of artistic work is assessed on the artist’s heartfelt commitment to beauty and craft rather than the work’s style or subject matter; texts, images, or objects routinely turned out by disinterested hacks for reasons other than deeply held personal vision or expression are either “tomfoolery” or “merchandise” and so do not qualify as “art.” The idea of “degenerate art,” then, was a wrongheaded contradiction in terms.

"Occupation Turned Free University in Pavia, Italy"
Anonymous Comrade

Here you find a call, addressed to researchers all over Europe, to support the student movement in Pavia (Italy) that is trying to create a mutualistic self-organized space in their city. On Friday 28th of January, students occupied a structure of the University abandoned since 2003. The aim of this action is to create inside that building a range of self-organized autonomous welfare services for students and precarious young workers: a copypoint, a library, a dining hall, a consultancy centre addressed to student (in particular immigrant ones) and precarious workers and a residence hall able to provide them low price housing. Furthermore the aim is also to create an alternative space to organize conferences, seminars and lectures promoting free culture and critical thinking.

Now students in Pavia are involved in a difficult negotiation with the academic institution. In order to help them in realizing this interesting and meaningful venture, some local scholars have written down this call. You can subscribe it sending an e-mail to studentincrisi@gmail.com containing your name and affiliation.

Theorizing Wikileaks
Los Angeles, Feb. 12, 2011

Call for Papers

[“The notion of “heterology” refers to the ways in which the meaningful fabric of the sensible is disturbed: a spectacle does not fit within the sensible framework defined by a network of meanings, an expression does not find its place in the system of the visible coordinates where it appears. The dream of a suitable political work of art is in fact the dream of disrupting the relationship between the visible, the sayable and the thinkable without having to use the terms of a message or a vehicle. It is the dream of an art that would transmit meanings in the form of a rupture with the very logic of meaningful situations. As a matter of fact, political art cannot work in the simple form of a meaningful spectacle that would lead to an “awareness” of the state of the world. Suitable political art would have a double effect: the readability of a political signification and a sensible or perceptual shock caused, conversely, by the uncanny, that which resists signification.” -Ranciere, The Politics of Aesthetics/The Distribution of the Sensible]

Julian Assange describes a "corrosive servility” that has come to infuse present day life and our resignation towards the established political order. As we, as bourgeois bohemians, buy organic at Trader Joe’s, dutifully download Democracy Now episodes and make sure to buy the next Arundhati Roy bestseller as glib gestures of a boutique liberalism in between lining up recommendations for our MFA applications, a tacit acceptance of our impotence in the face of a repugnant sociopolitical order, verging on involuntary complicity, is so hackneyed so as to not even need to be stated.

2011 MLG Institute on Culture and Society
06/20-24/2011, University of Illinois at Chicago

Call for Papers
2011 Marxist Literary Group Institute on Culture and Society
Special Topic: "What Is Revolution?"
Deadline for Proposals: March 1, 2011.

The Marxist Literary Group´s 2011 Institute on Culture and Society
(2011 MLG-ICS) will convene this summer (June 20-24) on the campus of
the University of Illinois at Chicago. As always, any submission that
engages seriously with Marxist thought will be considered, including,
but not limited to, Marxist considerations of literature or literary
considerations of Marxism. This year´s special topic will be "What is
Revolution?" What is class struggle? Can there be one without the
other, as horizon or precondition? How does radical social change take
place? Is it necessary to have a theory of revolution, or is it better
to pursue an intelligent opportunism? Does Marxism require revolution?
Does revolution require class? What would a plausible political
subject, or a plausible subject of history, look like today? Does our
present moment hold any revolutionary possibility? What contemporary
movements, possibilities, and practices hold promise (or do not)? Is
there a plausible relationship today between aesthetic practices and
the end of capitalism (as we know it)? How does one represent what is
only possible, not actual? Is "struggle" another name for the
possible? What is the relationship between politics as such and the
economic as such? What is the relationship between politics and
thinking, between revolution and philosophy? These questions and
others will be the focus of this year´s Institute. Selected papers
will be invited for submission to Mediations (mediationsjournal.org).
Recent years´ programs can be accessed at mlg.eserver.org/the-institute.

"The Net Delusion": Do Cell Phones Work During Revolutions? Cory Doctorow We need a serious critique of net activism. Morozov's book "The Net Delusion" argues that technology isn't necessarily good for freedom – but how else can the oppressed have a voice?