E-book of the most comprehensive collection of writings of the Situationist International in English translated and compiled by Ken Knabb.

In 1957 a few European avant-garde groups came together to form the Situationist International. Picking up where the dadaists and surrealists had left off, the situationists challenged people's passive conditioning with carefully calculated scandals and the playful tactic of detournement. Seeking a more extreme social revolution than was dreamed of by most leftists, they developed an incisive critique of the global spectacle-commodity system and of its "Communist" 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 all over the world. The Situationist International Anthology, generally recognized as the most comprehensive and accurately translated collection of situationist writings in English, presents a rich variety of articles, leaflets, graffiti and internal documents, ranging from early experiments in "psychogeography" to lucid analyses of the Watts riot, the Vietnam War, the Prague Spring, the Chinese Cultural Revolution and other crises and upheavals of the sixties.

Contents:

Preface by Ken Knabb

PRE-S.I. TEXTS

Formulary for a New Urbanism Ivan Chtcheglov (1953)

Introduction to a Critique of Urban Geography by Guy Debord (1955)

Proposals for Rationally Improving the City of Paris by Lettrist International (1955)

A User’s Guide to Détournement by Guy Debord and Gil J. Wolman (1956)

The Alba Platform by Lettrist International (1956)

Notes on the Formation of an Imaginist Bauhaus by Asger Jorn (1957)

Report on the Construction of Situations by Guy Debord (1957)

FRENCH JOURNALS

The Sound and the Fury

Preliminary Problems in Constructing a Situation

Definitions

Theses on Cultural Revolution by Guy Debord

The Situationists and Automation by Asger Jorn

No Useless Leniency by Michèle Bernstein

Action in Belgium Against the International Assembly of Art Critics #2 (1958)

Theory of the Dérive by Guy Debord #3 (1959)

Détournement as Negation and Prelude

Situationist Theses on Traffic by Guy Debord

Another City for Another Life by Constant/Constant Nieuwenhuys #4 (1960)

The Use of Free Time

Gangland and Philosophy by Attila Kotányi #5 (1960)

The Adventure

The Fourth SI Conference in London #6 (1961)

Instructions for an Insurrection

Basic Program of the Bureau of Unitary Urbanism by Attila Kotányi and Raoul Vaneigem

Perspectives for Conscious Changes in Everyday Life by Guy Debord #7 (1962)

Geopolitics of Hibernation

The Bad Days Will End

The Fifth SI Conference in Göteborg

Basic Banalities (Part 1) by Raoul Vaneigem #8 (1963)

Ideologies, Classes, and the Domination of Nature

The Avant-Garde of Presence

The Counter-Situationist Campaign in Various Countries

All the King’s Men

Basic Banalities (Part 2) by Raoul Vaneigem

Anti-Public Relations Notice #9 (1964)

Now, the SI

Questionnaire

Response to a Questionnaire from the Center for Socio-Experimental Art by J. V. Martin, Jan Strijbosch, Raoul Vaneigem and René Viénet #10 (1966)

Address to Revolutionaries of Algeria and of All Countries

The Decline and Fall of the Spectacle-Commodity Economy

The Class Struggles in Algeria

Contribution to a Councilist Program in Spain

Some Theoretical Topics That Need To Be Dealt With by Raoul Vaneigem

Captive Words: Preface to a Situationist Dictionary by Mustapha Khayati

The Role of Godard

The Ideology of Dialogue

Interview with an Imbecile

The Algeria of Daniel Guérin, Libertarian

Domenach versus Alienation #11 (1967)

The Explosion Point of Ideology in China

Two Local Wars

Our Goals and Methods in the Strasbourg Scandal

The Situationists and the New Forms of Action Against Politics and Art by René Viénet

Aiming for Practical Truth by Raoul Vaneigem

Setting Straight Some Popular Misconceptions About Revolutions in the Underdeveloped Countries by Mustapha Khayati

Minimum Definition of Revolutionary Organizations

Three Postscripts to the Previous Issue #12 (1969)

The Beginning of an Era

Reform and Counterreform in the Bureaucratic Bloc

How Not To Understand Situationist Books

Preliminaries on Councils and Councilist Organization by René Riesel

Notice to the Civilized Concerning Generalized Self-Management by Raoul Vaneigem

The Conquest of Space in the Time of Power by Eduardo Rothe

The Latest Exclusions

The Elite and the Backward

Cinema and Revolution

The Organization Question for the SI by Guy Debord

MISCELLANEOUS PUBLICATIONS

Preliminaries Toward Defining a Unitary Revolutionary Program by Pierre Canjuers and Guy Debord (1960)

For a Revolutionary Judgment of Art by Guy Debord (1961)

Theses on the Paris Commune by Guy Debord, Attila Kotányi, Raoul Vaneigem (1962)

The Situationists and the New Forms of Action in Politics and Art by Guy Debord (1963)

On the Poverty of Student Life (1966)

In Short (1965 & 1969)

MAY 1968 DOCUMENTS

Communiqué

Watch Out for Manipulators! Watch Out for Bureaucrats!

Slogans To Be Spread Now by Every Means

Telegrams

Report on the Occupation of the Sorbonne

For the Power of the Workers Councils

Address to All Workers

Graffiti

INTERNAL TEXTS

Provisional Statutes of the SI (1969)

Provisional Theses for the Discussion of New Theoretico-Practical Orientations in the SI by Paolo Salvadori (1970)

Remarks on the SI Today by Guy Debord (1970)

Declaration by Guy Debord, René Riesel and René Viénet (1970)

Untitled Text by Guy Debord (1971)