World Food Books

S.C.U.M Manifesto
by Valerie Solanas

2013, English
Softcover, 90 pages, 16.5 x 11.5 cm
Published by AK Press / Edinburgh

$28.00 - In stock -

First circulated on the streets of Greenwich Village in 1967, the SCUM Manifesto is a searing indictment of patriarchal culture in all its forms. Shifting fluidly between the worlds of satire and straightforward critique, this classic is a call to action--a radical feminist vision for a different world. This is an update of the essential AK Press edition, with a new foreword by Michelle Tea.

"To see the SCUM Manifesto's humor, to let it crack you up page after page, is not to read it as a joke. It's not. The truth of the world as seen though Valerie's eyes is patently absurd, a cosmic joke. Humor such as this is a muscle, a weapon... It was the truth, and the truth is so absurd it's painful."—Michelle Tea

"Unhampered by propriety, niceness, discretion, public opinion, 'morals', the respect of assholes, always funky, dirty, low-down SCUM gets around... You've got to go through a lot of sex to get to anti-sex, and SCUM's been through it all, and they're now ready for a new show; they want to crawl out from under the dock, move, take off, sink out."—Valerie Solanas

Valerie Solanas was a radical feminist playwright and social propagandist who was arrested in 1968 after her attempted assassination of Andy Warhol. Deemed a paranoid schizophrenic by the state, Solanas was immortalized in the 1996 film I Shot Andy Warhol.

File under: Michelle Tea Valerie Solanas AK Press / Edinburgh Crime / Violence Feminism Theory / Essay Art Sociology / Politics

Looking for The Other: Feminism, Film and the Imperial Gaze
By E. Ann Kaplan

1997, English
Softcover, 358 pages, 23 x 15.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by Routledge / London

$35.00 - In stock -

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First 1997 Edition.

"What happens when white people look at non-whites? What happens when the gaze is returned? Looking for the Other responds to criticisms leveled at white feminist film theory of the 1970s and 1980s for its neglect of issues to do with race. It focuses attention on the male gaze across cultures, as illustrated by women filmmakers of color whose films deal with travel.

Looking relations are determined by history, tradition, myth; by national identity, power hierarchies, politics, economics, geographical and other environment. Travel implicitly involves looking at, and looking relations with, peoples different from oneself. Featured films include Birth of a Nation, The Cat People, Home of the Brave, Black Narcissus, Chocolat, and Warrior Marks. Featured filmmakers include D.W.Griffith, Jacques Tourneur, Michael Powell, Julie Dash, Pratibha Parmar, Trinh T. Min-ha, and Claire Denis."

Fine—As New copy.

File under: D.W.Griffith Jacques Tourneur Michael Powell Julie Dash Pratibha Parmar Trinh T. Min-ha Claire Denis E. Ann Kaplan Routledge / London Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language Sociology / Politics Feminism Film / Video Art Out-of-print / Rare

Decoys and Disruptions: Selected Writings, 1975-2001
by Martha Rosler

2006, English
Softcover, 402 pages, 23 x 18 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by The MIT Press / Massachusetts

$20.00 - In stock -

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The first comprehensive collection of writings by Martha Rosler considers the intersection of art and politics, the operation of art systems, feminist art practices, and the media.

Decoys and Disruptions is the first comprehensive collection of writings by American artist and critic Martha Rosler. Best known for her videos and photography, Rosler has also been an original and influential cultural critic and theorist for over twenty-five years. The writings collected here address such key topics as documentary photography, feminist art, video, government patronage of the arts, censorship, and the future of digitally based photographic media. Taken together, these thirteen essays not only show Rosler's importance as a critic but also offer an essential resource for readers interested in the issues confronting contemporary art. The essays in this collection illustrate Rosler's ongoing investigation into means of exposing truth and provoking change, providing a retrospective of characteristic issues in her work.

Mixing analysis and wit, Rosler challenges many of the fundamental precepts of contemporary art practice. Her influential essay, "In, around, and afterthoughts: on documentary photography," almost single-handedly dismantled the myth of liberal documentary photography when it appeared. Many of the essays in this volume have had a similarly wide-ranging influence; others are published here for the first time. Illustrating the essays are 81 images by Rosler and other artists and photographers.

Good copy with a heavy bump to top corner, leser one to bottom back, otherwise light wear to boards.

File under: Martha Rosler Martha Rosler The MIT Press / Massachusetts Theory / Essay Art Conceptual Art Collage / Mail Art / Xerox Art Photography Feminism Film / Video Sociology / Politics

Brecht and Method
by Fredric Jameson

1998, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 182 pages, 24 x 16.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by Verso / London

$45.00 - Out of stock

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First 1998 hardcover edition.

“Elegant dissection of Brecht’s method, from estrangements to allegory and beyond.” —Modern Drama

The legacy of Bertolt Brecht is much contested, whether by those who wish to forget or to vilify his politics, but his stature as the outstanding political playwright and poet of the twentieth century is unforgettably established in this major critical work. Fredric Jameson elegantly dissects the intricate connections between Brecht’s drama and politics, demonstrating the way these combined to shape a unique and powerful influence on a profoundly troubled epoch.

Jameson sees Brecht’s method as a multi-layered process of reflection and self-reflection, reference and self-reference, which tears open a gap for individuals to situate themselves historically, to think about themselves in the third person, and to use that self-projection in history as a basis for judgment. Emphasizing the themes of separation, distance, multiplicity, choice and contradiction in Brecht’s entire corpus, Jameson’s study engages in a dialogue with a cryptic work, unpublished in Brecht’s lifetime, entitled Me-ti; Book of Twists and Turns. Jameson sees this text as key to understanding Brecht’s critical reflections on dialectics and his orientally informed fascination with flow and flux, change and the non-eternal.

For Jameson, Brecht is not prescriptive but performative. His plays do not provide answers but attempt to show people how to perform the act of thinking, how to begin to search for answers themselves. Brecht represents the ceaselessness of transformation while at the same time alienating it, interrupting it, making it comprehensible by making it strange. And thereby, in breaking it up by analysis, the possibility emerges of its reconstitution under a new law.

"Probably the most important cultural critic writing in English today ... it can truly be said that nothing cultural is alien to him."—Colin MacCabe

NF—F NF—F dust jacket.

File under: Bertolt Brecht Fredric Jameson Bertolt Brecht Verso / London Socialism / Communism / Capitalism Sociology / Politics Performance / Dance / Theater Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language Theory / Essay Philosophy Out-of-print / Rare

JOHN CHARLES DIXON-JENKINS

2026, English
Softcover, 110 pages + supplement, 26.5 x 17.5 cm
Published by Ex Film / Melbourne

$25.00 - In stock -

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"New book from ExFilm/ExTract! Another in the series of historical stories recontextualised from their original sources, this one is very special.

I first came upon the name John Charles Dixon-Jenkins a few years ago when I was researching news items from 1989. That this project would take me to meet the staff at a school in Kuala Lumpur as it did a few weeks ago is both a mystery and a gift from the universe. Years in the making, this one is finally ready.

I could write multiple posts about who this man was and it would still not adequately cover the truth. In some ways, we will never really know the truth. First, the facts: Dixon-Jenkins served in the Vietnam War and returned vowing to help society, studying child psychology and introducing new teaching methods to schools across the United States. Anxious about the threat of nuclear war, he moved back to his birthplace of Australia where in the 1980s he became known as the Anti-Nuclear Warrior after a series of bomb threats to draw attention to his campaign of nuclear disarmament. He wrote his first philosophy book, The Unified Theory of Existence, from a prison cell; self published and distributed by his friends and allies in Melbourne. He also took 9 people hostage in Bendigo. Cue Pentridge, the Jika Jika riot, Chopper Read, Australia's longest hunger strike, fleeing the country while on bail and conversion to Islam. There's also the CIA and the impending cloud of doom that the Cold War of the 1980s cast over the world. Dixon-Jenkins' experiences in prison partially inspired John Hillcoat's Ghosts of the Civil Dead. He lived a life that is hard to believe and yet he is largely forgotten. This book aims to correct that error and ultimately, tell the story of a man who wanted to leave the world a better place."

First printing includes a bonus A5 supplementary booklet featuring a comic strip and court transcripts.

File under: Ex Film / Melbourne Crime / Violence Sociology / Politics Protest / Revolt Theory / Essay

Le Sang et La Rose No. 3, 1969

1969, Japanese / French
Softcover, 232 pages, 23 x 18 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Tensei Shuppan / Tokyo

$110.00 - In stock -

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Revue de Érotologie, Homosexualité, Sadisme, Masochisme, Fétischisme, Narcissime, Infantilisme, Magie, Occultisme, Humour Noir, Complexe Psychisme. What more could you ask for? Le Sang Et La Rose is a masterpiece of the Japanese underground. A groundbreaking, powerful, yet short-lived Japanese arts and literary journal published in Tokyo from late 1968—mid 1969, published in a total of four luxurious, now collectible, volumes. The first three issues were edited by Tatsuhiko Shibusawa (1928—1987), a legendary, controversial Japanese novelist, art critic, translator of French writers such as Jean Cocteau, Georges Bataille and Marquis de Sade, and specialist in medieval demonology. The importance of this magazine to the Japanese avant-garde and radical culture cannot be overstated.

Born from a period of political, social and economical turmoil in Japan, Le Sang Et La Rose may be understood as a emblematic distillation and product of the late ‘60s student rebellion and anti-authoritarian underground culture. Wilfully politically subversive, the publication drew upon a vast range of perspectives - from criticism, literature, obscure esoteric sciences, art, eroticism, radical avant-garde and a historical-rooted Japanese counterculture; featuring literature, theory, art, photography, illustration and graphic design from the most innovative and subversive Japanese and international (predominately French) artists, authors and critics, spanning the themes above. As instigator, Tatsuhiko Shibusawa in effect formulated the magazine’s design to be a spiritual and political operative that would weaponize its readers minds. This stance was made clear in the 1969 manifesto text — "My 1969" — in which Shibusawa discuss' how he perceived the ‘60s as being the age of ideas, ideas as weapons, and outlined a distain towards systems of power, moralism, State oppression, sanitised and harmless liberalism, dogmatic academic sciences and an outright distrust for ideological, progressive literary scholars who advocate "freedom of expression", but have never caused friction with the judicial power. The magazine sketched out an aim to push towards a new kind of personal freedom, intellect, autonomy and moral compass. Here, the concept of ‘erotism’ — as discussed by Georges Bataille in his highly influential 1957 book "Erotism: Death and Sensuality" — acts as a critical force. 

Issue no. 3 (with cover by Bronzino, 1554) includes full-colour photographic feature by Kishin Shinoyama ("Virgin In Uniform" featuring models/artists Angela Asaoka, Akaji Maro, Yoko Ashikawa) and beautiful Shomei Tomatsu photo feature ("Scoptophilia"), the artwork of the great French cross-dressing painter-photographer Pierre Molinier, texts by Jirō Kawamura, Yumiko Kurahashi, Taruho Inagaki ("Memories of Hemorrhoids or "New Tsurezuregusa"), Akiyuki Nosaka ("Dear Penis, Goodbye"), Minoru Minamihara ("The Mystic Thought of Love in the Case of Jakob Böhme"), Takiji Kobayashi, The Fictitious Garden of Babylon by Tatsuhiko Shibusawa, Tsunekazu Murata ("Witch's Ax : Concerning Heresy in Medieval Europe"), translation of Franz Kafka "Metamorphosis" illustrated by Franco Gentilini, recent research on homosexuality by film critic Jin'ichi Uekusa, Kama Sutra, more Gay (Danshoku) Japanese Theater history, Marquise de Blancvilliers by Koji Nakata, and much more.

Tatsuhiko Shibusawa (1928—1987), was a well-known and controversial Japanese novelist, art critic, and translator of French writers such as Jean Cocteau, Georges Bataille and Marquis de Sade. In 1960 he and his publisher, Kyōji Ishii, were trialled for public obscenity over the publishing of Shibusawa's translation of de Sade's Juliette into the Japanese language. What was to be known as the "Sade Trial" took 9 years and although many of Japan's leading authors testified for the defense, in 1969 the Japanese Supreme Court ruled them guilty and charged. This did not deter Shibusawa, whose essays on black magic, demonology and eroticism were popular reading in Japan, and in 1981 he was awarded the 9th Izumi Kyoka Literature Prize.

Very Good copy. Light general tanning/wear.

File under: Kishin Shinoyama Shomei Tomatsu Pierre Molinier Franco Gentilini Yokoo Tadanori Angela Asaoka Akaji Maro Yoko Ashikawa Tatsuhiko Shibusawa Franz Kafka Yukio Mishima Taruho Inagaki Jun’nosuke Yoshiyuki Kôichi Iijima Jûrô Kara Ikuya Kato Minoru Yoshioka Ryûichi Tamura The Marquis de Sade Georges Bataille Andre Pieyre De Mandiargues Jirō Kawamura Yumiko Kurahashi Akiyuki Nosaka Minoru Minamihara Jakob Böhme Takiji Kobayashi Tsunekazu Murata Jin'ichi Uekusa Tensei Shuppan / Tokyo Ero Guro / Erotic / Grotesque Transgressive / Visceral / Abject Eros Fetishism / BDSM Out-of-print / Rare Periodicals Japanese Photography Surrealism Philosophy Theory / Essay Fiction / Poetry Symbolism / Decadence / Fin de siècle Ancient / Medieval / Gothic Art Counterculture Illustration / Graphic Art / Bandes Dessinées LGBTQ+ Occult / Esoterica Photography Sociology / Politics

Batteries of life : on the history of things and their perception in modernity
by Christoph Asendorf

1993, English
HArdcover (w. dust jacket), 248 pages, 26 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by University of California Press / Berkley

$85.00 - In stock -

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First hardcover edition.

Reflecting on the technological age, poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote of the intense emotions with which people can endow manufactured objects. We seem to "charge" the world of things as we would a battery. Now German art historian Christoph Asendorf explores this transformation of human sense perception in the industrial age and contributes to a new understanding of European culture and modernity.

Drawing from literature, painting, architecture, film, philosophy, anthropology, and popular culture, Asendorf offers rich analyses of works by Manet, Baudelaire, Monet, Zola, Benjamin, Heidegger, and Duchamp. These close readings are combined with a montage of key cultural images and events ranging from Paxton's Crystal Palace to the introduction of electricity. The result is a striking account of the emergence of consumer culture within the developing commodity economy of modern Europe.

Certain to challenge the mono-disciplinary perspectives of many specialists, this book will interest historians of art, culture, literature, science, and technology.

Illustrated throughout.

Contents; 1. The Body, the Economy, and the World of Things. 1. L'homme machine. 2. Vathek, or Disintegration. 3. German Romanticism: Money and Happiness, or the Eroticism of the World of Things -- 2. From the "Ego Crystal Forest" To the Crystal Palace -- 3. Economy and Metamorphosis. Excursus: Grandville, or Laputa in the July Monarchy -- 4. On the Physiognomy of the World of the Commodity and the Machine. 1. The Myth of the Living Machine. 2. The Commodity Spectacle circa 1850. 3. The Collector and His Treasure: "An Entirely Furtive Private Relationship" -- 5. Circulation as a Way of Life -- 6. Impressionism. 1. Manet. 2. Degas. 3. Monet. 4. On the Historical Site of the Impressionist Way of Seeing -- 7. Commodities and the Erotic. 1. Paradise in the Department Store. 2. The Eroticism of Machines -- 8. The Decay of the World of Things and Its Restoration in Art -- 9. The Interieur, Or Things in the Everyday Life of the Bourgeoisie. 1. Materials: Artificial Nature and Synthetics. 2. The Production of the "Faculty for Delusion" 3. The Role of Things -- 10. The Production of "Homogeneous and Empty Time" -- 11. Nerves and Electricity. 1. On the Romantic Image of Electricity. 2. Polarity and Sexual Attraction. 3. The Image of Electricity between Hegel's Phenomenology and Kleist: The "Liberation of Predicates from Subjects" and Electrical Epiphany. 4. Andersen: Electricity on the "Romantic-Technological Knife-Edge". 5. Siemens, Edison, and the History of Mentalities of Electric Light, Ornament and Psychic Streams. 6. "Telegram Style of the Soul" and Cosmic Energies. 7. Nerves: Mach, Bahr, and Freud. 8. Strindberg and Electro-Hysteria -- 12. The Constitution of Perception from 1900 to 1914. 1. Mach, Simmel, and Hofmannsthal. 2. Silence. 3. Ornament. 4. The Life of Things: Rilke's Thing-Poems, Animism, and Silent Film. 5. Animated Thought. 6. Abstraction and Empathy. 7. The Lord Chandos Letter -- Epilogue: The Emancipation of Material from the Subject.

VG copy in G–VG dust jacket w. tanning to spine, small closed tear, light wear, preserved under mylar wrap.

File under: Édouard Manet Gustave Doré Marcel Duchamp Joseph Paxton Rainer Maria Rilke Charles Baudelaire Walter Benjamin Émile Zola Martin Heidegger Christoph Asendorf University of California Press / Berkley Theory / Essay Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language Art Dada Sociology / Politics Eros Symbolism / Decadence / Fin de siècle 'Pataphysics / Oulipo Out-of-print / Rare Protest / Revolt Fiction / Poetry Poetry Architecture / Interior Philosophy Psychoanalysis Occult / Esoterica Film / Video Weird / Speculative / Science Fiction

Soft Subversions
by Félix Guattari

1996, English
Softcover, 280 pages, 17.7 x 11.2 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by Semiotext(e) / Los Angeles

$45.00 - Out of stock

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Scarce first 1996 edition, first printing of Soft Subversions by Félix Guattari, published by Semiotext(e) in their Native Agents book series. Edited by Sylvère Lotringer, this collection of Felix Guattari's essays, lectures, and interviews traces the militant anti-psychiatrist and theorist's thought and activity throughout the 1980s ("the winter years"). Concepts such as "micropolitics," "schizoanalysis," and "becoming-woman" open up new horizons for political and creative resistance in the "postmedia era." Guattari's energetic analyses of art, cinema, youth culture, economics, and power formations introduce a radically inventive thought process engaged in liberating subjectivity from the standardizing and homogenizing processes of global capitalism.

Near Fine copy.

File under: Felix Guattari Sylvère Lotringer Semiotext(e) / Los Angeles Psychoanalysis Philosophy Out-of-print / Rare Eros Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language Theory / Essay Sociology / Politics Film / Video

Foucault Live: Collected Interviews, 1961–1984
by Michel Foucault

1984, English
Softcover, 332 pages, 17.5 x 11.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Semiotext(e) / Los Angeles

$55.00 - In stock -

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First 1984 Semiotext(e) Foreign Agents edition, first printing. Edited by Sylvère Lotringer Translated by John Johnston.

The most accessible and exhaustive introduction to Foucault's thought to date. Composed of every extant interview made by Foucault from the mid-60s until his death in 1984, Foucault Live sheds new light on the philosopher's ideas about friendship, the intent behind his classical studies, while clarifying many of the professional and popular misinterpretations of his ideas over the course of his career. As Gilles Deleuze noted, "the interviews in this book go much further than anything Foucault ever wrote, and they are indispensable in understanding his life work." Most notably, Foucault Live includes interviews he made with the gay underground press during his stays in America during the 1970s. In them, Foucault suggests that homosexuality presents a new paradigm for ways of living beyond the predictable, binary couple. All of the philosopher's interests, from madness and delinquency to film and sexuality, and their resultant writings, are probed by knowledgeable critics and journalists. After reading this book, the reader can explore key notions such as episteme, savoir and connaissance, archeology, and archive, without the knitted brow that plagued Foucault's public when he was alive. This is the guide to Foucault's life as an agent provocateur in the world of philosophy and scholarship.

Very Good copy with only light wear and light foxing to block edges.

File under: Michel Foucault Sylvère Lotringer Semiotext(e) / Los Angeles Philosophy Out-of-print / Rare Philosophy / Psychoanalysis Theory / Essay Sociology / Politics

The Politics of Truth

1997, English
Softcover, 240 pages, 17.8 x 11.2 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by Semiotext(e) / Los Angeles

$35.00 - In stock -

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First 1997 edition of The Politics of Truth, edited by Sylvere Lotringer and issued under the Semiotext(e) Native Agents series.

Ranging from reflections on the Enlightenment and revolution to a consideration of the Frankfurt School, this collection offers insight into the topics preoccupying Foucault as he worked on what would be his last body of published work, the three-volume History of Sexuality.

In 1784, the German newspaper Berlinische Monatsschrift asked its audience to reply to the question "What is Enlightenment?" Immanuel Kant took the opportunity to investigate the purported truths and assumptions of his age. Two hundred years later, Michel Foucault wrote a response to Kant's initial essay, positioning Kant as the initiator of the discourse and critique of modernity. The Politics of Truth takes this initial encounter between Foucault and Kant, as a framework for its selection of unpublished essays and transcripts of lectures Foucault gave in America and France between 1978 and 1984, the year of his death. Ranging from reflections on the Enlightenment and revolution to a consideration of the Frankfurt School, this collection offers insight into the topics preoccupying Foucault as he worked on what would be his last body of published work, the three-volume History of Sexuality. It also offers what is in a sense the most "American" moment of Foucault's thinking, for it was in America that he realized the necessity of tying his own thought to that of the Frankfurt School.

Michel Foucault (1926–84) is widely considered to be one of the most influential academic voices of the twentieth century and has proven influential across disciplines.

Sylvère Lotringer is Jean Baudrillard Chair at the European Graduate School, Switzerland, and Professor Emeritus of French literature and philosophy at Columbia University.

G–VG copy with a knock to the bottom corner of the first 32 pages, the rest crisp.

File under: SylveÌre Lotringer Michel Foucault Semiotext(e) / Los Angeles Philosophy / Psychoanalysis Psychoanalysis Philosophy Sociology / Politics Out-of-print / Rare Theory / Essay

Civilization and Its Discontents
by Sigmund Freud

1961, English
Softcover, 110 pages, 21 x 13.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by W W Norton & Co / New York

$25.00 - In stock -

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The Standard Edition, translated by James Strachey.

Civilization and Its Discontents is one of the last of Freud's books, written in the decade before his death. In it he makes known his views on the broad question of man's place in the world, which he sees in terms of the never-ending conflict between the individual's claim to freedom and the demands of society. The theme, often foreshadowed in Freud's earlier work, is that civilization is only made possible by individual renounce-ment. Man's instinctive life is aggressive and egoistic, seeking self-satisfaction; the structure of culture is designed to curb and prohibit his instinctual drives; the sense of guilt has become the maker of civilized humanity.
"The theme is developed with the greatest richness of content and one might use many columns without exhausting the invaluable dicta of men and their institutions which strew the book,"–The Spectator

The Standard Edition
Throughout the period when Freud wrote his major works, various translations and editions, differing widely in the accuracy of their texts and the quality of their content, made their appearance.
Increasingly, as the body of Freud's work achieved commanding stature, the need arose for a definitive and uniformly authentic English language edition of all his writings. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud was undertaken to achieve this goal. The work is under the general editorship of James Strachey and he himself has made new translations of many of the writings, supervising the emendation of others and contributing valuable notes, both bibliographical and explanatory. The result is to place this edition in a position of unquestioned supremacy over all other existing versions— which are in fact rendered obsolete.

G–VG copy with some tanning/wear to extremities/spine. Some light pencil underlining (erasable)

File under: Sigmund Freud W W Norton & Co / New York Philosophy / Psychoanalysis Psychoanalysis Philosophy Out-of-print / Rare Theory / Essay Sociology / Politics

Tosquelles: Healing Institutions
Edited by Joana Maso

2026, English
Softcover, 344 pages, 25.4 x 17.78 cm
Published by Semiotext(e) / Los Angeles

$46.00 - In stock -

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A landmark anthology of Francesc Tosquelles's intellectual, clinical, and political writings, many available in English translation for the first time.

Edited by Joana Maso, translated by Robert Hurley and Mara Faye Lethem

Often consigned to legend, the life of Francesc Tosquelles reads as an adventure story of clinical, political, and collective experimentation around healing institutions. Joining the Saint-Alban-sur-Limagnole psychiatric hospital in Nazi-occupied France, Tosquelles invented what would become “institutional psychotherapy” with poets, film critics, photographers, and psychiatrists including Jean Oury, Agnès Masson, Frantz Fanon, Tristan Tzara, and Paul Éluard.

This first anthology of Tosquelles’s writings shines a light on his forgotten history, from his engagement as a psychiatrist during the Spanish Civil War alongside anti-Franquist and anti-Stalinist communists, to his progressive return to Catalonia following his role in the “cultural revolution” of “institutional psychotherapy” in France. Through translations of texts never before available in English, Tosquelles’s powerful voice reminds us how important politicized relations to institutions are in our times of sick institutions, scapegoating of strangers, and globalized war.

File under: Joana Maso Francesc Tosquelles Robert Hurley (Translator) Mara Faye Lethem Semiotext(e) / Los Angeles Psychoanalysis Philosophy / Psychoanalysis Philosophy Socialism / Communism / Capitalism Sociology / Politics Theory / Essay Protest / Revolt

An Archive
by Mathieu Lindon

2026, English
Softcover, 208 pages, 20.4 x 13.7 cm
Published by Semiotext(e) / Los Angeles

$36.00 - In stock -

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Translated by Bruce Benderson

I wanted to tell the story of Les Éditions de Minuit as I saw them as a child. And also to tell the story of my father, Jérôme Lindon, as I saw him and loved him. Are there archives for that? And how to be an archive of the child that I once was?

An Archive tells the story of Les Éditions de Minuit, the legendary Parisian publisher of Samuel Beckett, Marguerite Duras, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Claude Simon, Monique Wittig, Gilles Deleuze, Pierre Bourdieu, Marie NDiaye, and so many others. It is the tale of its editor, Jérôme Lindon, who directed the publishing house from 1948 until his death in 2001. It is also the chronicle of growing up in a family of writers who were, to the eyes of a young child, the temple of literature. Looking back on a childhood immersed in books, Mathieu Lindon draws a portrait of his father, narrating his use of power and his avarice, but also his generosity, his enthusiasm for literature and defense of authors, and his commitment to politics—during the German Occupation, through the Algerian War of Independence, and for the Palestinian cause after the Arab-Israeli War of 1967. Opening the archive of his own memory, Lindon gives a moving, ferocious, and often funny account of a defining period of twentieth-century French intellectual history.

"An Archive evades all generic definition. A singular text, captivating and infinitely poignant, it assembles and explores what has always been the strength of Mathieu Lindon's work: intimacy narrated with perfect pitch, openly stating what was without straying from a reserve which is also respect."–Christine Marcandier, Diacritik

"An exercise in a love that is not blind, a practice of boundless admiration, An Archive is a magnificent literary tombstone."–Nelly Kaprièlian, Les Inrockuptibles

Mathieu Lindon was born in 1955. He is a columnist for Liberation and the author of numerous books, including Learning What Love Means and Hervelino, both published in English by Semiotext(e).

File under: Mathieu Lindon Bruce Benderson Semiotext(e) / Los Angeles Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language Theory / Essay Sociology / Politics Philosophy Psychoanalysis

The Rape of Art: The Story of Hitler's Plunder of the Great Masterpieces of Europe
by David Roxan & Ken Wanstall

1965, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 196 pages, 21.5 x 14.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Coward-McCann Inc. / New York

$50.00 - Out of stock

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First US hardcover edition, 1965.

Based on a hitherto secret U.S. Army document made available to the authors, The Rape of Art adds an exciting and significant chapter to World War II history.

Here, for the first time, is the complete story of Hitler's massive plunder of Europe's great art treasures and his egomaniacal plans to make Linz, the provincial Austrian city of his child-hood, the cultural center of the world.
Contrary to popular belief it was Hitler, not Goering, who was the greatest Nazi plunderer of art treasures. In seven years, by direct confiscation or by forced sale, he systematically amassed 100,000 works of art worth an estimated $300,000,000—an accumulation of paintings, sculpture, books and objets dart greater than the collections of the Louvre, the Metropolitan, the British Museum and Moscow's Tretiakov.

But unlike Goering, who had a genuine love of art, Hitler had little interest in great masterpieces beyond the fact of possessing them. He had a long-range plan in mind, a dream conceived many years before the war, to show the people of his hometown visible proof that he had made good.

Besides planning collections of paintings, sculpture, coins and armor, he intended to build a great library and a vast theatre in Linz, and he had detailed plans drawn up for the layout of the city that would transform it from a drab industrial community to the cultural capital of the Nazi order. He set up a secret looting organization, the Linz Special Mission, that until now has passed unnoticed by war historians.

Michelangelo's "Madonna and Child," the Ghent altarpiece by the van Eycks, Breughel's "The Hay Harvest," the celebrated Czernin Vermeer, and works by da Vinci, Goya, Rem-brandt, and Tintoretto were swept up in history's greatest art robbery.

With the end in sight, Hitler clung to the dream of Linz and issued orders to have works of art moved to places of safety. The most valuable-10,000 paintings, 5,350 of which were old masters-had already been stored in the Alt Aussee salt mines. When American forces got word of the Alt Aussee cache they accelerated their push to beat the Russians there. The account of the Allies' painstaking efforts to locate the treasures and make restitution provides an exciting climax to a narrative that will take its place among the important books about the last war.

David Roxan and Ken Wanstall are well-known English journalists. Through their untiring efforts, they managed to convince the U.S. Army Archives to give them access to a document known as the Consolidated Interrogation Report No. 4, without which this complete story of Hitler's thefts of the great masters would not have been possible.

VG copy in VG dust jacket with some rubbing wear. Preserved in mylar wrap.

File under: David Roxan Ken Wanstall Coward-McCann Inc. / New York Art Crime / Violence Sociology / Politics Out-of-print / Rare Theory / Essay Painting Sculpture / Installation

You Can't Blow Up A Social Relationship
The Anarchist Case Against Terrorism

1979 / 1982, English
Softcover (staple–bound), 24 pages, 21 x 14.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by Libertarian Workers for a Self–Managed Society / Melbourne Libertarian Socialist Organisation / Brisbane

$65.00 - In stock -

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Rare 1982 print of the original pamphlet published by the Libertarian Socialist Organisation, Brisbane and the Libertarian Workers for a Self–Managed Society, Parkville, Melbourne. It was also printed up by Monash Anarchist Society, Adelaide Libertarian Socialists, Black Cat Press, Anarchist Communist Federation, and Acrata Press in San Francisco in various editions. First printed in 1978/1979, this original pamphlet was published in the aftermath of the Sydney Hilton Bombing, a domestic terrorist attack that marked a major turning point in Australia's security history. The black humour of the time around the anarchist movement was that the police and security forces framed socio-spiritual sect Ananda Marga because they came before Anarchism in the alphabet. Essay chapters: Terrorism by The State; The Urban Guerilla Strategy of Revolution; Nothing Radicalizes Like Pigs in the Park; Headline Hunters; Military Madness; Minimise Violence by Emphasising Politics.

The arguments in this pamphlet are still as valid today as when they were written 30 years ago.

Average-Good copy with tanning/foxing/light wear to edges, some old tape residue to bottom of cover. Interior well preserved.

File under: Libertarian Workers for a Self–Managed Society / Melbourne Libertarian Socialist Organisation / Brisbane Anarchism Sociology / Politics Crime / Violence Out-of-print / Rare Objects / Ephemera / A/V Protest / Revolt

Black Phoenix: Third World Perspective on Contemporary Art and Culture
Edited by Rasheed Araeen and Mahmood Jamal

2022, English
Softcover, 104 pages, 30 x 24 cm
Published by Primary Information / New York

$53.00 $30.00 - In stock -

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More than a decade after the liberation movements of the 1960s and the historic Bandung and Tricontinental Conferences, which called for social and political alignment and solidarity among the nations of Africa, Asia, and Latin America in order to dismantle Western imperialism and (neo)colonialism, Black Phoenix issued a rallying cry for the formation of a liberatory arts and culture movement throughout the Third World. International in scope, Black Phoenix positioned diasporic and colonial histories at the center of an evolving anti-racist and anti-imperialist consciousness in late 1970s Britain and beyond—one that would yield complex and nuanced discourses of race, class, and postcolonial theory in the decade that followed. Black Phoenix proposed a horizon for Blackness that transcended racial binaries, across the Third World and the West.

Contributors include art critics, scholars, artists, poets, and writers, including Rasheed Araeen (Pakistan) and Mahmood Jamal (Pakistan), Guy Brett (United Kingdom), Kenneth Coutts-Smith (United Kingdom), Ariel Dorfman (Chile), Eduardo Galeano (Uruguay), N. Kilele (Tanzania), Babatunde Lawal (Nigeria), David Medalla (Philippines), Ayyub Malik (Pakistan), Susil Siriwardena (Sri Lanka), and Chris Wanjala (Kenya).

Rasheed Araeen is a Karachi-born, London-based artist, activist, writer, editor, and curator. Aareen founded the critical journals Black Phoenix, Third Text, and Third Text Asia, and took on activist roles with the Black Panthers and Artists for Democracy. His work has been exhibited widely, including, most recently, at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, Chicago; BALTIC Centre of Contemporary Art, Gateshead; MAMCO, Geneva; Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; Tate Britain, London; the 2017 Venice Biennale; and Documenta 14, Athens/Kassel, among others.

Mahmood Jamal was born in Lucknow, India, and moved to Britain from Pakistan in 1967. He published several books of poetry, including Sugar Coated Pill (2007), and translated the Islamic Mystical Poetry: Sufi Verse from the Early Mystics to Rumi (2009) and Faiz: Fifty Poems (2013), among other titles. In 1983, he co-formed the all-Asian Retake Film and Video Collective production company, and initiated Epicflow Films in 1989. Jamal worked as an independent producer and writer; produced several documentary series, including Islamic Conversations; was a lead writer on Britain’s first Asian soap, Family Pride (1991–92), and wrote and produced Turning World (1996) for Channel4 television. He died in London in December 2020.

Last copy with a knock to bottom spine corner.

File under: Rasheed Araeen Rasheed Araeen Primary Information / New York Periodicals Art Theory / Essay Sociology / Politics Poetry Fiction / Poetry Protest / Revolt SALE

¡Basta de Excusas! Exposition Internacional de Art–Correo (Mail–Art)
Organized by Clemente Padín

1991, Spanish / English
Softcover (staple–bound), 20 pages, 21.5 x 17.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Clemente Padín / Uruguay

$15.00 - In stock -

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Very rare catalogue published to accompany the mail–art (arte-correo) exhibition ¡Basta de Excusas! held in Montevideo, Uruguay, in 1991 in support of Amnesty International. Organized by an important figure in the mail–art movement, experimental poet, artist and graphic designer, performer, curator, video-artist, and networker, Clemente Padín (b. Uruguay, 1939), this collaborative mail art initiative and exhibition was created to support the human rights campaigns and work of Amnesty International, such as the abolishment of Apartheid in South Africa, political prisoners in Latin America, calling on participants from all over the world to submit postal artworks for the exhibition. Illustrated throughout with texts from Padín, the catalogue features the full listing of participants with their postal addresses.

VG copy, light wear.

File under: Clemente Padin Clemente Padín / Uruguay Collage / Mail Art / Xerox Art Out-of-print / Rare Group Shows / Collections Sociology / Politics Art Counterculture

A Moratorium on New Construction
by Charlotte Malterre-Barthes

2026, English
Softcover (w. dust jacket), 238 pages, 15 x 10.5 cm
Published by Sternberg Press / Berlin

$36.00 - Out of stock

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A massive value shift for existing buildings, infrastructure, materials, unbuilt land, earth, and the labor that holds our world together.

To build is to destroy, writes Charlotte Malterre-Barthes. From steel bolts to concrete blocks to wood flooring to polyester insulation panels, every single component of the built environment is the product of extractive processes. Driven by greedy economies, the global enterprise of space production expands, impacting climate, earth, water, humans, and non-humans everywhere. However housing is both a human right and the mandate of design disciplines: How to navigate the need for housing versus the destructive practice of construction?

To pause new construction-even if momentarily, creates a radical thinking framework for alternatives to the current regime of space production and its suspect growth imperative. Engaging with unsettling questions, A Moratorium on New Construction envisions a massive value shift for our existing stock. From housing redistribution to reinviting value generation, from anti-extractive measures to profound structural changes, from curricula reforms to purging the exploitative culture of the office, an entire rewiring of design processes and construction lays ahead. Somewhere between a thought experiment and a call for action, A Moratorium on New Construction is a leap of faith to envision a less extractive future, made of what we have: Not demolishing, not building new, but building less, building with what exists, inhabiting it differently, and caring for it.

File under: Charlotte Malterre-Barthes Sternberg Press / Berlin Architecture / Interior Theory / Essay Sociology / Politics

OUT OF ACTIONS: Between Performance and The Object, 1949-1979
by Paul Schimmel

1998, English
Softcover, 408 pages, 31 x 22 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Thames and Hudson / London

$55.00 - Out of stock

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First edition of Out of Actions: Between Performance and the Object, 1949-1979, edited by Paul Schimmel, published in 1998. with essays by Kristine Stiles, Guy Brett, Hubert Klocker, Shinichiro Osaki, and Paul Schimmel.

Published to coincide with the first major museum exhibition to examine the complex relationship linking the creative process, action or performance, and works of art in the postwar period. Featuring nearly one hundred and fifty artists and collaboratives from approximately twenty countries in Eastern and Western Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Japan, and North and South America—including figures associated with the New York School, Nouveaux Realistes, Fluxus, Viennese Actionists, Hi Red Center, Arte Povera, the Gutai group, happenings, process art, and performance art—the exhibition centered on how the possibilities and implications of using time and process as elements of art were realized by a number of international movements during this influential thirty-year period.

Covering three decades of significant and original art, this lavishly illustrated book features work by more than one hundred artists from across the world who have had a profound impact on the relationship between visual and performance art in the postwar era.

Includes the work of: Marina Abramović, Vito Acconci, Genpei Akasegawa, Laurie Anderson, Eleanor Antin, Rasheed Araeen, Mowry Baden, Artur Barrio, Jerzy Beres, Joseph Beuys, Mark Boyle & Joan Hills, George Brecht, Stuart Brisley, Robert Delford Brown, Rhett Delford Brown, Günter Brus, Chris Burden, James Lee Byars, John Cage, Marc Camille Chaimowicz, Lygia Clark, Pinchas Cohen Gan, Collective Action Group, Houston Conwill, Paul Cotton, COUM Transmissions, Guy de Cointet, Jim Dine, John Duncan, Felipe Ehrenberg, Roberto Evangelista, VALIE EXPORT, Robert Filliou, Rose Finn-Kelcey, Sherman Fleming, Lucio Fontana, Terry Fox, Howard Fried, Gideon Gechtman, Jochen Gerz, Gilbert & George, Alberto Greco, Ion Grigorescu, Victor Grippo, Red Grooms, Guerrilla Art Action Group, David Hammons, Al Hansen, Maren Hassinger, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Dick Higgins, Tatsumi Hijikata, Susan Hiller, Hi Red Center, Rebecca Horn, Tehching Hsieh, Joan Jonas, Kim Jones, Michel Journiac, Akira Kanayama, Tadeusz Kantor, Allan Kaprow, Mike Kelley, Jürgen Klauke, Yves Klein, Milan Knížák, Alison Knowles, Komar & Melamid, Jannis Kounellis, Shigeko Kubota, Tetsumi Kudo, Yayoi Kusama, Leslie Labowitz, Suzanne Lacy, John Latham, Jean-Jacques Lebel, Lea Lublin, George Maciunas, Leopoldo Maler, Piero Manzoni, Tom Marioni, Cusi Masuda, Georges Mathieu, Gordon Matta-Clark, Paul McCarthy, Bruce McLean, David Medalla, Cildo Meireles, Ana Mendieta, Gustav Metzger, Marta Minujín, Jan Mlčoch, Linda Montano, Charlotte Moorman, Robert Morris, Otto Muehl, Saburo Murakami, Natsuyuki Nakanishi, Bruce Nauman, Paul Neagu, Senga Nengudi, Joshua Neustein, Hermann Nitsch, Hélio Oiticica, Claes Oldenburg, Yoko Ono, Orlan, Raphael Montañez Ortiz, Lorenzo Pace, Nam June Paik, Gina Pane, Lygia Pape, Giuseppe Pinot Gallizio, Adrian Piper, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Jackson Pollock, William Pope.L, Robert Rauschenberg, Carlyle Reedy, Klaus Rinke, Ulrike Rosenbach, Dieter Roth, Zorka Ságlová, Niki de Saint Phalle, Alfons Schilling, Tomas Schmit, Carolee Schneemann, Rudolf Schwarzkogler, Bonnie Ora Sherk, Shōzō Shimamoto, Ushio Shinohara, Kazuo Shiraga, Barbara T. Smith, Daniel Spoerri, Petr Štembera, Wolfgang Stöerchle, Jirō Takamatsu, Atsuko Tanaka, Mark Thompson, Jean Tinguely, Rasa Todosijević, Kerry Trengove, Ulay, Ben Vautier, Wolf Vostell, Franz Erhard Walther, Peter Weibel, Franz West, Hannah Wilke, Emmett Williams, Zaj.

Their work encompasses sculpture, artists' publications, drawings, photographs, and the ephemera that arises from the performance, as well as documentary film and video stills.

Published in conjunction with a major touring exhibition organized by The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Out of Actions illuminates the unique relationship between action, destruction, performance, and the creative process, in essays by acclaimed art historians. Covering an unprecedented range of material, the book offers the first critical comparisons of work that has previously been viewed as distinctly regional and unrelated.

With 450 illustrations, 200 in colour.

VG copy with light wear and "The Grid" written in red marker on the block side (?).

File under: Joseph Beuys Chris Burden John Cage Lygia Clark Yves Klein John Latham Bruce Nauman Hélio Oiticica Claes Oldenburg Yoko Ono Robert Rauschenberg Niki de Saint Phalle Carolee Schneemann Atsuko Tanaka Jean Tinguely Marina Abramovič Jerzy Bereś Zorka Saglova Raphael Montanez Ortiz Petr Stembera Wolfgang Stoerchle Rasa Todosijevic Vito Acconci Genpei Akasegawa Laurie Anderson Eleanor Antin Rasheed Araeen Mowry Baden Artur Barrio Mark Boyle & Joan Hills George Brecht Stuart Brisley Robert Delford Brown Rhett Delford Brown Günter Brus James Lee Byars Marc Camille Chaimowicz Pinchas Cohen Gan Collective Action Group Houston Conwill Paul Cotton COUM Transmissions Guy de Cointet Jim Dine John Duncan Felipe Ehrenberg Roberto Evangelista VALIE EXPORT Robert Filliou Rose Finn-Kelcey Sherman Fleming Lucio Fontana Terry Fox Howard Fried Gideon Gechtman Jochen Gerz Gilbert & George Alberto Greco Ion Grigorescu Victor Grippo Red Grooms Guerrilla Art Action Group David Hammons Al Hansen Maren Hassinger Lynn Hershman Leeson Dick Higgins Tatsumi Hijikata Susan Hiller Hi Red Center Rebecca Horn Tehching Hsieh Joan Jonas Kim Jones Michel Journiac Akira Kanayama Tadeusz Kantor Allan Kaprow Mike Kelley Jürgen Klauke Milan Knížák Alison Knowles Komar & Melamid Jannis Kounellis Shigeko Kubota Tetsumi Kudo Yayoi Kusama Leslie Labowitz Suzanne Lacy Jean-Jacques Lebel Lea Lublin George Maciunas Leopoldo Maler Piero Manzoni Tom Marioni Cusi Masuda Georges Mathieu Gordon Matta-Clark Paul McCarthy Bruce McLean David Medalla Cildo Meireles Ana Mendieta Gustav Metzger Marta Minujín Jan Mlčoch Linda Montano Charlotte Moorman Robert Morris Otto Muehl Saburo Murakami Natsuyuki Nakanishi Paul Neagu Senga Nengudi Joshua Neustein Hermann Nitsch Orlan Lorenzo Pace Nam June Paik Gina Pane Lygia Pape Giuseppe Pinot Gallizio Adrian Piper Michelangelo Pistoletto Jackson Pollock William Pope.L Carlyle Reedy Klaus Rinke Ulrike Rosenbach Dieter Roth Alfons Schilling Tomas Schmit Rudolf Schwarzkogler Bonnie Ora Sherk Shōzō Shimamoto Ushio Shinohara Kazuo Shiraga Barbara T. Smith Daniel Spoerri Jirō Takamatsu Mark Thompson Kerry Trengove Ulay Ben Vautier Wolf Vostell Franz Erhard Walther Peter Weibel Franz West Hannah Wilke Emmett Williams Zaj Paul Schimmel Kristine Stiles Guy Brett Hubert Klocker Shinichiro Osaki Thames and Hudson / London Group Shows / Collections Out-of-print / Rare Performance / Dance / Theater Transgressive / Visceral / Abject Sound / Music Fluxus Nouveau Réalisme / Zero / Kinetic Dada Art Sculpture / Installation Film / Video Conceptual Art Feminism Sociology / Politics Theory / Essay Painting Drawing

Feminist Avant-Garde
Art of the 1970s in the Verbund Collection, Vienna

2020, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 672 pages, 29 x 24 cm
Published by Prestel / Munich

$125.00 - Out of stock

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Now available again in an expanded edition and featuring a variety of work from artists both well-known and under the radar, this volume explores the pioneering achievements of the Feminist Avant-Garde.

For art history, the 1970s represent the beginning of women subverting culturally and socially established constructions and traditional norms. Second-wave feminism, with its slogan "The personal is political", challenged the one-dimensional roles assigned to women--mother, housewife, and spouse. During this period, women artists radically questioned their duties and created a plurality of self-determined representations of themselves. Rejecting traditional male-dominated techniques, such as painting, these artists made use of new media, such as photography, film, video, and performance. The outcome was artwork which was radical, poetic, ironic, bitter, cynical, and heartfelt. This book features more than seventy international female artists, including works by Martha Rosler, Mary Beth Edelson, Ana Mendieta, Nil Yalter, and Ulrike Rosenbach. Editor Gabriele Schor used the term Feminist Avant-Garde in order to emphasize the role that these artists played in the last four decades. This new edition has been enriched with twenty-five new artists–Emma Amos, Dara Birnbaum, Rose English, Natalia LL, among others–as well as up-to-date research on feminist exhibitions, catalogues, and periodicals. Each artist is introduced by an essay and the book also includes fascinating texts by leading scholars.

Features the work of: Helena Almeida, Eleanor Antin, Annekke Barger, Lynda Benglis, Judith Bernstein, Renate Bertlmann, Teresa Burga, Marcella Campagnano, Judy Chicago, Linda Christanell, Lili Dujourie, Mary Beth Edelson, Renate Eisenegger, Valie Export, Esther Ferrer, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Alexis Hunter, Sanja Iveković, Birgit Jürgenssen, Kirsten Justesen, Ketty La Rocca, Leslie Labowitz, Katalin Ladik, Brigitte Lang, Suzanne Lacy, Suzy Lake, Karin Mack, Ana Mendieta, Rita Myers, Lorraine O’Grady, Orlan, Gina Pane, Letítia Parente, Ewa Partum, Friederike Pezold, Margot Pilz, Ulrike Rosenbach, Martha Rosler, Suzanne Santoro, Carolee Schneemann, Lydia Schouten, Cindy Sherman, Penny Slinger, Annegret Soltau, Hannah Wilke, Martha Wilson, Francesca Woodman, Nil Yalter...

File under: Helena Almeida Eleanor Antin Annekke Barger Lynda Benglis Judith Bernstein Renate Bertlmann Teresa Burga Marcella Campagnano Judy Chicago Linda Christanell Lili Dujourie Mary Beth Edelson Renate Eisenegger Valie Export Esther Ferrer Lynn Hershman Leeson Alexis Hunter Sanja Iveković Birgit Jürgenssen Kirsten Justesen Ketty La Rocca Leslie Labowitz Katalin Ladik Brigitte Lang Suzanne Lacy Suzy Lake Karin Mack Ana Mendieta Rita Myers Lorraine O’Grady Orlan Gina Pane Letítia Parente Ewa Partum Friederike Pezold Margot Pilz Ulrike Rosenbach Martha Rosler Suzanne Santoro Carolee Schneemann Lydia Schouten Cindy Sherman Penny Slinger Annegret Soltau Hannah Wilke Martha Wilson Francesca Woodman Nil Yalter Gabriele Schor Prestel / Munich Art Feminism Group Shows / Collections Conceptual Art Performance / Dance / Theater Sculpture / Installation Sociology / Politics Gender Studies / Sexuality Photography Collage / Mail Art / Xerox Art Fluxus Film / Video

S.C.U.M Manifesto
by Valerie Solanas

1968, English
Softcover, 112 pages, 18 x 11 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Olympia Press / New York

$780.00 - In stock -

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Very rare 1st Olympia Press edition of S.C.U.M by Valerie Solanas, published in New York shortly after her arrest for the shooting of Andy Warhol.

"Warhol...the ultimate voyeur...felled by S.C.U.M...."–Time

S.C.U.M Manifesto is a legendary radical feminist manifesto by Valerie Solanas, a searing indictment of patriarchal culture in all its forms first published in 1967 as a mimeographed edition of 2,000 copies. It argues that men have ruined the world, and that it is up to women to fix it. To achieve this goal, it suggests the formation of S.C.U.M, an organization dedicated to overthrowing society and eliminating the male sex. The Manifesto was little-known until Solanas attempted to murder Andy Warhol by shooting him at The Factory in 1968. This event brought significant public attention to the Manifesto and Solanas herself.

Published by the legendary French publisher Maurice Girodias’ Olympia Press, with a foreword by Girodias, and a commentary by Paul Krassner.

VG copy with no spine creases, well–bound, light wear to board extremities, toned pulp pages. An uncommonly well preserved copy.

File under: Valerie Solanas Paul Krassner Maurice Girodias Olympia Press / New York Feminism Out-of-print / Rare Theory / Essay Sociology / Politics

Bakunin on Anarchy
by Mikhail Bakunin

1972, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 405 pages, 24 x 16.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by George Allen / London

$110.00 - Out of stock

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Rare first British hardcover edition of Bakunin on Anarchy, a new selection of writings nearly all published for the first time in English by the founder of the world Anarchist movement, published by George Allen & Unwin, London, 1972.

"This is the first comprehensive collection in English from the works of the founder of anarchism—culled and newly translated from Bakunin's writings, published and unpublished—including manuscripts left unfinished or unrevised at the time of his death almost a century ago."

Very Good copy in VG dust jacket. Mild wear to jacket extremities, closed tears. Preserved in mylar wrap.

File under: Mikhail Bakunin George Allen / London Anarchism Sociology / Politics Out-of-print / Rare Philosophy Theory / Essay Socialism / Communism / Capitalism

The Life of Poetry
by Muriel Rukeyser

1996, English
Softcover, 256 pages, 15.24 x 22.86 cm
Out of print title / used / fine
Published by Wesleyan University Press / US

$20.00 - In stock -

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Our century's lost classic about American culture, the essential saving force of poetry, and how it can improve the quality of life in the United States

Observing that poetry is a natural part of our pastimes and rituals, Muriel Rukeyser explores the vital force of poetry and the arts in American culture. She opposes elitist attitudes and addresses Americans' fear of feeling, which contribute to a devaluation of poetry and the arts in the U.S. Multicultural and interdisciplinary, this collection of essays makes an irrefutable case for the centrality of poetry in American life.

Muriel Rukeyser (1913–1980) is the author of fifteen collections of poems, children's books, plays, translations, and several prose works, including The Life of Poetry and an Irish memoir, The Orgy.

"Like most of Muriel Rukeyser's work, The Life of Poetry has been out of print for twenty years, so its reappearance is a genuine cultural event. Written in an expansive prose -poetic style, it's a scarily beautiful book, almost disorienting in its clarity. Muriel Rukeyser unspools one of the most passionate arguments I've ever read for the notion that art creates meeting places, that poetry creates democracy.The passion she speaks of is worthy of our fear. It's history."–EILEEN MYLES, THE NATION

Fine copy.

File under: Muriel Rukeyser Wesleyan University Press / US Theory / Essay Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language Out-of-print / Rare Sociology / Politics

The Muriel Rukeyser Era: Selected Prose
by Muriel Rukeyser

2023, English
Softcover, 354 pages, 15.24 x 22.86 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Cornell University Press / New York

$25.00 - In stock -

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The Muriel Rukeyser Era makes available for the first time a range of Muriel Rukeyser's prose, a rich and diverse archive of political, social, and aesthetic writings. Eric Keenaghan and Rowena Kennedy-Epstein assemble a selection of unpublished and out-of-print texts, demonstrating the diversity, brilliance, and possibilities of mid-twentieth-century women's intellectual life and sociopolitical engagement.

Although primarily known as a poet, Rukeyser produced an expansive and influential body of nonfiction and critical writings. Reflective of a deeply committed thinker, her accessible but philosophically complex prose—including essays, lectures, radio scripts, stories, and reviews—addresses issues related to racial, gender, and class justice, war and war crimes; the prison-industrial complex, Jewish culture and diaspora, motherhood, literature, music, cinema, and translation. Many of the selected texts have been forgotten, have fallen out of print, or were never previously published because of conservative Cold War political and gender orthodoxies. The Muriel Rukeyser Era offers new insight into Rukeyser's radical and strikingly contemporary vision for the role of the writer—especially the woman writer. This selection reveals the centrality of feminism, antifascism, and antiracism to her thinking and thus affirms the resonance and urgency of her work today.

VG–NF copy.

File under: Muriel Rukeyser Cornell University Press / New York Theory / Essay Sociology / Politics Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language Out-of-print / Rare