'Theories are made only to die in the war of time': Guy Debord and the Situationist International as strategic thinkers

The Situationist International (SI) has been one of the main reference points during the past 40 or more years within social movement organizing, cultural studies, social theory and philosophy. While the SI has been understood in many ways as inheritors and elaborators of an unorthodox Marxist politics drawing heavily from the history of the avant-garde, relatively little attention has been paid to the specifically strategic dimension of their thought and practice. This is surprising, especially in Debord's case, given how much his work also draws from the history of military strategy. This paper will particularly examine the strategic aspects of Debord and the SI's thought and politics and how they rethink the nature of strategy through collective forms of aesthetic-political practice. © 2013 Taylor & Francis

Dancing amidst the flames: Imagination and self-organization in a minor key

Drawing from Deleuze and Guattari's (1986) formulation of the concept of a 'minor literature' and Nick Thoburn's extension of this into a 'minor politics' (2003a) this paper examines the relation between the workings of the imagination and forms of self-organization found within anticapitalist organizing of the Industrial Workers of the World and related movements. This paper explores the modulations of the social imaginary found within these particular examples as indicative of a more general process of minor composition. Rather than affirming an already existing and known subjective position (of the people, the workers), it will be argued that rather such campaigns have playfully and strategically redirected and appropriated the social energies found within pop culture to articulate their demands. Copyright © 2008 SAGE Publications