Resonances against Fascism explores some of the myriad ways music and, more broadly, sound have emerged from, and been mobilized to address, the urgencies of the present, from modernism to today. Taking the works and life of the German-born composer Kurt Weill as a pivotal point of departure, the collection brings together a range of critical voices, each with a singular tone, to demonstrate the pervasive force of sound in the face of fascism. Across eight essays, contributors sound out the anti-authoritarian resonances of modernist and avant-garde aesthetics from Weill to Nina Simone and Chico Buarque, to Marguerite Duras and Jean-Luc Godard, to Lou Reed and Patti Smith, and to the choral chants of the Black Lives Matter Movement. The second volume in the Humanities to the Rescue book series, a public humanities project dedicated to discussing the role of the arts and humanities today, Resonances against Fascism takes its cue from the disruptive force of music in traversing the boundaries between—and engaging readers from—modernist and avant-garde studies, critical and cultural theory, musicology and sound studies, critical race and gender studies, performance studies, and philosophy.

Popular music plays a major role in mobilizing citizens, especially youth, to fight for political causes. Yet the presence of music in politics receives relatively little attention from scholars, politicians, and citizens. White power music is no exception, despite its role in recent high-profile hate crimes.Trendy Fascism is the first book to explore how contemporary white supremacists use popular music to teach hate and promote violence. Nancy S. Love focuses on how white power music supports "trendy fascism," a neo-fascist aesthetic politics. Unlike classical fascism, trendy fascism involves a hyper-modern cultural politics that exploits social media to create a global white supremacist community. Three case studies examine different facets of the white power music scene: racist skinhead, neo-Nazi folk, and goth/metal. Together these cases illustrate how music has replaced traditional forms of public discourse to become the primary medium for conveying white supremacist ideology today. Written from the interdisciplinary perspective on culture, economics, and politics best described as critical theory, this book is crucial reading for everyone concerned about the future of democracy.

To come to Burma, one of the few places where despotism still dominates, is to take both a physical and an emotional journey and, like most Burmese, to become caught up in the daily management of fear. Based on Monique Skidmore's experiences living in the capital city of Rangoon, Karaoke Fascism is the first ethnography of fear in Burma and provides a sobering look at the psychological strategies employed by the Burmese people in order to survive under a military dictatorship that seeks to invade and dominate every aspect of life. Skidmore looks at the psychology and politics of fear under the SLORC and SPDC regimes. Encompassing the period of antijunta student street protests, her work describes a project of authoritarian modernity, where Burmese people are conscripted as army porters and must attend mass rallies, chant slogans, construct roads, and engage in other forms of forced labor. In a harrowing portrayal of life deep within an authoritarian state, recovering heroin addicts, psychiatric patients, girl prostitutes, and poor and vulnerable women in forcibly relocated townships speak about fear, hope, and their ongoing resistance to four decades of oppression. "Karaoke fascism" is a term the author uses to describe the layers of conformity that Burmese people present to each other and, more important, to the military regime. This complex veneer rests on resistance, collaboration, and complicity, and describes not only the Burmese form of oppression but also the Burmese response to a life of domination. Providing an inside look at the madness and the militarization of the city, Skidmore argues that the weight of fear, the anxiety of constant vulnerability, and the numbing demands of the State upon individuals force Burmese people to cast themselves as automata; they deliberately present lifeless hollow bodies for the State's use, while their minds reach out into the cosmos for an array of alternate realities. Skidmore raises ethical and methodological questions about conducting research on fear when doing so evokes the very emotion in question, in both researcher and informant.

Description This book examines the precise nature of fascism as both a system of ideas and a mode of political practice and it looks at the history of organizations and parties loyal to this particular creed in Britain. It is a critical examination of the relative utility of the various theories that have attempted to explain the fascist phenomenon, identifying weaknesses in conventional interpretations. Hayes re-asserts the value of Marxism as an analytic mechanism capable of evaluating the experience of fascism and seeks to identify how, and under what circumstances fascism might re-emerge. Written in a concise and accessible style by an academic who played an active role in anti-fascist politics in Britain, "The Ideology of Fascism and the Far Right in Britain" will be of considerable value to anyone seeking a clearer understanding of fascism and/or, crucially, how best to resist it. Endorsements "Dangerous right-wing figures and parties, which appear somewhat bizarre or marginal or unelectable at one period, can assume enormous significance and power under changing circumstances. This is particularly so at times of economic and or state crisis... At a time when the Far Right is gaining ground across Europe (and Britain is not immune to infection), this book is not only timely but is essential reading for those who care about genuine democracy and the cause of labour." - Tommy McKearney, Former IRA hunger striker and now an organiser with the "Independent Workers Union" "This is a remarkable book. Mark Hayes combines meticulous research and passionate commitment as he charts the ideological genesis and political trajectory of... the] fascist heritage of the far right in Britain." - Jim Slaven, "James Connolly Society, " Scotland "Tautly written and buttressed by forensic research this book is a timely reminder that]... fascism red in tooth and claw never begins with the midnight knock and the concentration camp. It just ends with them. Read the book and gauge for yourself how far we have already travelled on that journey." - Gary' O'Shea, founding member, "Anti-Fascist Action"

The Austromarxist era of the 1920s was a unique chapter in socialist history. Trying to carve out a road between reformism and Bolshevism, the Austromarxists embarked on an ambitious journey towards a socialist oasis in the midst of capitalism. Their showpiece, the legendary “Red Vienna,” has worked as a model for socialist urban planning ever since. At the heart of the Austromarxist experiment was the conviction that a socialist revolution had to entail a cultural one. Numerous workers’ institutions and organizations were founded, from education centers to theaters to hiking associations. With the Fascist threat increasing, the physical aspects of the cultural revolution became ever more central as they were considered mandatory for effective defense. At no other time in socialist history did armed struggle, sports, and sobriety become as intertwined in a proletarian attempt to protect socialist achievements as they did in Austria in the early 1930s. Despite the final defeat of the workers’ militias in the Austrian Civil War of 1934 and subsequent Fascist rule, the Austromarxist struggle holds important lessons for socialist theory and practice. Antifascism, Sports, Sobriety contains an introductory essay by Gabriel Kuhn and selected writings by Julius Deutsch, leader of the workers’ militias, president of the Socialist Workers’ Sport International, and a prominent spokesperson for the Austrian workers’ temperance movement. Deutsch represented the physical defense of the working class against its enemies like few others. His texts in this book are being made available in English for the first time.

The pace of modern life is undoubtedly speeding up, yet this acceleration does not seem to have made us any happier or more content. If acceleration is the problem, then the solution, argues Hartmut Rosa in this major new work, lies in “resonance.” The quality of a human life cannot be measured simply in terms of resources, options, and moments of happiness; instead, we must consider our relationship to, or resonance with, the world. Applying his theory of resonance to many domains of human activity, Rosa describes the full spectrum of ways in which we establish our relationship to the world, from the act of breathing to the adoption of culturally distinct worldviews. He then turns to the realms of concrete experience and action – family and politics, work and sports, religion and art – in which we as late modern subjects seek out resonance. This task is proving ever more difficult as modernity’s logic of escalation is both cause and consequence of a distorted relationship to the world, at individual and collective levels. As Rosa shows, all the great crises of modern society – the environmental crisis, the crisis of democracy, the psychological crisis – can also be understood and analyzed in terms of resonance and our broken relationship to the world around us. Building on his now classic work on acceleration, Rosa’s new book is a major new contribution to the theory of modernity, showing how our problematic relation to the world is at the crux of some of the most pressing issues we face today. This bold renewal of critical theory for our times will be of great interest to students and scholars across the social sciences and humanities.

Why We Fight is a collection of essays written in the midst of the largest resurgence of the far-right in fifty years, and the explosion of antifascist, antiracist, and revolutionary organizing that has risen to fight it. The essays unpack the moment we live in, confronting the apocalyptic feelings brought on by nationalism, climate collapse, and the crisis of capitalism, but also delivering the clear message that a new world is possible through the struggles communities are leveraging today. Burley reminds us what we're fighting for not simply what we're fighting against.