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Situationist Bibliography
Since 1968 dozens of books and innumerable pamphlets, journals, leaflets, etc., by groups
or individuals not belonging to the Situationist International have appeared that can be
considered more or less situationist in the broad sense of the term, in that, well or
poorly, they have adopted the SI’s perspectives and methods. This bibliography,
however, mentions only the main publications of the SI itself, the pre- and post-SI works
of some of its members, and some of the books about the SI.
Pre-SI Texts
Guy Debord’s Films
French SI Books
SI Publications in Other
Languages
Post-SI Works
Books About the SI
Publishers and Distributors
NEW DEVELOPMENTS
Potlatch: 19541957 (Lebovici, 1985; Gallimard, 1996), a reissue of the
complete newsletters of the Lettrist International, includes a preface by Guy Debord.
Another edition is available from Allia.
Gérard Berreby (ed.), Documents relatifs à la fondation de l’Internationale
Situationniste: 19481957 (Allia, 1985), a huge and lavishly illustrated collection,
includes not only all the issues of Potlatch but numerous other texts from Cobra,
the Lettrist International and the International Movement for an Imaginist Bauhaus, along
with Asger Jorn’s Pour la forme and Jorn and Debord’s Fin de
Copenhague.
Another early Jorn-Debord collaboration, Debord’s Mémoires (1958), which
consists entirely of detourned elements, has been reprinted (Pauvert, 1993).
Translations of a number of early SI and pre-SI texts are included in Libero Andreotti
(ed.), Theory of the Dérive and Other Situationist Writings on the City
(Barcelona, 1996), and in the special situationist issue of October (#79, MIT
Press, Winter 1997).
Hurlements en faveur de Sade (Films Lettristes, 1952). 90 minutes.
Sur le passage de quelques personnes à travers une assez courte unité de temps
(Dansk-Fransk Experimentalfilmskompagni, 1959). 20 minutes.
Critique de la séparation (Dansk-Fransk Experimentalfilmskompagni, 1961). 20
minutes.
La Société du Spectacle (Simar Films, 1973). 90 minutes.
Réfutation de tous les jugements, tant élogieux qu’hostiles, qui ont été
jusqu’ici portés sur le film “La Société du Spectacle” (Simar
Films, 1975). 25 minutes.
In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni (Simar Films, 1978). 80 minutes.
All are 35mm, B&W. Oeuvres cinématographiques complètes: 19521978
(Champ Libre, 1978; Gallimard, 1994) contains illustrated scripts for all six films.
Translations of the first five are available in Society of the Spectacle and Other
Films (Rebel, 1992). In girum has been translated by Lucy Forsyth (Pelagian,
1991).
In 1984 Debord removed all his films from circulation as a protest against the
generally petty or indifferent reaction of the French press and public to the
assassination of his friend and publisher, Gérard Lebovici. Shortly before Debord’s
suicide in November 1994 (he had a painful terminal illness) he and Brigitte Cornand made
a 60-minute “antitelevisual” video, Guy Debord, son art et son temps,
which was shown January 1995 on a French cable channel along with La Société du
Spectacle and Réfutation de tous les jugements. Information on the video
can be obtained from Brigitte Cornand, c/o Canal Plus, 85/89 Quai André Citroën, 75711
Paris cedex 15. It is not clear at this time if Debord’s films will ever become
available again, but needless to say numerous videocopies of the three televised works are
now in circulation around the world. A videocopy of La Société du Spectacle
with English subtitles is available from the subtitle translator, Keith Sanborn, c/o
Ediciones la Calavera, P.O. Box 1106, Peter Stuyvesant Station, New York, NY 10009.
Cheaper second-generation copies of the same film and of the two other televised works are
available from Not Bored. A detailed
account of Debord’s films by Thomas Levin can be found in the Sussman collection
listed below.
Internationale Situationniste: 19581969 (Van Gennep, 1970; Champ Libre,
1975; Fayard, 1997). 700 pages, illustrated. Reissue of all twelve French journals in the
original format. Selections were translated by Christopher Gray in Leaving the
Twentieth Century: The Incomplete Work of the Situationist International (Free Fall,
1974; Rebel, 1998). Ken Knabb’s Situationist International Anthology (Bureau
of Public Secrets, 1981; revised online version, 1998-1999) is more accurate and
comprehensive.
Raoul Vaneigem, Traité de savoir-vivre à l’usage des jeunes générations
(Gallimard, 1967). Anonymous partial translation as Treatise on Living for the Use of
the Young Generations (1970). Complete book translated as The Revolution of
Everyday Life by John Fullerton and Paul Sieveking (Practical Paradise, 1972); and by
Donald Nicholson-Smith (Rebel/Left Bank, 1983; revised 1994; AK, 1999).
Guy Debord, La Société du Spectacle (Buchet-Chastel, 1967; Champ Libre,
1972; Gallimard, 1992). Translated as Society of the Spectacle by Fredy Perlman
and John Supak (Black and Red, 1970; revised 1977); and as The Society of the
Spectacle by Donald Nicholson-Smith (Zone, 1994).
René Viénet, Enragés et situationnistes dans le mouvement des occupations
(Gallimard, 1968). Includes numerous documents and illustrations. Translated as Enragés
and Situationists in the Occupation Movement, May ’68 (Autonomedia/Rebel, 1992).
Guy Debord and Gianfranco Sanguinetti, La véritable scission dans
l’Internationale (Champ Libre, 1972; Fayard, 1998). Analysis of post-1968 SI
crises. Translated by Michel Prigent and Lucy Forsyth as The Veritable Split in the
International (Piranha, 1974; revised: Chronos, 1990).
Débat d’orientation de l’ex-Internationale Situationniste (Centre
de Recherche sur la Question Sociale, 1974). Internal documents, 19691971. Not
translated except for the selections in the SI Anthology.
Most of the more original and important SI texts appeared in French. (The SI
Anthology is drawn entirely from French texts except for the one piece by the Italian
section on pp. 338339.) SI publications in other languages often represented the more
artistic and opportunistic tendencies (notably in Italy, Germany, Scandinavia and the
Netherlands) that were repudiated early in the SI’s history. In the later period,
what would have become the British section never got off the ground, and the American and
Italian sections scarcely lasted much longer, coming as they did right in the middle of
the post-1968 crises that were soon to lead to the SI’s dissolution.
The American section’s main publications were Robert Chasse’s pamphlet The
Power of Negative Thinking (New York, 1968: a critique of the New Left, actually
published shortly before Chasse joined the SI) and one issue of a journal, Situationist
International #1 (New York, 1969: notably including critiques of Marcuse, McLuhan,
Bookchin, Baran and Sweezy, etc.). The journal has been reissued by Extreme Press. After
their December 1969 resignation/exclusion, Chasse and Bruce Elwell produced an extensive
critical history of the American section, A Field Study in the Dwindling Force of
Cognition (1970), which the SI never answered.
The Italian section published one issue of a journal, Internazionale Situazionista
#1 (1969), and carried out a number of interventions in the crises and struggles in Italy.
None of the Italian texts have been translated into English, but there is a complete
French edition, Écrits complets de la Section Italienne de l’Internationale
Situationniste (19691972), translated by Joël Gayraud and Luc Mercier
(Contre-Moule, 1988). Contre-Moule has also recently published Archives
Situationnistes, volume 1 (1997), consisting of French translations of all the German
and British SI texts.
The Scandinavian section published three issues of the Danish journal Situationistisk
Revolution (1962, 1968, 1970). Some of its other activities are described in Internationale
Situationniste #10, pp. 2226.
Most of the major SI writings have been translated into English, German, Greek, Italian
and Spanish; some have also been translated into Arabic, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, Finnish,
Korean, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Swedish, and by now probably several other
languages.
GUY DEBORD, Préface à la quatrième édition italienne de “La Société du
Spectacle” (Champ Libre, 1979; reprinted in the Gallimard edition of Commentaires).
Translated by Lucy Forsyth and Michel Prigent as Preface to the Fourth Italian Edition
of “The Society of the Spectacle” (Chronos, 1979).
—— Considérations sur l’assassinat de Gérard Lebovici
(Lebovici, 1985; Gallimard, 1993). Translated by Robert Greene as Considerations on
the Assassination of Gérard Lebovici (announced but not yet published).
—— (with Alice Becker-Ho), Le “Jeu de la Guerre”: Relevé des
positions successives de toutes les forces au cours d’une partie (Lebovici,
1987). Account of a board game with strategical commentaries. Not translated, except for a
few pages in Bracken’s Debord biography.
—— Commentaires sur la société du spectacle (Lebovici, 1988;
Gallimard, 1992). Translated by Malcolm Imrie as Comments on the Society of the
Spectacle (Verso, 1990).
—— Panégyrique, tome premier (Lebovici, 1989; Gallimard, 1993).
Translated by James Brook as Panegyric, Volume I (Verso, 1991). The first and
only installment of Debord’s “memoirs.”
—— “Cette mauvaise réputation...” (Gallimard, 1993).
Responses to various rumors and misconceptions about him. Not translated.
—— Des contrats (Le Temps Qu’il Fait, 1995). Debord’s film
contracts. Not translated.
—— Panégyrique, tome second (Fayard, 1997). Consists mostly of
photographs. An appendix comments on the stylistic subtleties of the first volume that
make it difficult to translate.
Jean-François Martos’s Correspondance avec Guy Debord (Le Fin Mot de
l’Histoire, 1998) includes letters between Debord and some of his associates from
1981-1991. This book is apparently no longer available, having been legally condemned for
infringing on the copyright of Debord’s widow, Alice (Becker-Ho) Debord, who has
signed a contract with Fayard to publish a 6-volume edition of Debord’s
correspondence over the next few years.
A few other Debord letters are included in the two volumes of published Champ Libre Correspondance
(1978 & 1981).
GIANFRANCO SANGUINETTI (pseudonym Censor), Rapporto veridico sulle ultime opportunità
di salvare il capitalismo in Italia (Milan, 1975). Translated into French by Guy
Debord as Véridique rapport sur les dernières chances de sauver le capitalisme en
Italie (Champ Libre, 1976). Translated into English by Len Bracken as The Real
Report on the Last Chance to Save Capitalism in Italy (Flatland, 1997).
—— Del terrorismo e dello stato (Milan, 1979). Translated by Lucy
Forsyth and Michel Prigent as On Terrorism and the State (Chronos, 1982).
RAOUL VANEIGEM (pseudonym Ratgeb), De la grève sauvage à l’autogestion
généralisée (Éditions 10/18, 1974). Partially translated by Paul Sharkey as Contributions
to the Revolutionary Struggle (Bratach Dubh, 1981; Elephant, 1990).
—— (pseudonym J.F. Dupuis), Histoire désinvolte du surréalisme
(Paul Vermont, 1977). Translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith as A Cavalier History of
Surrealism (AK, 1999).
—— Le livre des plaisirs (Encre, 1979). Translated by John Fullerton
as The Book of Pleasures (Pending Press, 1983).
—— Le mouvement du Libre-Esprit (Ramsay, 1986). Translated by
Randall Cherry and Ian Patterson as The Movement of the Free Spirit (Zone, 1994).
—— Adresse aux vivants sur la mort qui les gouverne et
l’opportunité de s’en défaire (Seghers, 1990). Not translated.
—— Avertissement aux écoliers et lycéens (Mille et Une Nuits,
1995). Not translated.
—— Nous qui désirons sans fin (Le Cherche Midi, 1996). Not
translated.
—— Pour une Internationale du genre humain (Le Cherche Midi, 1999).
Not translated.
RENÉ VIÉNET, La dialectique peut-elle casser des briques? (1973). 90-minute
kungfu film with altered soundtrack. A videocopy with English subtitles (translation:
Keith Sanborn), Can Dialectics Break Bricks?, is available from Drift
Distribution (709 Carroll St. #3-R, Brooklyn, NY 11215) or from Not Bored.
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Of the various above-mentioned translations, Nicholson-Smith’s versions of The
Revolution of Everyday Life and The Society of the Spectacle are the most
fluent, but rather free. Such liberties may be appropriate in the case of Vaneigem’s
relatively “lyrical” work, but they sometimes obscure the rigorous dialectical
structure of Debord’s text. The Black and Red version sticks closer to the original,
but contains numerous errors. Considering the central importance of Debord’s book,
the serious reader might do well to study both versions together.
At the opposite extreme, the translations published by Chronos are clumsily
overliteral, often to the point of unreadability. The various other translations fall
somewhere in between, generally sufficing to give a pretty good idea of the originals, but
all containing inaccuracies and stylistic infelicities. Those of Debord’s Comments
and Panegyric are among the most accurate; that of Viénet’s Enragés
and Situationists contains quite a few careless errors. For examples of different
types of translation errors, see How Not To Translate
Situationist Texts.
In French:
Jean-Jacques Raspaud and Jean-Pierre Voyer’s L’Internationale
Situationniste: protagonistes, chronologie, bibliographie (avec un index des noms
insultés) (Champ Libre, 1971) is a handy reference to the French journal collection.
Jean-François Martos’s Histoire de l’Internationale Situationniste
(Lebovici, 1989) is an “orthodox” view, recounting the SI’s development and
perspectives largely in the situationists’ own words.
Anselm Jappe’s Guy Debord (French translation from the original Italian,
Via Valeriano, 1995) covers most of the same material thematically, with particularly
extensive treatment of the Marxian connection that is usually slighted in the more
cultural studies. Translated into English by Donald Nicholson-Smith (University of
California, 1999).
Pascal Dumontier’s Les situationnistes et Mai 68 (Lebovici, 1990) is a
competent account.
Shigenobu Gonzalvez’s Guy Debord ou la beauté du négatif (Mille et Une
Nuits, 1998) includes the most extensive Debord bibliography.
Jean-Michel Mension’s profusely illustrated reminiscences of Debord and his
friends in La Tribu (Allia, 1998) give a good taste of the pre-situationist
bohemian scene in Paris in the early 1950s.
Mirella Bandini’s L’Esthétique, le Politique: de Cobra à
l’Internationale Situationniste (French translation from the original Italian,
Sulliver, 1998) examines the development from the pre-situationist avant-garde groups
Cobra, the Lettrist International, and the International Movement for an Imaginist Bauhaus
through the early years of the SI. Includes numerous documents and illustrations.
Gianfranco Marelli’s L’amère victoire du situationnisme (French
translation from the original Italian, Sulliver, 1998) is the most extensive history of
the SI so far. The style is leaden and unnecessarily convoluted, and the author’s
critiques of the SI, though more well-considered than most, sometimes reflect a failure to
grasp the dynamic, dialectical quality of the situationists’ ventures.
Several other books on the SI, and especially on Debord, have recently been published
in France, but most of them, including the following, are of limited interest — Retour
au futur? des situationnistes (Via Valeriano, 1990); Cécile Guilbert’s Pour
Guy Debord (Gallimard, 1996); Frédéric Schiffter’s Guy Debord
l’Atrabilaire (Distance, 1997); Lignes #31 (special issue on Debord,
April 1997).
In English:
David Jacobs & Chris Winks’s At Dusk: The Situationist
Movement in Historical Perspective (Perspectives, 1975; reissued 1999) is a Frankfort
School-influenced critique of the situationists by two ex-members of the situ group
Point-Blank. I find it both turgid and unconvincing; but maybe I’m prejudiced since
it also includes some criticisms of “Knabbism.”
Elisabeth Sussman (ed.), On the Passage of a Few People Through a Rather Brief
Moment in Time: The Situationist International, 19571972 (MIT/Institute of
Contemporary Art, 1989), an illustrated catalog of the 198990 exhibition on the SI in
Paris, London and Boston, includes several previously untranslated SI texts along with an
assortment of scholarly articles devoted almost exclusively to the early artistic-cultural
aspects of the SI’s venture.
Greil Marcus’s Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century
(Harvard, 1989, illustrated) concentrates even more exclusively on the presituationist
ventures of the 1950s, which the author relates rather impressionistically to other
extremist cultural movements such as Dada and early punk.
Iwona Blazwick (ed.), An Endless Adventure, an Endless Passion, an Endless Banquet:
A Situationist Scrapbook (Verso/ICA, 1989, illustrated) includes an assortment of
texts illustrating the (for the most part rather confused) influence of the SI in England
from the 1960s through the 1980s.
The first half of Sadie Plant’s The Most Radical Gesture: The Situationist
International in a Postmodern Age (Routledge, 1992) is a fairly competent summary of
the main situationist theses; the second half will be of interest primarily to those who
are so ill-informed as to imagine that the situationists had some resemblance to the
postmodernists and other fashionably pretentious ideologists of confusion and resignation.
Stewart Home (ed.), What Is Situationism? A Reader (AK, 1996) presents an
assortment of views, mostly hostile and uncomprehending, as is Home’s own previous
book, The Assault on Culture (Aporia/Unpopular, 1988).
Simon Ford’s The Realization and Suppression of the Situationist
International: An Annotated Bibliography 19721992 (AK, 1995) lists over 600 texts,
mostly in English, about or influenced by the SI.
Ken Knabb’s Public Secrets (Bureau of Public Secrets, 1997) includes a
considerable amount of material about the SI and SI-influenced American groups.
Simon Sadler’s The Situationist City (MIT Press, 1998) is a detailed but
limited account of the situationists’ early psychogeographical experiments and
urbanistic ideas. Like most other academic studies, it scarcely mentions their
revolutionary perspectives.
In contrast to such myopic studies, Len Bracken’s Guy
Debord—Revolutionary (Feral House, 1997) has the merit of attempting to cover
the whole picture from a radical standpoint. It has the fault of being rather sloppy: the
translations are uneven, speculations are not always clearly distinguished from facts, and
the numerous typos do not inspire confidence in the author’s care for accuracy.
A more rigorous (but less biographical) study, Anselm Jappe’s Guy Debord,
has been translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith (University of California Press, 1999).
I have not attempted to mention, let alone review, the hundreds of printed articles or
online texts about the SI. Suffice it to say that the vast majority are riddled with lies
or misconceptions, and that even the few that are relatively accurate rarely present much
that cannot be found better expressed in the SI’s own writings. A sampling of diverse
views on the situationists can be found in The Blind Men and the
Elephant. Refutations of such views can be found in the Site
Index under “Situationist International: common misconceptions about.” The
situationists may not have always been right, but their critics are almost always wrong.
Read the original texts, don’t rely on spectators’ commentaries. Despite the
situationists’ reputation for difficulty, they are not really all that hard to
understand once you begin to experiment for yourself.
A comprehensive listing of online SI and pre-SI texts in English can be found at http://www.mpx.com.au/~rebunk/index.htm.
Éditions Champ Libre was renamed Éditions Gérard Lebovici in memory of its
founder-owner, who was assassinated in 1984. (The assassins were never identified.)
Besides the books mentioned here it has published many other situationist-influenced
authors, along with a wide range of works of related interest. After yet another change of
name and address, it is now Éditions Ivrea, 1 Place Paul Painlevé, 75005 Paris.
Other French publishers:
Contre-Moule, 4 impasse de la Gaîté, 75014 Paris
Éditions Allia, B.P. 90, 75862 Paris cedex 18
Éditions Gallimard, 5 rue Sébastien-Bottin, 75007 Paris
Éditions Sulliver, 18 rue de l’Hôtel de Ville, 13200 Arles
Exils Éditeur, 2 rue du Regard, 75006 Paris
Le Fin Mot de l’Histoire, B.P. 274, 75866 Paris cedex 18 jf_martos@yahoo.com
Librairie Arthème Fayard, 75 rue des Saints-Pères, 75006 Paris
Most French books can be ordered online at http://www.alapage.com.
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Most situationist texts in English are available from:
Anselm Jappe’s Guy Debord is now available in English,
translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith (University of California Press, 1999).
Nicholson-Smith’s translation of Vaneigem’s A Cavalier
History of Surrealism, which has been repeatedly announced and then delayed over the
last few years, is finally available (AK Press, 1999).
A new book by Vaneigem: Pour une Internationale du genre humain
(Le Cherche Midi, 1999).
The flood of French books by and about Debord continues. In addition to
the three discussed below, Ralph Rumney’s Le Consul (Allia) includes some
material on the Lettrist International and the early years of the SI; and an annotated
filmscript of In girum imus nocte has been reissued by Gallimard.
The first volume of Debord’s collected letters has been published by
Fayard: Correspondance, volume 1: 1957-1960 (384 pp.). To judge from this initial
volume, which presents a pretty detailed picture of the first three years of the SI, the
editors’ intention seems to be to publish every extant letter of Debord that has any
connection to his radical activity. Five more volumes are planned over the next few years.
Christophe Bourseiller’s hefty biography, Vie et mort de Guy
Debord (461 pages; Plon, 1999), contains a large amount of hitherto unavailable
material on Debord’s personal life, based on interviews with several people who knew
him intimately and many others who crossed his path at one point or another. The various
anecdotes, rumors and interpretations are often contradictory and needless to say should
be taken with a grain of salt.
Jean-Marie Apostolidès’s Les tombeaux de Guy Debord (Exils,
September 1999) is an interesting but sometimes dubiously speculative psychological
interpretation of Debord, based on inferences from his more autobiographical works and
from Michèle Bernstein’s two romans à clef, Tous les chevaux du roi (1960)
and La nuit (1961). The book has virtually no bearing on Debord’s
revolutionary ventures, which, the few times they are mentioned, are simplistically
reinterpreted to fit in with the author’s psychological thesis. Caught up in his own
admittedly difficult project of discovering the hidden essence of Debord the person,
Apostolidès quite unjustifiably projects this obscurity onto Debord’s radical work:
“As for revolution, he always presents it to us in a hypothetical form, as a promise
or as an ungraspable event upon which we can only meditate” (p. 147). Can he really
be talking about the person who more lucidly than anyone else in this century has
challenged people to abandon passivity and idle speculation and take part in a
revolutionary project that by its very nature must be concrete and participatory? At the
end of his book Apostolidès opines that it’s time to “go beyond the stage of
the spectacular reception of Debord’s works (whether laudatory or depreciatory) to
another stage, that of interpretation” (p. 161). Such
“interpretation” is in fact simply another way of spectating. There is another
tack that supersedes all these tortuous academic problematics — that of using
Debord’s works for revolutionary purposes, as they were clearly and explicitly
intended to be used. Those who do so have no trouble understanding what matters about him,
without worrying overly much about his personal foibles. For those who don’t,
revolution will indeed remain “hypothetical” and “ungraspable.”
Most French books can now be ordered online at http://www.alapage.com.
There is a new website dedicated to listing all online SI and pre-SI texts
in English: http://www.mpx.com.au/~rebunk/index.htm.
This online bibliography, compiled by Ken Knabb, is a continually updated version of
the bibliographies in Public Secrets (1997) and in the latest printing of the Situationist
International Anthology (1995).
No copyright.
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