People's History poster by Tim Simons - Taken from www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily
Here’s both the audio recording and text (PDF) of the double talk WM1 and WM2 gave at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, on April 5, 2011.
On the previous day we’d given the same talk at Duke University, Durham, NC. The UNC version is slightly different, because it took into account things emerged in the Duke Q & A.
We wish to thank, among many, Mimmo Cangiano, Roberto Dainotto and Federico Luisetti, who invited us and organised the whole thing; Laura Moure Cecchini, who put us up in her flat; the comrades of El Kilombo Intergalactico, for an eye-opening afternoon of “counter-tourism”; Michael Hardt, for being always the gentleman; Fredric Jameson, for supporting the initiative; Michal Osterweil, with whom we share precious memories of the penultimate uprising.
[Click on the small Playtagger icon to listen without leaving this page. Click on the text link to listen on a new page. Right click and save (or ctrl + click and save) to download the mp3s.]
WU MING 1 – WE’RE ALL FEBRUARY OF 1917 (47’31″)
An article by Hardt & Negri in The Guardian – Are the North-African uprisings revolutions? – Are 20th century references really that useless? – Looking for a “healthily schizophrenic” narrative of the revolution – Picture yourself in a trench by a river – How the Italian working class instantly grasped the anti-war nature of the 1917 February Revolution – What did the revolution look like in their eyes? – Forked tongues and resonances – Jacques Rancière on In the shadow of young girls in flower – What is “haecceity”? And can a sense of haecceity be conveyed through a narrative? – Enter Vladimir Mayakovsky – Lev Trotsky on Mayakovsky – The 150 Million – Conclusions.
PDF HERE
WU MING 2 – HOW TO TELL A REVOLUTION FROM EVERYTHING ELSE (44’21″)
The “colored revolutions” – 1989 – What is a “toxic” narrative of the revolution? – Retrospective illusion of fatality – The first regime to fall down was our regime of discourse on the Arab world – Orientalism and revolution: T.E. Lawrence – Looking for the “Original Sin” – Chronological myopia – The Synecdoche Effect – A timeline in the Guardian website – The meme of the “Twitter Revolution” – Partial intentionality and the Ceausescu Effect - “Divide and conquer” stories – The Main Event and the Wind-Down – The Result and post-coital tiredness – Conclusions.
PDF HERE
QUESTIONS & ANSWERS (19’52″)
N.B. As yet, the two texts have no footnotes. They were written for public reading, and have a a semi-oral nature. When one speaks, s/he’d better not give exact bibliographical details, page numbers, the name of every translator etc. We’ll provide an appendix ASAP, with all the correct references.
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Like most people in Britain (and, the US, I think) I have a fairly good knowledge of World War 2 and less so of the Great War.
Which (English language) books would you recommend that cover the Great War?
I’m aware that, often times, an outsider’s view can be the superior one where history is concerned. So I am not particularly bothered if the author is British or not.
Both of the novels recommended give many insights into the nature of the fighting – I’d recommend you to get hold of a movie by Stanly Kubrick, called “Paths of Glory” which puts on the screen much of the horror and senselessness of the fighting in France and Belgium and the sheer incompetence of the army commanders. A very good account of the origins of the war can be found in “August 1914″ by Barbara Tuchman.
Hello,
I saw in twitter your message and i read in Giap about the revolution in the Arab world and the social networks (although my italian is not too good).I would like to send this video. It was presented last night on state television in Greece.
(Documentary: Peportaz without Borders / Reporter: Stelios Kouloglou)
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xibn1a_y-yyyyyyyy-yyy-yyyyyyI
I imagine that you have seen enough, but this it seems to me most completed. Start with Tunisia, Mohamed Bouazizi … and continues with Egypt.
It looks much more:
a) the reasons (social, political) which led the events in Tunisia and Egypt.
b) the role of social networks.
c) political and social developments.
d) what is happening now in both societies (social, political)
P.S. Maybe, it can help.
@ Chuckles
the literature on the subject is overwhelming, almost unmanageable! if I were you I would start from these books (a memoir written by a great poet, novelist and mythologist, and then two epoch-defining novels):
Robert Graves, Goodbye to All That
Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front
and a great description of how it was to be in that war is in the first part of Céline’s Journey to the End of the Night.
@ Giota
thanks!
@WuMing1
Many thanks.
If i remember correctly you may find interesting details in Mark Mazower’s “Dark continent”….
Ciao ragazzi!
We are one of the radical radio collectives on the UK network that has created Catalyst Radio – a 24/7 online stream of radical stuff and content.
I would very much like to play your interviews in english language on the radio, if that is acceptable to you?
If so, please email me and we can find a way to transfer the files onto our server, so we can play them
cheers
RK
[...] We tried to raise all thosee issues and reflect upon them drawing on the works of philosophers, cognitive scientists… and combat poets. You probably had a grasp of of our lines of reasoning if you listened to our North Carolina conferences. [...]
[...] The following comprise parts of talks given by two members of the Wu Ming collective at the University of North Carolina on April 5, 2011. The full versions can be found at Wu Ming Foundation. [...]
Hi, I am writing this from Japan. Your article was very interesting. It may take some time for me to finish it, but Can I translate your article pdf into Japanese (We are all Feb of 1917) and put it up on my blog?
Hi Ono,
sure! And let us know when your translation is online.
Ciao, WM
Wow! Surprised by such a quick reply! Thank you for the permission. I will let you know when it is done for sure. Cheers.
Hi,
I’m almost finishing the translation of the part by WM1. I would appreciate it if you could answer one question about your article.
In page 13 of the pdf, you say “However, it will be a useful experience, we should never forget that the narrating I is none other than the older version of the narrated I recalling what he did in the past.”
I just want to make sure. Are you saying that the narrating I is the older version of the narrated I?
Then, narrating I (which is defined as a transcendental ego) will end up becoming narrated I (empirical ego) after learning something from its “useful experience,” if the latter is newer then the former. ??
But this seems to me somewhat contradictory to your line of thought.
I would really appreciate your help.
ono
@ Ono
He will not end up becoming the narrated I, it’s exactly the other way around: the narrated I (we could call him Marcel-in-the-past) has become the narrating I (Marcel-in-the-present).
Marcel-in-the-present, the Marcel who’s writing the book, grasps the “haecceity” of the moment he saw Albertine for the first time, because he recalls that moment in a healthy way (the way of the “healthy schizophrenic”), that is: he describes the pure, wonderful multiplicity of that moment without instantly focusing on Albertine (which is the “pathological connection” Rancière talks about, the error he did in his life, when he was young: being obsessed with Albertine).
Again, thousand of thanks to your swift reply.
The first question was caused by my very simple misunderstanding where I took “old” as “in the past,” but it meas “in later year”…of course!
Thanks for the explanation about Mayakovsky, too.
I went to the library but I couldn’t find the Japanese translation of “15000000,” which I learnt from you and was very very interested (it made me smile to read the part).
Anyway I will soon finish the translation.
ono
Oh! There is just one another question. Please help.
In page 14, which is about Mayakovsky, you say “His longer, narrative poems stand out against the backdrop of his portentous output.”
What does “longer narrative poem” and “portentous output” mean specifically?
Many thanks in advance.
ono
Majakovskij wrote some very important and very long poems, which are almost novels written in verse: they tell stories, with characters, action and so on. “150 Million” is one of them. They stand out – ie they are more memorable – in the immense production of works Majakovskij left us: “portentous output” means: huge production. He wrote hundreds and hundreds of poems, articles, several theatrical plays etc. but what we instantly think of when someone mentions him, is some long narrative poem like “A Cloud in Trousers” or “Vladimir Ilich Lenin”.
By the way: thanks to you!
Thanks to your kind permission and help in answering my questions, I finished the Japanese translation of your article. It took me a little long to finish this because of the time I daily have to save for my crappy wage labour!
This is the blog entry.
http://blog.livedoor.jp/hesalkun/archives/52034951.html
In the bottom of the entry, I put the link to the pdf document of the translation
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0Bzbsicyx-k3FMGI2YjU1YzItZjJhMC00ZTFjLThmZTItMTExZGEwYmMyOTQy&hl=ja
Thank you very much!
Viva La Multiple Sensation!
In resonance,
ono
[...] first piece is from Wu Ming.For those who don’t know, wu ming is a group of libertarian communist [...]