The Unseen Book Club

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Episodes

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Anarchist novels, communist poetry, uncategorizable anticolonial texts, unapologetically utopian science fiction. Close readings of stories of collective resistance and research into their contexts. A search for narratives of "we" instead of "I," observing the becoming of political subjects. A conversation between two curious non-experts and the occasional guest. It's not necessary to read the books to enjoy the show, but they're worth reading for their own sake.

Episodes

Memory of Fire, Vols. II and III by Eduardo Galeano

Memory of Fire, a trilogy written by Eduardo Galeano between 1981-86 while in exile from his native Uruguay, traces the history of the Americas from the earliest periods of European contact through conquest, colonization, independence, revolutions, imperialism and globalization. Composed of short, fictionalized vignettes depicting historical figures at iconic moments, scenes of daily life, class conflict and encounters with the natural world, Memory of Fire recasts history as a collective, human...

Jun 08, 2021•1 hr 9 min•Transcript available on Metacast

Memory of Fire, Vol. I: Genesis by Eduardo Galeano

May 26, 2021•1 hr 23 min•Transcript available on Metacast

Embassytown by China Mieville

We discuss Embassytown , China Miéville's weird science fiction novel about a colonial outpost confronted by sudden upheaval and insurgency. We get wrapped up in allegory, metaphor, and how living through crisis can sometimes be the only way to find the necessary language for survival. What is a Trotskyist? // October , Miéville's history of the Russian Revolution // untranslatable language and the conflation of the sign and the signifier // writing about colonialism without allegory /...

Apr 27, 2021•1 hr 22 min•Transcript available on Metacast

The Unseen by Nanni Balestrini

Balestrini’s breathless novel of student and worker rebellion during the upheaval of the 1970s in Italy follows its unnamed narrator through student occupations, wildcat strikes and sabotage, the formation of squatted social centers, and the fracturing of left autonomism into armed bands of would-be urban insurgents. The joy of young people claiming space and infrastructure contrasts with crushing scenes of prison brutality on the part of a state attempting to wrest control back from its populac...

Apr 02, 2021•1 hr 12 min•Transcript available on Metacast

Introduction

Why the Unseen Book Club? How is it that everything is political but it is so difficult to act politically? How can Spinoza help us answer that question? Long readings of Italo Calvino and Andrei Platonov. Dan and Max become friends and experiment with the podcast form at the temporary expense of decent audio quality. **EPISODE RECORDED IN MAY 2020** https://twitter.com/unseenbookclub Music by Ex-Official: https://exofficialexo.bandcamp.com/ Art by Eli Liebman: https://elimack.weebly.com/...

Mar 28, 2021•25 min•Transcript available on Metacast