SOPHIE STOLL wallows in a fine live recording of old blues-infused folk songs immersed in American blue-collar culture
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Cultural strategies for communists
FRAN LOCK welcomes a discussion of culture designed to stimulate discussion and help to develop practical campaigns
Linton Kwesi Johnson, Jamaica-born, British-based dub poet and activist, in concert in Brussels October 28 2017
[Peter Verwimp/CC]
In this gung-ho moment, GORDON PARSONS has doubts about the ambiguity of a patchy production of Shakespeare’s paean to warfare
KEVIN DONNELLY asks HOLLY GRAHAM how she, as an artist, can confront an institution over its own association with the slave trade
MARY CONWAY is moved by a play of depth and originality that brings true insight into Van Gogh’s journey
GEOFF BOTTOMS relishes a profoundly human portrait of a family as it evolves across 55 years in Sheffield
PAUL DONOVAN applauds an excellently crafted new musical that explores the life and death of Ruth Ellis
Class And Culture: Provocations For Cultural Democracy
Edited by Mike Quille
Communist Party of Britain, FREE
CLASS and Culture: Provocations For Cultural Democracy, is an accessible, galvanising exploration of culture, not merely as the medium through which ideology flows, but as a vital, joy-giving force in the lives of working-class people, and as a potential site of radical resistance.
Poetry Matters by Kevin Patrick McCann outlines not only the way in which working-class people are excluded from access to poetry, but also the methods by which working-class poets are assimilated, defanged and tokenised.
As McCann pithily puts it: “You can be a rebel and attack glaring injustices; just don’t attack the real causes of those injustices. For example, you can attack racism as long as you don't make the connection between racism and the class system.”
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