The Unseen Book Club

The Death Ship by B Traven

The Death Ship was the first major novel by the legendary, anonymous anarchist novelist, B Traven (188? - 1969). Traven’s adventure novels of the ‘20s and ‘30s document proletarian struggle, as outcasts and downtrodden workers confront the absurdity and agonies of capitalist exploitation, borders, and statecraft. Most of his novels are set in Mexico, and are uniquely concerned with Mexico’s rural and indigenous proletariat. The Death Ship stands out in Traven’s oeuvre primarily for its setting. It follows an American-borne sailor whose lost passport leaves him both jobless and stateless. Through landlocked European misadventures, he eventually finds work as a coal-drag on a broken-down steamship whose owners’ relentless drive for profits lead to the barest condition of life for the ship’s polyglot crew of luckless proles. Through his unnamed protagonist, Traven mocks the border regimes and bureaucracies, the petty caste systems that emerge amongst workers, and the innumerable insults of life as a forgotten debt-slave. He also searches, relentlessly, for connection, solidarity, and a contradictory affirmation of life through common struggle and shared labor. We also discuss B Traven’s remarkable life. Traven biography: B._Traven:_The_Life_Behind_the_Legends [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._Traven:_The_Life_Behind_the_Legends] Outro Music: Lord Creator - John B [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DufgJQErJ30] Sign up for our newsletter [https://unseen-book-club.beehiiv.com/]! Buzzsprout [https://unseenbookclub.buzzsprout.com/] Instagram [%20https://www.instagram.com/unseenbookclub_podcast] Music by Ex-Official [https://exofficialexo.bandcamp.com/music] Art by Eli Mack [https://elimack.weebly.com/]

Tuesday Or September Or The End by Hannah Black

Hannah Black’s superb novella Tuesday Or September Or The End (Capricious, 2022) is a science-fictionalized account of 2020 and its twinned world-making events of the pandemic and riot. The novella is caustic, hilarious, and written with both an unflinching eye for this world’s stifling and tragic conditions and a wide-open heart for its undoing and rebirth. https://capriciousfoundation.org/publications/tuesday Sign up for our newsletter [https://unseen-book-club.beehiiv.com/]! Buzzsprout [https://unseenbookclub.buzzsprout.com/] Instagram [%20https://www.instagram.com/unseenbookclub_podcast] Music by Ex-Official [https://exofficialexo.bandcamp.com/music] Art by Eli Mack [https://elimack.weebly.com/]

On and Off-Screen Imaginaries with Tiffany Sia

On and Off-Screen Imaginaries (Primary Information, 2024) is a collection of six essays by filmaker, artist and writer Tiffany Sia. Sia joins us to discuss how media depictions of political practice and identity are produced, negotiated, memorialized, and transformed through censorship, surveillance, diaspora, and time.  On and Off-Screen Imaginaries: https://primaryinformation.org/product/on-and-off-screen-imaginaries/ Tiffany Sia: https://www.tiffanysia.com/ HTHQ Workshop: https://hq.creativetime.org/calendar/sonic-literacy-with-tiffany-sia-and-jordan-lord/ Sign up for our newsletter [https://unseen-book-club.beehiiv.com/]! Buzzsprout [https://unseenbookclub.buzzsprout.com/] Instagram [%20https://www.instagram.com/unseenbookclub_podcast] Music by Ex-Official [https://exofficialexo.bandcamp.com/music] Art by Eli Mack [https://elimack.weebly.com/]

Full Circle: A Life In Rebellion, by Ben Morea + 1000 Voices Collective, w/ Ariel Uesseler and Sabu Kohso

Ben Morea is primarily known for his central involvement with the print magazine Black Mask and the militant anarchist group Up Against the Wall, Motherfucker. Both were active in New York City in the late 1960’s. In the 1970’s, Morea went underground and lived for forty years in the Southern Rockies, immersing himself in ceremonial practice with indigenous communities. In the 2010’s, he returned to New York City. Full Circle is an autobiographical account of his political, artistic, and spiritual life, edited from a series of interviews with 1000 Voices Collective. We speak with Sabu Kohso and Ariel Uesseler about the process of creating Full Circle, and Morea’s fierce dedication to revolutionary living. Full Circle: A Life In Rebellion [https://detritusbooks.com/products/full-circle-a-life-in-rebellion-ben-morea] Our review of Full Circle will be appearing in print in the upcoming issue of Heatwave Magazine [https://heatwavemag.info/]. Check out their first issue online. Sabu Kohso’s writings and translation about the Japanese ultra-left can be found here [https://illwill.com/life-of-militancy] and here [https://illwill.com/uchigeba]. Sign up for our newsletter [https://unseen-book-club.beehiiv.com/]! Buzzsprout [https://unseenbookclub.buzzsprout.com/] Instagram [%20https://www.instagram.com/unseenbookclub_podcast] Music by Ex-Official [https://exofficialexo.bandcamp.com/music] Art by Eli Mack [https://elimack.weebly.com/]

RELAUNCH: The Unseen Book Club returns!

The Unseen Book Club returns! Max and Dan do some light bibliomancy, reflect on the past and cast our gazes to the horizon and discuss the future of the show. Sign up for our newsletter [https://unseen-book-club.beehiiv.com/]! Buzzsprout [https://unseenbookclub.buzzsprout.com/] Instagram [%20https://www.instagram.com/unseenbookclub_podcast] Music by Ex-Official [https://exofficialexo.bandcamp.com/music] Art by Eli Mack [https://elimack.weebly.com/]