Read MoreDear comrades-descendants, the labourers of the 20th century are writing to you. Tell your children and grandchildren how we struggled for your right to immortality. We lived in heroic times when great discoveries were made, when the world was shaken by revolutions and wars burned the planet. […] You have probably already eliminated all harmful bacteria and viruses and live without ageing or sickness. But it was us who helped you in this, when we discovered the mysteries of cancer and overcame the barrier of tissue incompatibility.
Event: Irrealism as Socialist Cultural Strategy (Thursday Nov. 12)
Join us on Thursday, November 12 (18:30 GMT, 1:30pm EST, 12:30pm CST, 10:30am PST) for a Locust Review panel discussion at this year’s (virtual) Historical Materialism conference. Our panel, focusing on “Irrealism as Socialist Cultural Strategy” will feature Locust editorial collective members Alexander Billet on “The Case for Critical Irrealism,” Holly Lewis on “How Collective Dreams Can End the Sleep of Reason,” Adam Turl on “Their Weird and Ours: Socialist Irrealism vs. Fascist Occultism,” and Anupam Roy on “Representational Impossibility: A Propagandist’s Urgencies and Crisis.” More information follows below.
Read MoreLabor Under An Alien Sky
We found the corpse of Capitalist Realism. Rona-riddled, the initials “ACAB” carved in its forehead. It was discovered in the burnt shell of a Minneapolis police station. On discovery it opened its eyes and stood up and told us to go back to work. We refused. It reached for us, moaning a voracious hunger of unholy sadism, unquenchable violence, an unknowable cosmic horror, stinking of gout and fresh teargas.
Read MoreWorkers! Jump the Shark!
“BE REALISTIC” we are told. The weather is rejecting us, fascism has resurrected itself, pogroms rage, new pandemics knock on our doors, and yet, “be realistic.”
“Be realistic.” The favorite refrain of those who, in their blindness to history, allow history to be changed in ways they cannot understand. “Be realistic.” The slogan of those who love their power and privilege while denying they have any of it. “Be realistic.” The bootlicker’s mantra, chanted when the independent thoughts they have repressed begin to surface.
Read MoreSUBMIT (to Locust #2)
You’re an artist, poet, author, playwright, an unearthly creator of the fantastic and terrifying. You’ve decided to destroy capitalism. Only social movements and struggle, from below, of the exploited and oppressed, can overthrow capitalism. Nevertheless, art is a human necessity, and an arena for the contestation of the imaginary. To that end, Locust Review, a quarterly socialist publication of critical irrealist art and literature, needs you.
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