Come On You Reds
A new book on the beginnings of football in the Soviet Union reveals how the Bolsheviks first regarded it as an opium of the people — and then tried to build a game of their own.
18 Articles by:
Juliet Jacques
Juliet Jacques is a writer and filmmaker, whose most recent book was Trans: A Memoir (Verso, 2015). She is the host of Suite (212) on Resonance 104.4fm.
To Infinity and Beyond
A new film depicts the story of a Soviet architectural ‘UFO’ in Kyiv, which still stands as both a resistance to Stalinist philistinism and wild capitalism.
Bad Company
Huw Lemmey and Ben Miller talk to Juliet Jacques about their podcast and book ‘Bad Gays’, and about the ways in which LGBT history and current politics intersect.
Art Workers, Unite!
Kuba Szreder’s ‘ABC’ for workers in the arts advocates ways of out of a system designed to benefit not those who make artworks, but a handful of investors and gallerists.
No One Way Works
The American leftist poet Diane di Prima wrote her ‘Revolutionary Letters’ for over forty years, filling them with both advice and anger.
Travels in Inner Space
The short stories of the Japanese feminist and science fiction writer Izumi Suzuki have an eerie correspondence to the world of the present day.
New Fronts, Old Wars
The history of the British trans community is usually told through non-fiction, as a way of convincing people it has a right to even exist. Juliet Jacques’ ‘Variations’ tries to move beyond the Right’s culture-war turf.
I Know Bono and He Knows Ono and She Knows Eno
A 25th anniversary edition of Brian Eno’s 1995 diaries show just how much has changed since that time, the author included.
We Can’t All Be Max Bygraves
Trevor Griffiths’ 1975 play ‘Comedians’ took a serious look at what makes us laugh, and why. In a political era where comedians, journalists, and politicians are often the same people, it has something to teach us.
Jeremy Corbyn: ‘The Government Could Easily Afford to Expand Arts Funding’
Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn on how the arts shaped his worldview, why it shouldn’t become a preserve of the rich – and the need to support culture workers fighting the crisis in their industry.
Rishi Sunak’s Freudian Slip on the Arts
This week, Rishi Sunak created a storm when he suggested arts workers find other jobs – but the comment wasn’t just a slip, it was reflective of a government that is overseeing the slow death of Britain’s culture sector.
Marx at the Ecosexual Workshop
The newspaper columns of Paul B. Preciado combine queer history and a sober account of the last decade of left advance.
The Arts for All
In the best of the party’s traditions, Labour’s manifesto for this election promises to open up the arts to those from all backgrounds – breaking a cycle which increasingly restricts cultural expression to an elite.
Poetic Politics
South American poet Néstor Perlongher’s work imagined a solidarity based on “a multitude of comrades, each more extravagant than the next.”
The Return of Rafael Alberti
The leftist poet Rafael Alberti was forced into exile by Franco, but his determination to return symbolised the hopes of the Spanish Republic.
Starlets of the Revolution
João Moreira Salles’ In The Intense Now shows how the revolutionaries of the sixties used — and were used by — the media.
Ernst Toller: In Memoriam
As a socialist playwright, revolutionary president, and exile from the Nazis, Ernst Toller’s life and work demonstrated the importance of conviction in creativity.
Mario Mieli’s Gay Communism
As the LGBT community makes progress on legal rights, its politics are haunted by those who asked more radical questions.