PETE HIRST introduces a theatre company from Wakefield dedicated to the propagation of socialist perspectives on present British political realities
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The cantata that upends the political order
DAVID YEARSLEY argues that Bach’s most beloved seasonal offering, the Christmas Oratorio, is anything but music of peace and goodwill
Adoration of the Magi (left) and Adoration of the Shepherds, both by anonymous disciples of the Cusco School, Peru, (1690 - 1720)
[(L to R) jwGtMLJbjTdUDw at Google Cultural Institute/CC - Veejohn/CC]
JENNY FARRELL reminds us that the US novelist, famed for pulp fiction and nature stories, was, by virtue of life experience, a committed revolutionary socialist
BRENT CUTLER recommends a sober examination of the real risks and true merits of nuclear energy, and an exposure of the capitalist system as an obstacle to human betterment
A deeply pleasing festive crime wave
MARIA DUARTE picks the best and worst of a crowded year of films
CHRISTMAS is a dangerous time, for it threatens social instability, political disorder, even revolution. At the culmination of the story, kings kneel before a helpless baby — the powerful pay tribute to the seemingly powerless.
To understand the destabilising potency of Christmas, one has only to recall Andreas Karlstadt, an iconoclast in the literal sense, shouting the words of institution in German, not Latin, and offering both the communion cup and the wafer to the trembling hands and lips of the unconfessed laity in Wittenberg on December 25 1521, in the first years of the Lutheran Reformation.
Martin Luther’s 1522 sermon on the Epiphany can be read as part of his larger project to shore up the political order threatened by the radicalism of Karlstadt and others.
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