Geopolitics
8th June 2024
What has been the scope of bigotry, racism, oppression and prejudice? Owen Dudley Edwards telescopes a whole history of the entanglement of those evils with the struggle for freedom, justice and truth into a compassionate and humane reading (and most importantly, an Irish reading) of the cornering and silencing of Diane Abbott, who was the first ever black woman elected to the Westminster Parliament.
5th June 2024
A unexpected quality, at once refined, maverick and committed, is given to the the term polymath in the work of Pippa Goldschmidt. She has written as much about exploration of psychic space in Freud and Lacan as about the astrological and intergalactic type. In her wonderful new book Night Vision she writes about her formation as an astrophysicist, and her description and history of anti-colonial outer space exploration is a reassuringly politicised view of the physical universe, free of the usual Hollywood astro-fantasies.
29th July 2023
What can an artist do when faced with another war? Engage as a war artist ... that is, stand by and reveal the horror? But surely, art always challenges the neutral? Artists make things that engage with ideas and situations. Michail Mersinis proposes a repurposing of the instruments of war to make sensitive participatory gestures that constitute a respite from the language of war and hate. The tragedy is happening in Ukraine now -but is it even possible to act innocently?
31st January 2023
From the sophistry of the Saorstat to the solecism of Saor Alba - what, if any, are the parallels between Irish Revolutionary relations with the UK, and the relations between the current crop of Scottish and UK politicians? Owen Dudley Edwards addresses an independent question.
27th January 2023
Who was Tom Nairn? One of the great political thinkers of his age, we mark his passing away with an introductory examination of his work - almost a Nairn For Beginners. These reviews/summaries of some of his most important works are excerpted from Tartan Pimps, a 2010 book by Mitch Miller and Johnny Rodger, which examined how the new Scottish politics were written into being.
27th January 2023
Who was Tom Nairn? One of the great political thinkers of his age, we mark his passing away with an introduction to his thought. This piece is excerpted from Tartan Pimps, a 2010 book by Mitch Miller and Johnny Rodger, which examined how the new Scottish politics were written into being. Some of the parliamentary politics here have aged a bit -Nairn's thought has not.
18th June 2022
What is the constitution of an institution? Who decides in and for an institution? What happens when an institution rejects us, or when we destroy an institution? Owen Dudley Edwards meditates ...
22nd April 2022
POSTING MAY DAY: The story of International Workers’ Day through Trade Union Posters by LORNA MILLER
The Story of May Day as the celebration of International Workers Day, and specifically the organisation of the Glasgow May Day festivities over the last few years, is told by artist and political cartoonist Lorna Miller in a wonderful insight into her work in creation of posters for Glasgow Trades Council.
COALITION OF WATERS:
On Wounded Bodies in Capitalistic Time
Rupali Patil & Agnieszka Kilian