The Science of Social History
In a career lasting much of the twentieth century, the Soviet psychologist Alexander Luria tried to develop a ‘romantic science’ for the ‘new people’ emerging from revolutionary change.
17 Articles by:
Hannah Proctor
Hannah Proctor is an affiliated fellow at the ICI Berlin who works on histories and theories of radical psychiatry.
We Have Never Been Postmodern
Stuart Jeffries’ new book charts a lively history of postmodernism from the 1970s to the millennium through a discussion of pivotal artworks, pop cultural figures, cultural theorists and political events. But are we really still living in ‘postmodern’ times?
Coming Up For Air
A new speculative fiction about a revolutionary near future takes the form of an oral history project with inhabitants of the New York Commune, and imagines how abolitionist theories might play out in practice.
‘Your Move, Creep!’
Paul Verhoeven’s latest film Benedetta, about a nun who enters into a lesbian relationship in her convent while experiencing erotic visions of Jesus, may be disappointing – but at their best Verhoeven’s films do more than just shock.
Dancing in the Ruins
Ulrich Gutmair’s ‘The First Days of Berlin’ provides a glimpse into the squats, galleries, and techno clubs that sprung up after the fall of the Wall — but what were the political underpinnings of that scene and what is its legacy?
Smells Like World Spirit
A newly translated book tells the fascinating interwoven histories of two perfumes with a shared origin, but what does it take to write the history of smell?
Economies Without Libidos
Keti Chukhrov’s book ‘Practising the Good’ argues that the Soviet Union really did build socialism, and that westerners have been blinded to this because they can’t imagine a society without ‘desire’. How seriously should this be taken?
Unbreak Our Hearts
A new history of depression poses the question of where politics ends and illness begins.
Ruins of the Mind
Joelle M. Abi-Rached’s new book uses a single psychiatric hospital to tell both the history of psychiatry and the history of modern Lebanon.
The Care Manifesto
A new book argues that Covid-19 has exposed systemic failings in the way our society functions – and argues the case for building a post-capitalist alternative with care at its heart.
Between Marx and Coca-Cola
Between 1957 and its dissolution in 1972, the Situationist International sought to theorise consumer capitalism in order to overthrow it. A new collection of essays explores their legacy.
Dizzy with Defeat
The newly published notebooks of the Russian-Belgian revolutionary Victor Serge record the bitter defeats of the twentieth century, but contain within them a boundless curiosity about the world and a stubborn hope for the future.
A Dialectical Fairyland
Hannah Proctor and Sam Dolbear talk to Tribune about Arcades Materials, a series of pamphlets sparking off from Walter Benjamin’s Arcades Project.
Everything is True, Nothing is Permitted
The results of the notorious “Stalinist Stanford Prison Experiment,” DAU, were finally shown to the public this spring. What does this blurring of fantasy and reality achieve?
From Marx to Freud
In 1969, Herbert Marcuse’s ‘Essay on Liberation’ combined Marx and Freud, and inspired thousands of radicals. How liberating is it fifty years later?
Agnès Varda (1928–2019)
Agnès Varda’s films weren’t just fascinated by people, they demonstrated a deep love of them.
A Brief History of Jordan Peterson
Jordan Peterson’s message is simple: ‘evil’ is endemic to humanity and the domination of some people over others is biologically grounded.