Month: September 2018

Corvus Editions

A new kind of Corvus Edition

September 26, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0″] [/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] I’ve built up a large catalog of pamphlets and books over the years that I’ve been producing Corvus Editions—so large a catalog that there would be no question of keeping them all in print, even if there were more obvious outlets for the sort of publication that I do. Of course, a significant portion of the Corvus catalog has always been texts that seemed to meet some particular need in the moment and lose much of their interest when that particular moment has passed. But there is a portion of […]
From the Archives

Dyer D. Lum in “The Evolution” (1877–1878)

September 24, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”][/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] ORDER AND PROGRESS. Now that the majesty of the law has been vindicated, proprietary rights protected, and “order reigns in Warsaw,” it is quite in the line of duty to indulge in reflections on the anomalous state of affairs through which we have recently passed. I would at the outset insist most strenuously upon the proposition that society involves reciprocal relations. The modern or scientific conception of society is no longer that of a mere aggregation of individuals, who, by their legislation, determine the nature and character of the community, but […]
From the Archives

Dyer D. Lum, “The Two Paths” (1890)

September 24, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”][/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] THE TWO PATHS. BY DYER D. LUM. Progress has no meaning outside of social relations. Nature records but changes in terms of evolution or devolution; man’s adaptation to environments is physical. Progress is the record of change in social relations — a province wrested from nature, transforming brute into human. The veneering may be thin on some, but the thickness of the human laying over the brute is the expression of progress. Our ancestors were retrospective; our golden age lies before us. When the ancient Hebrew asked the angel why the […]
Spanish texts

Pedro Sierra, “Ricardo Mella: Algunos apuntes para contribuir al estudio de su vida y su obra” (1926)

September 24, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur
[two_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] RICARDO MELLA Algunos apuntes para contribuir al estudio de su vida y su obra El 7 de agosto de 1925 dejó de existir en Vigo Ricardo Mella, el escritor de más valía que tuvo el movimiento anarquista español. Aunque apartado voluntariamente de la lucha desde hacía más de dos lustros, ¿quién de entre los que continúan fíelas podrá ser tan mezquino de sentimientos para no llorar sinceramente la muerte del gran pensador, del que con su pluma formó legiones de militantes y convencidos en cerca de cuarenta años de apostolado ejemplar? Además, no hay que […]
Spanish texts

Ensayos y Conferencias — Obras de R. Mella — II

September 19, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] Obras de R. Mella I. — IDEARO II. — ENSAYOS Y CONFERENCIAS Prólogo, par E. Quintanilla El problema de la emigración en Galicia Breves apuntes sobre las pasiones humanas Evolución y Revolucion La coacción moral La ley del número Del amor : modo de acción y finalidad social Las Grandes obras de la civilización III. — ESTUDIOS SOBRE EL ANARQUISMO IV. — ESCRITOS DE POLEMICA V. — PAGINAS DE LUCHA Y PROPAGANDA VI. — TRABAJOS DISPERSOS [/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] Obras completas de r. mella TOMO II. ENSAYOS Y CONFERENCIAS Ricardo Mella published in […]
Beyond the Labyrinth

Haunted by Dragons: Flying Monsters in 19th Century California

September 18, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur
  Haunted by Dragons FLYING MONSTERS IN 19th CENTURY CALIFORNIA * * * A MONSTER OF THE AIR Thomas Campbell and Joseph Howard, two wood-choppers working in the timber five miles northeast of Hurleton, Cal., inform us by letter of a singular creature they saw flying thought the air last Friday afternoon. They write: “About four o’clock Friday afternoon last, while at work, we were startled by the sound of many wings flapping in the air. Looking up, we perceived passing over our heads, not more than forty feet above the tree-tops, a creature that looked something like a crocodile. […]
Contr'un

Dromologies: Paul Virilio: Speed, Cinema, and the End of the Political State (1994)

September 18, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] The news is making its way around the ‘net that Paul Virilio has died. It has now been quite a few years since I was immersed in the sort of theory that Virilio practiced, but in the 90s—my days as a pioneer in internet studies, critic of cyberpunk, student of poststructuralism, etc.—his work appeared as one of the sharpest cutting edges out there. And I found myself in an interesting position when, in 1994, having written a summary of translated works for a grad school seminar, I posted it to the then very new World […]
Eliphalet Kimball

PROJECT: There Ought Always To Be Anarchy

September 17, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur
Thoughts on Natural Principles (1867) Eliphalet Kimball in Woodhull and Claflin’s Weekly (1873–1876) Eliphalet Kimball for President! (1852) Another side of Eliphalet Kimball (necrology, etc.) Eliphalet Kimball [tag feed] BOOK PROPOSAL There Ought Always To Be Anarchy: Thoughts on Natural Principles, 1852-1876 by Eliphalet Kimball (~32,000 words) Eliphalet Kimball was that rare thing, an enthusiastic and unapologetic advocate of anarchy, in an era when even the most active and prominent libertarian thinkers tended to be much more circumspect. So it is remarkable that the histories of anarchist thought have so consistently passed over him, while a wide array of other […]
Working Translations

Ricardo Mella, “The Private Preserves” (1911)

September 17, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_half padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] Los cotos cerrados Rondando la verdad y por fuera de ella, las cosas no son como son, sino como se quiere que sean. Razonar es frecuentemente gimnasia que deslumbra; filosofar, maravilloso arte que encanta; teorizar, taumaturgia que seduce, alucina, hipnotiza. Y razonando, filosofando y teorizando, se alzan suntuosos edificios que la más suave brisa desmorona. Tan frágiles y deleznables son sus fundamentos. He aquí que los hombres abren surcos en la tierra, colocan en ellos recios mampuestos, levantan sobre éstos sólidos muros. Cada uno cierra su coto. Y comienza la maravillosa obra de arte. Aquí, […]
Working Translations

Ricardo Mella, “Hopes” (1906)

September 16, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_half padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] Esperanzas Todo en la vida material ha cambiado prodigiosamente. En la vida social, el obrero esclavo del salario, existe todavía para alimentar, recrear y conservar a una casta de hombres que tiene de su parte la supremacía del dinero. Para el resto de los humanos que no pertenecen a esa casta, la civilización es abstracta, ideal, no traducida en hechos; el progreso una engañosa ilusión con cuya conquista se pavonean los servidores privilegiados del tercer estado enriquecido. El pueblo carece de todo; carece primeramente de pan. Civilización, progreso, ciencia, arte, e industria, no son para […]