East German Literature: Challenges and Triumphs in Cultural Recognition Germany’s minister of state for culture, the senior Green politician Claudia Roth, one of the almost exclusively West German-born government officials, voiced her surprise at a recent literary event upon discovering that there were other books on East German (GDR) bookshelves […]
Culture
Book Review: Maya Wind’s Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom
Maya Wind’s Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom saw its Dublin launch at Trinity College, mere minutes after the Trinity students celebrated the end of their encampment. The book launch was a chance to contextualise the euphoria of one of the first wins for the […]
Book Review – Techno Feudalism by Yanis Varoufakis
The M-C-C’-M’ circuit means Money (M) which is exchanged for Commodities (C) – including labor power which also becomes a commodity in a capitalist society – involved in the production process to produce a value-added commodity (C’) which is sold for more Money (M’), and thus the accumulation of capital […]
Review – James Connolly Festival 2024
In a departure from the usual week-long run of events, this year’s James Connolly Festival ran from Thursday to Sunday, culminating on 12th May: 107 years to the day that Ireland lost its greatest martyr and Marxist theoretician, James Connolly. It was at the outbreak of war in Europe during […]
James Connolly Festival 2024
This year’s James Connolly festival opens on Thursday 9th May 2024 with a panel discussion titled ‘Land And The People’. We ask the question: what is our relationship to land and resources? We’ll be joined by Sinead Mercier, Patrick Bresnihan, Róisn Ní Chinnéide and Rory Rowan. Friday 10th May will […]
Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington, a prominent figure in music and cultural history, especially in jazz, died fifty years ago on May 24, 1974. Edward Kennedy Ellington was born into a lower middle-class family in Washington on April 29, 1899. His mother was the daughter of a former slave. Ellington’s childhood was marked […]
Byron and the “Satanic School”
George Gordon Lord Byron was born in London on 22 January 1788. In 1794, he inherited the title Baron Byron on the death of his great uncle, and was titled Lord Byron in 1798. He attended Harrow and went on to study at Cambridge in 1805. Here he published his […]
Until we Fall: Long Distance life on the left by Helena Sheehan
Until we Fall: Long Distance life on the left is a fascinating and sometimes inspiring account of decades of political engagement. The words Until We Fall distil the essence of six chapters into three words. Until We Fall suggests a commitment that is unwavering and a purpose all consuming. Anyone […]
Film Review – The Zone of Interest
Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest announces itself dramatically, with a blank screen and two minutes of foreboding music by Mica Levi heralding something ominous and important. The film, loosely based on the Martin Amis novel of the same name, centres around the professional and family life of Rudolf Höss, […]
Book Review – The Trinity of Fundamentals by Wisan Rafeedie
“I live according to the rules ‘visit no one, do not receive anyone’—to which I once added ‘and do not open the peephole on the door for an old woman from Al-Bireh’—and ‘measures, precautions, requirements, and rules.’ Between this and that, I resist and I cook, I sleep, I dream, […]
Women artists against war, part 2
It is important to distinguish between wars of oppression and liberation wars, between imperialist invasion and resistance to it. Anti-imperialist wars create a different consciousness among the population. In early 1942, the artist Sofia Sergeyevna Uranova (1910-1988) was drafted and remained in her division until the end of the war, […]
Book Review – Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto by Kohei Saito
Kohei Saito’s book on degrowth communism was an unlikely bestseller in 2020, with half a million copies sold in Japan. This is an oft-cited line introducing Saito’s works in the West, in anticipation of the English translations. After the English translation of Marx in the Anthropocene coming out last year, […]
Freirian Critical Dialogue – An Empowering Element of Struggle
One of the major drawbacks to radical and transformative actions by activists involved in struggle, is the hoary old chestnut of a lack of class consciousness out there in the wider population… or so we like to believe. We say it constantly: why is it that there appears to be […]
The Zone of Interest – Review
Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest announces itself dramatically, with a blank screen and two minutes of foreboding music by Mica Levi heralding something ominous and important. The film, loosely based on the Martin Amis novel of the same name, centres around the professional and family life of Rudolf Höss, […]
An Insider and Outsider View on Gaeilge
Over the years, the Socialist Voice has had some great articles advocating for the Irish language, seen from an anti-capitalist lens which are definitely worth re-reading. I didn’t go to school in Ireland so I don’t have any experience with learning Irish in that setting, but I did grow up […]
Women’s Art Against War – Part 1
From its outset, International Women’s Day was characterised by the fight for peace, against militarism and war. At the Second International Conference of Socialist Women at Copenhagen in 1910, resolutions concerning the “maintenance of peace” and “to combat internationally militarism and secure peace” were tabled in response to the growing […]