CATALOG
Situationist
International Anthology
Edited and translated
by Ken Knabb
Bureau of Public Secrets, 1981 (third printing 1995)
ISBN 0-939682-00-1
406 pages. $15.00
In 1957 a few experimental European groups stemming from the radical tradition of
dadaism and surrealism, but seeking to avoid the cooption to which those movements
succumbed, came together to form the Situationist International. The name came from their
aim of liberating everyday life through the creation of open-ended, participatory
“situations” (as opposed to fixed works of art) — an aim which naturally
ran up against the whole range of material and mental obstacles produced by the present
social order. Over the next decade the situationists developed an increasingly incisive
critique of the global “spectacle-commodity system” and of its bureaucratic
leftist pseudo-opposition, and their new methods of agitation helped trigger the May 1968
revolt in France. Since then — although the SI itself was dissolved in 1972 —
situationist theories and tactics have continued to inspire radical currents in dozens of
countries all over the world.
The SI Anthology,
generally recognized as the most comprehensive and accurately translated collection of
situationist writings in English, presents a chronological survey of the group’s
activities and development as reflected in articles from its French journal and in a
variety of leaflets, pamphlets, filmscripts and internal documents, ranging from their
early experiments in urban “psychogeography” and cultural subversion to their
lucid analyses of the Watts riot, the Vietnam war, the Prague Spring, the Chinese
“Cultural Revolution” and other crises and upheavals of the sixties.
[Table of Contents and online texts]
Public Secrets
Collected Skirmishes of Ken Knabb
Bureau of Public Secrets, 1997
ISBN 0-939682-03-6
408 pages. $15.00
Ken Knabb is the editor and translator of the Situationist International Anthology
(1981). Public Secrets is the first collection of his own writings.
The first half of the book consists
of two new texts. “The Joy of Revolution” is a series of observations on the
problems and possibilities of a global antihierarchical revolution. Beginning with a brief
overview of the failure of Bolshevism and the inadequacy of reformism, it examines the
pros and cons of a wide range of radical tactics, then concludes with some speculations on
what a liberated society might be like. “Confessions of a Mild-Mannered Enemy of the
State” is largely concerned with Knabb’s situationist activities, but it also
includes reminiscences of the sixties counterculture and accounts of his Zen practice and
other later ventures.
The second half of the book
contains virtually all of Knabb’s previous publications. Beginning with his 1970
disruption of a Gary Snyder poetry reading, it includes critiques of the New Left and the
counterculture; accounts of situationist groups, tactics and scandals; translations of
several French texts; an appreciation of the great writer and social critic, Kenneth
Rexroth; pamphlets, posters, comics and articles on Wilhelm Reich, radical Buddhists,
Japanese anarchists, Chinese dissidents, the 1970 Polish revolt, the 1979 Iranian
uprising; and the widely reproduced Gulf war tract, “The War and the Spectacle.”
The aim throughout is to bring the
real choices into the open and to incite people to make their own radical experiments.
[Table of Contents and online texts]
Guy Debord:
Complete Cinematic Works
Translated and edited by Ken Knabb
AK Press, 2003
268 pages, 62 illustrations
Hardcover (ISBN 1-902593-73-1), $29.00
Paperback (ISBN 1-904859-83-9), $19.00
Guy Debord, founder of the Situationist International and
fomenter of the May 1968 revolt in France, was also the creator of six tantalizingly inaccessible films.
Following the still-unsolved assassination of the films’ producer in 1984, all
of them were withdrawn from circulation for nearly twenty years. This new edition of Debord’s film scripts accompanies the long-awaited
rerelease of these astonishing works, the most important radical films ever
made.
One of the films is an
adaptation of Debord’s own book, The
Society of the Spectacle. Others evoke his adventures in the bohemian underworld of
1950s Paris, which he contrasts with the increasingly ignorant, ugly and
alienated world that has since been produced by modern capitalism. In each case
Debord simultaneously attacks the film medium itself, challenging spectators to
create their own adventures instead of passively consuming the pseudo-adventures
that are presented to them.
Ken Knabb’s meticulous new
translation of the scripts — which he was asked to make by Debord’s widow and
which will also be used in subtitling the films themselves — is supplemented
with numerous illustrations and documents and elucidated by extensive
annotations. With chronology, filmography, bibliography, and index.
NOTE: Wholesale orders of this book should be directed to the publisher: AK Press. Individual copies may be ordered either from AK Press or from the Bureau of Public Secrets.
[Table of Contents, online excerpts, and general information about Debord’s films]
Guy Debord:
The Society of the Spectacle
Newly translated by Ken Knabb
Rebel Press (London), 2004
119 pages. $12.00
The Society of the Spectacle, originally published in 1967, is
the most important radical book of the twentieth century.
Contrary to popular misconceptions,
Debord’s book is neither an ivory tower
“philosophical” discourse nor a kneejerk militant “protest,” but a
ruthlessly lucid examination of the most fundamental tendencies and contradictions of the
society we live in. This means that it needs to be reread many times, but it
also means that it remains as pertinent as ever while countless radical and intellectual
fads have come and gone. As Debord noted in his later Comments on the Society of the
Spectacle (1988), in the intervening decades the spectacle has become more
pervasive than ever, to the point of repressing virtually any awareness of
pre-spectacle history or anti-spectacle possibilities: “Spectacular domination has
succeeded in raising an entire generation molded to its laws.”
Although there have been several
previous English translations of The Society of the Spectacle, the
translator believes that this new edition conveys Debord’s actual meaning more accurately, as well as more
clearly and idiomatically, than any of the other versions.
NOTE: Wholesale orders of this book should be directed to AK Distribution (UK) or AK Distribution (USA). Individual copies may be ordered either from AK Distribution or from the Bureau of Public Secrets or from www.abooks.org (UK).
(Please note also: The publisher of this edition erroneously put a notice on the book cover saying that this is “a new authorized translation.” This is not the case. The translation was done independently and was not authorized.)
[Table of Contents and online text]
The Relevance of Rexroth
By Ken Knabb
Bureau of Public Secrets, 1990
ISBN 0-939682-02-8
88 pages. $5.00
A critical appreciation of the great poet, essayist and social critic Kenneth Rexroth, who wryly described his main themes as “sex, mysticism and revolution,” and who was the leading inspiration behind the San Francisco Renaissance of the fifties and sixties.
NOTE: The complete text of this small book is also included in Public Secrets.
[Table of Contents and online text]
HOW TO ORDER
Individual copies of these books may be ordered direct from the publisher:
Bureau of Public Secrets
P.O. Box 1044
Berkeley, CA 94701
USA
If you order any two of these books (not counting The Relevance of Rexroth), there is a $5 discount. If you order any three, there is a $10 discount. If you order all four, there is a $20 discount. Please make checks to “Ken Knabb.” United States orders are postpaid. Please email Ken for information on postal rates for foreign orders.
These books are also available in bookstores and from the following distributors:
United States:
AK Distribution
674-A 23rd St.
Oakland, CA 94612
510-208-1700
www.akpress.org
Small Press Distribution
1341 7th St.
Berkeley, CA 94710
510-524-1668
www.spdbooks.orgKoen Book Distributors [wholesale only]
P.O. Box 600
Moorestown, NJ 08057
609-235-4444
www.koen.comLeft Bank Distribution [retail only]
92 Pike St.
Seattle, WA 98101
206-322-2868
www.leftbankbooks.com
Europe:
AK Distribution
P.O. Box 12766
Edinburgh EH8 9YE
UK
0131-555-5165
www.akuk.com
Australia:
Barricade Books
P.O. Box 199
East Brunswick VIC 3056
Australia
www.anarki.net/barricade
Bureau Prehistory: 1970-1972
Edited by Ken Knabb
Bureau of Public Secrets, 1973
90 pages (8½″ x
11″). $10.00
Collected leaflets, comics and scandals of three early San Francisco Bay Area situationist groups: the Council for the Eruption of the Marvelous, 1044, and Contradiction.
NOTE: This photocopy dossier is available only directly from Ken Knabb, not from stores or distributors.
[Table of Contents and online texts]