DOCSLIB.ORG

Spectacular Developments: Guy Debord's Parapolitical Turn

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Spectacular Developments: Guy Debord's Parapolitical Turn GOLDSMITHS Research Online Thesis (PhD) Kinkle, Jeffrey Spectacular Developments: Guy Debord's Parapolitical Turn You may cite this version as: Kinkle, Jeffrey. 2010. Spectacular Developments: Guy Debord's Parapolitical Turn. PhD thesis, Goldsmiths, University of London. [Thesis]: Goldsmiths Research Online. Available at: http://eprints.gold.ac.uk/3225/ COPYRIGHT This is a thesis accepted for a Higher Degree of the University of London. It is an unpublished document and the copyright is held by the author. All persons consulting this thesis must read and abide by the Copyright Declaration below. COPYRIGHT DECLARATION I recognise that the copyright and other relevant Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) of the above- described thesis rests with the author and/or other IPR holders and that no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without the prior written consent of the author. ACCESS A non-exclusive, non-transferable licence is hereby granted to those using or reproducing, in whole or in part, the material for valid purposes, providing the copyright owners are acknowledged using the normal conventions. Where specific permission to use material is required, this is identified and such permission must be sought from the copyright holder or agency cited. REPRODUCTION All material supplied via Goldsmiths Library and Goldsmiths Research Online (GRO) is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights, and duplication or sale of all or part of any of the Data Collections is not permitted, except that material may be duplicated by you for your research use or for educational purposes in electronic or print form. You must obtain permission for any other use. Electronic or print copies may not be offered, whether for sale or otherwise to anyone. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. http://eprints-gro.goldsmiths.ac.uk Contact Goldsmiths Research Online at: [email protected] Spectacular Developments Guy Debord’s Parapolitical Turn Jeffrey Kinkle Centre for Cultural Studies Goldsmiths College University of London 2010 Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of PhD in Cultural Studies Declaration This thesis is the result of my own investigations, except where otherwise stated. Other sources are acknowledged by footnotes giving explicit references. A bibliography is appended. Signed………………………………………………….. Date……………………………………………………. 2 Abstract Following the attacks of September 11th, 2001, Guy Debord’s concept of ‘the spectacle’ re-emerged in the work of a variety of theorists as a critical prism through which the attacks and subsequent ‘War on Terror’ could be approached. Debord’s first book on the spectacle (1967) was written in the context of France’s post-war boom; his later reflections, contained in a series of minor works written throughout the seventies and eighties, are heavily influenced by Italy’s ‘Years of Lead’ and a broader geopolitical climate of armed struggle, terrorism, counter-insurgency and espionage. Nearly all post-9/11 invocations of Debord’s concept draw on the version elucidated in Debord’s 1967 book, with its emphasis on commodity fetishism, ideology, and alienation, and fail to engage his later work and its focus on terrorism, secrecy, and conspiracy. Among those that do in fact reference Debord’s later work are several writers whose work could pejoratively be labelled ‘conspiracy theory’. Looking at Debord’s oeuvre as whole, and investigating how it combines a critique of late capitalism in its totality with parapolitcal concerns of ‘systemic clandestinity’, Spectacular Developments: Guy Debord’s Parapolitical Turn provides a bolstered conception of the spectacle that aims to reconfigure the conceptual foundations of this debate. This conception of the spectacle allows one to approach the 9/11 attacks and all that followed in their wake with both a precision and a breadth lacking in these other works, demonstrating the superficiality of readings that make the concept synonymous with the mass media or that attempt to unravel nefarious conspiracies of power. Simultaneously, this approach foregrounds the epistemological and strategic challenges faced by researchers, politicians and activists working in and on the society of the spectacle. 3 Table of Contents Page Acknowledgements 5 Introduction 6 Introduction Chapter I 36 Spectacular Developments: The Theory of the Spectacle Chapter II 79 Spectacular Consequences: From the Cosmopolitan Conspiracy of Capital to the Conspiracy Theory of the Eternal Present Chapter III 165 The Real Report on the Last Chance to Save the New American Century Conclusion 255 The Disintegrated Spectacle and the Spectacle of Disintegration Bibliography 276 4 Acknowledgements Thanks to the faculty and students at the Centre for Cultural Studies who have given me valuable feedback and inspiration over the past few years, especially Tom Bunyard, Jennifer Bajorek, Andy Christodoulou, and Susan Schuppli. I owe a tremendous amount to my advisors, John Hutnyk and Alberto Toscano, who have both made working on this project a continually enjoyable experience. Thanks to the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Swedish state for helping fund my studies, and to Janina Pedan and my partner Emanuel Almborg at Sakerna for everything over the past few years. Thanks also to Julia for allowing me to sit with them while finishing writing and Clodagh Kinsella for the proofreading help. Finally, I would like to dedicate this work to my parents for their constant support in every manner possible. 5 Introduction 6 ‘The conspiracy theory of history’ was in the nineteenth century a reactionary and ridiculous belief, at a time when so many powerful social movements were stirring up the masses. Today’s pseudo-rebels are well aware of this, thanks to hearsay or a few books, and believe that it remains true for eternity. They refuse to recognise the real praxis of their time; it is too sad for their cold hopes. The state notes this fact, and plays on it. –Guy Debord, 19881 Probably the most disquieting aspect of Debord’s books is the fact that history seems to have committed itself to relentlessly confirm their analyses. Twenty years after The Society of the Spectacle, the Commentaries (1988) registered the precision of the diagnosis and expectations of that previous book in every aspect. Meanwhile, the course of history has accelerated uniformly in the same direction: only two years after this book’s publication, in fact, we could say that world politics is nothing more than a hasty and parodic mise-en-scène of the script contained in that book. 2 –Giorgio Agamben, 1990 1 Guy Debord, Comments on the Society of the Spectacle, trans. Malcolm Imrie (London: Verso, 1998), p. 59. 2 Giorgio Agamben, Means without End. Trans. Vincenzo Binetti and Cesare Casarino (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000), p. 80. Note: Commentaries refers to Debord’s Comments on the Society of the Spectacle. 7 There is a short chapter in Guy Debord’s Comments on the Society of the Spectacle (1988) dedicated to General Manuel Noriega of Panama.3 Debord writes that Noriega is ‘a perfect representative’ of the contemporary society of the spectacle and lists several reasons: his sudden emergence on the world’s stage; the fact that he governed a country carved into existence by a foreign power out of economic and geopolitical strategies; his imperial employment and simultaneous anti-imperialist rhetoric; his international security apparatus, and his status as a player on both the legal and black markets. Noriega, writes Debord, ‘sells everything and fakes everything, in a world which does precisely the same thing.’4 He is ‘a sort of statesman in a sort of state, a sort of general, a capitalist. He is the very mode of our modern prince, and of those destined to come to power and stay there, the most able resemble him closely.’5 Published in 1988, Debord’s considerations obviously did not take into account the failed coup attempt in Panama on 3 October 1989; the US invasion Operation Just Cause later that year on December 20; the US army psychop in which hard rock, including Guns N’ Roses’ ‘Welcome to the Jungle’, was blasted at the Vatican Embassy, where Noriega was hiding to avoid arrest; nor Noriega’s being sentenced to forty years in a US federal prison for drug trafficking in 1992. Even with his colourful biography, Noriega seems to be a surprising choice for the society of the spectacle’s poster boy.6 The term ‘the spectacle’ is more often than 3 Debord, Comments, pp. 57-8. 4 Ibid., p. 58. 5 Ibid. 6 Here we should of course keep in mind Ralph Miliband’s point that the state cannot be reduced to the government. It is an assemblage of various apparatuses – government, administrative, coercive, and judicial apparatus, and then subcentral (regional, state, city) governments – that can by no means be reduced to one figure, even if that figure is the head of the executive and/or military. See Clyde Barrow, ‘The Miliband-Poulantzas Debate’, Paradigm Lost (USA: University of Minnesota Press, 2002) p. 16. 8 not used to characterise a society drowning in consumer abundance – a world fascinated by celebrities and television, shopping and video games, millionaire athletes and pop stars, in which politicians throw millions into what are essentially marketing campaigns, and a multi-million dollar diamond-encrusted skull passes for avant-garde art. None of this seems to have much to do with the world of Noriega. Nicknamed ‘Pineapple Face’ for his bad acne scars, he was among the least telegenic world leaders of his era. He ruled more through his control of the National Guard and his paramilitary force the ‘Dignity Battalions’ than any kind of sophisticated PR campaign. In fact, his image on the world stage was largely out of his hands – generated in Washington more than anywhere else.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Relevance in Obsolescence: Recuperation and Temporality in the Work of Guy Debord and the Situationist International
    RELEVANCE IN OBSOLESCENCE: RECUPERATION AND TEMPORALITY IN THE WORK OF GUY DEBORD AND THE SITUATIONIST INTERNATIONAL Tom Bunyard RECUPERATION In 2009, the French State bought an archive of Guy Debord’s work, containing his manuscripts, correspondence, reading notes, cinematic material and assorted personal effects. This purchase, which was conducted in order to prevent the archive’s sale to Yale, resulted in its installation in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF). In order for this to take place, the President of the Bibliothèque was required to dub Debord’s work a “national treasure”; Sarkozy’s minister of culture was then obliged to endorse that evaluation by describing Debord as a “great French intellectual.”1 Unsurprisingly, these statements have proved somewhat notorious. Debord’s “bad reputation”2 once merited far more attention from the police and secret services than it did from academia, and the irony involved in the archive’s acquisition has not been lost on its many commentators: for as a journalist in Le Monde remarked, it entailed housing, “in a temple of the state,” the archives of “an intellectual who was critical of all institutions, and of society in general.”3 Yet while the tension between the archive’s content and its current location may have been sufficient to provoke commentary in the press, it remains the case that Debord’s work, together with that of the Situationist International (S.I.), has been steadily accepted and celebrated by the society that it opposed for years. This process of accommodation has proceeded apace over the past few decades, and Situationist material has now become a fixture of both the academic Left and of university teaching program; this despite the fact that in 1966, a French judge felt moved to declare Situationist ideas to be a genuine “threat” to the minds of impressionable students, and to society at large.4 Thus while the transition from the status of “threat” to that of “treasure” announced by the archive’s purchase is sharp, it is by no means without precedent.
    [Show full text]
  • The Bibliography of the New Cold War History
    THE BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE NEW COLD WAR HISTORY SECOND ENLARGED EDITION Edited by Csaba BÉKÉS Research Chair, Center of Social Sciences, Institute of Political Science, Hungarian Academy of Sciences Professor of History, Corvinus University of Budapest Coordinators Valeria PUGA & Tsotne TCHANTURIA Assistant Editors Egor ABRAMOVSKIKH, Angela AIELLO, Lisa BERDNIK, Matilde BETTENCOURT Carretero de Bivar Cruz, Sára BÜKI, Natalija DIMIĆ, Pınar ELDEMIR, Mirkamran HUSEYNLI, Nurlan ISKANDARLI, Is-Haque ISMAILA IBN, Anna JASTRZEMBSKA, Khatia KARDAVA, Aigul KAZHENOVA, Ilaria LA TORRE, Helen LEE, Rastko LOMPAR, Marijn MULDER, Éva MEISTER, Robert MEISTER, Simen Agnalt NILSEN, İrem OSMANOĞLU, Justus RAUWALD, Antoine RENAUX, Simona SGLAVO, Simon SZILVÁSI, Veronika SZAPPANOS, Lenka THÉROVÁ, Kalliroy TZIVRA, Barnabás VAJDA, Mercédesz VARGA, Chen YIXIN Editorial Assistance Dániel BORSOS, Gökay ÇİNAR, Mingnan GUAN, Tamás IZSÁK, Alexander KANDELAKI, Jennifer LOY, Meghan POFF, Violet Andrew SALIU, Ahmet Ömer YÜCE, Sergei ZAKHAROV Cold War History Research Center, Budapest 2018 ISBN 978-615-5963-02-5 © Cold War History Research Center, 2018 1 This bibliography attempts to present publications on the history of the Cold War published after 1989, the beginning of the „archival revolution” in the former Soviet bloc countries. While this second and updated edition is still not complete, it contains an extensive number of books, articles and book chapters on the topic; at 1151 pages in length so far, it is the most extensive such bibliography. If you are a Cold War history scholar in any country and would like us to incude your publications on the Cold War (published after 1989) in the next edition, we will gladly do so. Please send us a list of your works in which books and articles/book chapters are separated, following the format of our bibliography.
    [Show full text]
  • Senato Della Repubblica Viii Legislatura
    SENATO DELLA REPUBBLICA VIII LEGISLATURA 1498 SEDUTA PUBBLICA RESOCONTO STENOGRAFICO MARTEDì 8 LUGLIO 1980 Presidenza del vice presidente OSSICINI, indi del vice presidente FERRALASCO INDICE AUTORIZZAZIONI A PROCEDERE IN GIU. INTERPELLANZE E INTERROGAZIONI DIZIO Annunzio Pag. 7934 Trasmissione di domanda Pag. 7895 Annunzio di interrogazione, già assegnata a Commissione permanente, da svolgere CONGEDI . 7893 in Assemblea . 7896 Annunzio di risposte scritte ad interroga- CONSIGLIO NAZIONALE DELL'ECONOMIA zioni . 7934 E DEL LAVORO Svolgimento: Trasmissione di osservazioni e proposte 7895 PRESIDENTE . 7902 e passim · CHIAROMONTE(PCI) . 7906 CORTE COSTITUZIONALE CORALLO(PCI) . .7909, 7921 FERMARIELLO(PCI) . 7896, 7901 Ordinanze emesse da autorità giurisdizio- .. FIORI(Sin. Ind.) . .. ..7912, 7933 nali per il giudizio di legittimità . 7896 FORMICA,ministro dei trasporti . .7913, 7933 GIANNINI, ministro senza portafoglio per CORTE DEI CONTI la funzione pubblica . 7899 GUALTIERI (PR!) 7926 Trasmissione di decisione sul rendiconto MANCA,ministro del commercio con l'estero 7903 generale dello Stato . 7895 7905 MEZZAPESA (DC) . 7924 PARRINO (PSDI) . 7930 DISEGNI DI LEGGE POZZO (MSI-DN) 7928 Annunzio di presentazione . .7893, 7934 SAPORITO(DC) . 7903 SIGNORI (PS/) . 7923 Deferimento a Commissione permanente in SPADACCIA(Misto-PR) 7920 sede deliberante .. 7894 .. SPANO (PSI) 7931 VINCELLI (DC) 7927 Deferimento a Commissioni permanenti in sede referente . 7894 ORDINE DEL GIORNO PER LA SEDUTA DI Presentazione di relazioni . 7895, 7934 MERCOLEDI' 9 LUGLIO 1980 . 7938 Richiesta di parere a Commissione perma- nente . 7895 N. B. ~ L'asterisco indica che il testo del di- Trasmissione dalla Camera dei deputati . 7893 scorso non è stato restituito corretto dall'oratore. TJPOGRA.11JA DEL Së.NATO 0200\ ~ Senato della Repubblica ~ 7893 ~ VIII Legislatura 149a SEDUTA ASSEMBLEA - RESOCONTO STENOGRAFICO 8 LUGLIO 1980 Presidenza del vice presidente O S S I C I N I P R E S I D E N T E.
    [Show full text]
  • Download Download
    urn:nbn:de:0070-ijcv-2014139 IJCV: Vol. 8 (1) 2014 Elusive Justice, Changing Memories and the Recent Past of Dictatorship and Violence in Uruguay: An Analysis of the 2012 Public Act in the Gelman Case Francesca Lessa, Latin American Centre and St. Anne’s College, University of Oxford, United Kingdom Vol. 8 (1) 2014 Editorial (p. 3) Focus Section: Introduction: Violence, Justice and the Work of Memory Klaus Neumann / Dan Anderson (pp. 4 –15) Violence, Justice, and the Work of Memory Personhood, Violence, and the Moral Work of Memory in Contemporary Rwanda Laura Eramian (pp. 16 – 29) “The Country that Doesn’t Want to Heal Itself”: The Burden of History, Affect and Women’s Memories in Post-Dictatorial Argentina Jill Stockwell (pp. 30 – 44) Rewriting the World: Gendered Violence, the Political Imagination and Memoirs from the “Years of Lead” in Morocco Laura Menin (pp. 45 – 60) From a Duty to Remember to an Obligation to Memory? Memory as Repraration in the Jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights Maria Campisi (pp. 61 – 74) Elusive Justice, Changing Memories and the Recent Past of Dictatorship and Violence in Uruguay: An Analysis of the 2012 Public Act in the Gelman Case Francesca Lessa (pp. 75 – 90) “What Will You Do with Our Stories?” Truth and Reconciliation in the Solomon Islands Louise Vella (pp. 91 – 103) Constructing Meaning from Disappearance: Local Memorialisation of the Missing in Nepal Simon Robins (pp.104 – 118) Open Section Postwar Violence in Guatemala – A Mirror of the Relationship between Youth and Adult Society Sabine Kurtenbach (pp.
    [Show full text]
  • Aeroporti Del Mezzogiorno
    AEROPORTI DEL MEZZOGIORNO 2007 AEROPORTI DEL MEZZOGIORNO 2007 Alessandro Bianchi Ministro dei Trasporti Ho trascorso quasi trent’anni della mia vita in Calabria e a Reggio Calabria in particolare. Sono stati anni che ho interamente dedicato allo studio e alla pianifica- zione del territorio, per cui ho ben presente l’importanza di un efficiente sistema di mobilità per l’Italia meridionale e insulare. Le regioni dell’Italia del Sud sono attualmente dotate di un sistema aeroportua- le moderno e quindi lo sforzo che bisogna compiere è in direzione della piena inte- grazione con le reti di trasporto europee, affinché il Mezzogiorno d’Italia diventi la vera testa di ponte continentale verso i paesi della riva sud ed est del Mediter- raneo. Un vasto piano di interventi infrastrutturali negli aeroporti dell’Italia meridionale è in corso di attuazione in esecuzione di Accordi di programma quadro per il tra- sporto aereo sottoscritti con le singole regioni. Sono il frutto di una efficace collabo- razione istituzionale tra l’Unione Europea, che li ha finanziati con i fondi strutturali, le regioni, che hanno impegnato importanti contributi, e il Ministero dei Trasporti e delle Infrastrutture impegnato a centrare l’obiettivo di rendere migliore servizio al cittadino-utente. Comunque è l’intero panorama del trasporto aereo dell’Italia meri- dionale che potrebbe uscire profondamente rinnovato grazie agli interventi del PON Trasporti. Dal punto di vista territoriale la geografia articolata dell’Italia rende prioritarie le esigenze di consolidamento di un vasto network senza privilegiare solo le tratte più redditizie, e la continuità territoriale è prerequisito irrinunciabile perché l’Europa sia veramente unita e perché le barriere geografiche non si trasformino in ostacoli allo sviluppo economico.
    [Show full text]
  • Re:Imagining Change
    WHERE IMAGINATION BUILDS POWER RE:IMAGINING CHANGE How to use story-based strategy to win campaigns, build movements, and change the world by Patrick Reinsborough & Doyle Canning 1ST EDITION Advance Praise for Re:Imagining Change “Re:Imagining Change is a one-of-a-kind essential resource for everyone who is thinking big, challenging the powers-that-be and working hard to make a better world from the ground up. is innovative book provides the tools, analysis, and inspiration to help activists everywhere be more effective, creative and strategic. is handbook is like rocket fuel for your social change imagination.” ~Antonia Juhasz, author of e Tyranny of Oil: e World’s Most Powerful Industry and What We Must Do To Stop It and e Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time “We are surrounded and shaped by stories every day—sometimes for bet- ter, sometimes for worse. But what Doyle Canning and Patrick Reinsbor- ough point out is a beautiful and powerful truth: that we are all storytellers too. Armed with the right narrative tools, activists can not only open the world’s eyes to injustice, but feed the desire for a better world. Re:Imagining Change is a powerful weapon for a more democratic, creative and hopeful future.” ~Raj Patel, author of Stuffed & Starved and e Value of Nothing: How to Reshape Market Society and Redefine Democracy “Yo Organizers! Stop what you are doing for a couple hours and soak up this book! We know the importance of smart “issue framing.” But Re:Imagining Change will move our organizing further as we connect to the powerful narrative stories and memes of our culture.” ~ Chuck Collins, Institute for Policy Studies, author of e Economic Meltdown Funnies and other books on economic inequality “Politics is as much about who controls meanings as it is about who holds public office and sits in office suites.
    [Show full text]
  • L5 News, May 1977
    Space Settlement LATEST DEVELOPMENTS IN SPACE INDUSTRIALIZATION, SATELLITE SOLAR POWER, AND SPACE HABITATS L-5 Mews May 1977 half its gross weight consisting of fuel. If there were no atmospheric oxygen, it Space letters would also need to carry that, too. Its mass-ratio would then be very much like Settlement I would like to comment on Jim that of a rocket, and a simple calculation Oberg’s questions regarding the Moon, in shows that if equipped with rocket Special Issue of the L-5 News the March L-5 News. engines, it could attain nearly enough He raised the question of Volume 2, Number 5 May, 1977 velocity for a transcontinental flight just environmental effects of the use of a by flying like an ICBM. So once again it lunar mass-driver, both on the Moon itself is not clear whether the Oberg and on the regions of space available for atmosphere would make travel by lunar Contents: use by spacecraft. aircraft all that much easier than travel by Regarding the latter, recent work has rocket. Developing Space Policy 1 made it clear that the lunar-launched Finally, Bob Farquhar of NASA- Jack Salmon mass stream will be very well-defined in Goddard has done a great deal of very Arthur Kantrowitz Proposes its trajectory characteristics, and will be fine work on lunar libration-point A Science Court 4 predicted well in advance. Thus, it need communications satellites. These would L-5 interview by Eric Drexler pose no more of a hazard to navigation provide much more reliable and efficient than any other type of space traffic.
    [Show full text]
  • Working Documents 1983 -1984
    European Communities EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT Working Documents 1983 -1984 16 March 1984 . -DOCUMENT 1-1551/83 Report drawn up on behalf of the Comm;ttee on Transport on the safety of air transport in Europe Rapporteur: Mr C. RIPA 01 MEANA PE 86.425/fin. Or. Fr. ~ • I Enttli~h Edition The European Parliament, - at its sitting of 16 June 1982, referred the motion for a resolution tabled by Mr DE PASQUALE and others pursuant to Rule 47 of the Rules of Procedure (Doe. 1-364/82> to the Committee on Transport as the committee responsible and to the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection for its opinion; -at its sitting of 11 April 1983, referred the motion for a resolution tabled by Mr MOORHOUSE and others pursuant to Rule 47 of the Rules of Procedure <Doe. 1-21/83) to the Committee on Transport as the committee responsible; - at its sitting of 10 October 1983, referred the motion for a resolution tabled by Mr SEEFELD and others pursuant to Rule 47 of the Rules of Procedure <Doe. 1-734/83) to the Committee on Transport as the committee responsible and to the Political Affairs Committee for its opinion; - at its sitting of 27 October 1983, referred the motion for a resolution tabled by Mr ANTONIOZZI pursuant to Rule 47 of the Rules of Procedure (Doe. 1-674/83> to the Committee on Transport as the committee responsible and to the Political Affairs Committee for its opinion; -.at its sitting of 16 November 1983, referred the motion for a resolution tabled by Mr EPHREMIDIS and others pursuant to Rule 47 of the Rules of Procedure <Doe.
    [Show full text]
  • International Terrorism and Europe
    Chaillot Papers December 2002 n°56 International terrorism and Europe Thérèse Delpech In January 2002 the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) beca- me an autonomous Paris-based agency of the European Union. Following an EU Council Joint Action of 20 July 2001, it is now an integral part of the new structures that will support the further development of the CFSP/ESDP. The Institute’s core mission is to provide analyses and recommendations that can be of use and relevance to the formulation of EU policies. In carrying out that mission, it also acts as an interface between experts and decision-makers at all levels. The EUISS is the successor to the WEU Institute for Security Studies, set up in 1990 by the WEU Council to foster and sti- mulate a wider discussion of security issues across Europe. Chaillot Papers are monographs on topical questions written either by a member of the ISS research team or by outside authors chosen and commissioned by the Institute. Early drafts are normally discussed at a semi- nar or study group of experts convened by the Institute and publication indicates that the paper is considered by the ISS as a useful and authoritative contribution to the debate on CFSP/ESDP. Responsibility for the views expressed in them lies exclusively with authors. Chaillot Papers are also accessible via the Institute’s Website: www.iss-eu.org Chaillot Papers December 2002 n°56 The original French version is also available International terrorism and Europe Thérèse Delpech Institute for Security Studies European Union Paris The author Thérèse Delpech is Director for Strategic Affairs at France’s Commissariat à l’Energie atomique, Commissioner at UNMOVIC (UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission for Iraq) and associate researcher at the Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches internationales (CERI).
    [Show full text]
  • Guy Debord and the Situationist International: Texts and Documents, Edited by Tom Mcdonough G D   S I
    G D S I OCTOBER BOOKS Rosalind E. Krauss, Annette Michelson, Yve-Alain Bois, Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, Hal Foster, Denis Hollier, and Mignon Nixon, editors Broodthaers, edited by Benjamin H. D. Buchloh AIDS: Cultural Analysis/Cultural Activism, edited by Douglas Crimp Aberrations, by Jurgis Baltrusˇaitis Against Architecture: The Writings of Georges Bataille, by Denis Hollier Painting as Model, by Yve-Alain Bois The Destruction of Tilted Arc: Documents, edited by Clara Weyergraf-Serra and Martha Buskirk The Woman in Question, edited by Parveen Adams and Elizabeth Cowie Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century, by Jonathan Crary The Subjectivity Effect in Western Literary Tradition: Essays toward the Release of Shakespeare’s Will, by Joel Fineman Looking Awry: An Introduction to Jacques Lacan through Popular Culture, by Slavoj Zˇizˇek Cinema, Censorship, and the State: The Writings of Nagisa Oshima, by Nagisa Oshima The Optical Unconscious, by Rosalind E. Krauss Gesture and Speech, by André Leroi-Gourhan Compulsive Beauty, by Hal Foster Continuous Project Altered Daily: The Writings of Robert Morris, by Robert Morris Read My Desire: Lacan against the Historicists, by Joan Copjec Fast Cars, Clean Bodies: Decolonization and the Reordering of French Culture, by Kristin Ross Kant after Duchamp, by Thierry de Duve The Duchamp Effect, edited by Martha Buskirk and Mignon Nixon The Return of the Real: The Avant-Garde at the End of the Century, by Hal Foster October: The Second Decade, 1986–1996, edited by Rosalind Krauss, Yve-Alain Bois, Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, Hal Foster, Denis Hollier, and Silvia Kolbowski Infinite Regress: Marcel Duchamp 1910–1941, by David Joselit Caravaggio’s Secrets, by Leo Bersani and Ulysse Dutoit Scenes in a Library: Reading the Photograph in the Book, 1843–1875, by Carol Armstrong Neo-Avantgarde and Culture Industry: Essays on European and American Art from 1955 to 1975, by Benjamin H.
    [Show full text]
  • On Debord, Then and Now: an Interview with Olivier Assayas
    On Debord, Then and Now: An Interview with Olivier Assayas By Brian Price and Meghan Sutherland Brian Price (BP): When did you first encounter Guy Debord? Olivier Assayas (OA): I never actually met him. I suppose I was gradually attracted to the ideas. It has to do with France in the 70s, with the ambient of French leftism. That’s when I grew up. What is not clearly understood now is that you had different streams [at that time], in the sense that May ‘68 was not specifically a leftist event. There were some leftist groups that somehow later appropriated the event—like Maoists or Trotskyists—but to the core it was really a libertarian movement. And once you look into it, you can very clearly trace it back to some libertarian opposition to the communist, leftist ideology within the French university at that time. I was thirteen in May ’68. My father had been a militant anti-fascist in Italy when he was a young man, then was close to “Communist” circles in Paris before the Second World War. But when he fled France, because of the anti-Semite laws in 1941, he ended up on the same boat as Victor Serge. Victor Serge was a prominent critic at that time of the totalitarian revolution of the Soviet Union. I suppose that my father became close to him and was certainly influenced by his ideas, which, of course, made him break with his ties to conventional Communism. He was also involved with the Free French [Forces], became a Gaullist, and after that became extremely anti-Stalinian.
    [Show full text]
  • Milan and the Memory of Piazza Fontana Elena Caoduro Terrorism
    Performing Reconciliation: Milan and the Memory of Piazza Fontana Elena Caoduro Terrorism was arguably the greatest challenge faced by Western Europe in the 1970s with the whole continent shaken by old resentments which turned into violent revolt: Corsican separatists in France, German speaking minorities in Italy’s South Tyrol, and Flemish nationalists in Belgium. Throughout that decade more problematic situations escalated in the Basque Provinces and Northern Ireland, where ETA and the Provisional IRA, as well as the Loyalist paramilitary groups (such as the UVF, and UDA) participated in long armed campaigns. According to Tony Judt, two countries in particular, West Germany and Italy, witnessed a different violent wave, as the radical ideas of 1968 did not harmlessly dissipate, but turned into a ‘psychosis of self- justifying aggression’ (2007, p. 469). In Italy, the period between 1969 and 1983, where political terrorism reached its most violent peak, is often defined as anni di piombo, ‘the years of lead’. This idiomatic expression derives from the Italian title given to Margarethe Von Trotta’s Die bleierne Zeit (1981, W. Ger, 106 mins.), also known in the UK as The German Sisters and in the USA as Marianne and Juliane.1 Following the film’s Golden Lion award at the 1981 Venice Film Festival, the catchy phrase ‘years of lead’ entered common language, and is now accepted as a unifying term for the various terrorist phenomena occurred in the long 1970s, both in Italy and West Germany. By the mid 1980s, however, terrorism had begun to decline in Italy. Although isolated episodes of left-wing violence continued to occur – two governmental consultants were murdered in 1999 and in 2002 respectively – special laws and the reorganisation of anti-terrorist police forces enabled its eradication, as did the 1 collaboration of many former radical militants.
    [Show full text]