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Combined and Uneven Apocalypse: Luciferian Marxism
From the repurposed rubble of salvagepunk to undead hordes banging on shopping mall doors, from empty waste zones to teeming plagued cities, Combined and Uneven Apocalypse grapples with the apocalyptic fantasies of our collapsing era. Moving through the films, political tendencies, and recurrent crises of late capitalism, Evan Calder Williams paints a black toned portrait of the dream and nightmare images of a global order gone very, very wrong. Situating itself in the defaulting financial markets of the present, Combined and Uneven Apocalypse glances back toward a messy history of zombies, car wrecks, tidal waves, extinction, trash heaps, labour, pandemics, wolves, cannibalism, and general nastiness that populate the underside of our cultural imagination. Every age may dream the end of the world to follow, but these scattered nightmare figures are a skewed refraction of the normal hell of capitalism. The apocalypse isn't something that will happen one it's just the slow unveiling of the catastrophe we've been living through for centuries. Against any fantasies of progress, return, or reconciliation, Williams launches a loathing critique of the bleak present and offers a graveside smile for our necessary battles to come.
261 pages, Paperback
First published April 16, 2011
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November 30, 2016
This book is by its very definition relevant to my interests. It analyses apocalyptic movies, including zombie films, the Emmerich oeuvre, and some more art-house examples. It discusses J.G. Ballard, the concept of steampunk, and the ‘crypto-fascist’ ending of ‘Wall-E’. Tying all of this together is an account of capitalism’s ongoing downfall and what might come next, drawing on a range of critical theory including the apparently ubiquitous Lacan. I greatly enjoyed the whole thing, much of which I read on trains and station platforms.
Evan Calder Williams advances the concept of salvagepunk, a rather pragmatic ideology of digging through the past and present for vestiges of socialism and communism that actually worked. The titular concept is also helpful; I took, ‘Combined and Uneven Apocalypse’ to mean that conditions of crisis and collapse already prevail in many parts of the world but are ignored. This also brought to mind a comment on disaster movies that I think I read on tumblr - that they show a world in which existing horrors and threats are visited on rich white men. A recent example that springs to mind is Neil Blomkamp’s ‘Elysium’. This depicted a supposedly hellish vision of Los Angeles as a third world city, from the point of view of a white man. The only unreal aspect of this vision was the occasional robot cop, otherwise it looked more salubrious than many cities in the developing world are right now.
Although I appreciated salvagepunk as an embryonic ideology capable of application, I was most interested in the implications of the media’s present obsession with end of the world scenarios. This book categorises and examines a range of these manifestations, such as the plethora of zombie movies and the History Channel series, ‘Life After People’. For a long while I have both enjoyed all this apocalyptic media and been intrigued by its implications as a cultural trend. This book does is the most multi-faceted and interesting exploration of the phenomenon that I’ve yet come across. It probably helps to have familiarity with at least some of the films etc that are discussed, although I also found it a source of new recommendations. For instance, I’ve seen, ‘The Time of the Wolf’ and every Emmerich film (several times, shamefully), but not ‘The Bed Sitting Room’ or ‘Pontypool’.
Of particular interest to me from an academic perspective (although the tone of the book is intentionally and noticeably intellectual rather than academic) was the discussion of nature. Quote:
The only complaints I would make about this fascinating and entertaining book are a few typos and the difficulty I had in finding a copy. Mine came from The Book Hive, an absolutely fantastic bookshop in Norwich.
Evan Calder Williams advances the concept of salvagepunk, a rather pragmatic ideology of digging through the past and present for vestiges of socialism and communism that actually worked. The titular concept is also helpful; I took, ‘Combined and Uneven Apocalypse’ to mean that conditions of crisis and collapse already prevail in many parts of the world but are ignored. This also brought to mind a comment on disaster movies that I think I read on tumblr - that they show a world in which existing horrors and threats are visited on rich white men. A recent example that springs to mind is Neil Blomkamp’s ‘Elysium’. This depicted a supposedly hellish vision of Los Angeles as a third world city, from the point of view of a white man. The only unreal aspect of this vision was the occasional robot cop, otherwise it looked more salubrious than many cities in the developing world are right now.
Although I appreciated salvagepunk as an embryonic ideology capable of application, I was most interested in the implications of the media’s present obsession with end of the world scenarios. This book categorises and examines a range of these manifestations, such as the plethora of zombie movies and the History Channel series, ‘Life After People’. For a long while I have both enjoyed all this apocalyptic media and been intrigued by its implications as a cultural trend. This book does is the most multi-faceted and interesting exploration of the phenomenon that I’ve yet come across. It probably helps to have familiarity with at least some of the films etc that are discussed, although I also found it a source of new recommendations. For instance, I’ve seen, ‘The Time of the Wolf’ and every Emmerich film (several times, shamefully), but not ‘The Bed Sitting Room’ or ‘Pontypool’.
Of particular interest to me from an academic perspective (although the tone of the book is intentionally and noticeably intellectual rather than academic) was the discussion of nature. Quote:
‘And so capitalism produces the eternal adversary against which it gains consistency, and in doing so, equally produces the contradictions which it cannot overcome other than through its eventual annihilation. Nature is quantified into particular determinate measurable units, while it is simultaneously abstracted into a universal beyond measure. Capitalism externalises nature as that which will always be there, and it revolutionises it, insisting that we can always use it differently, that the wheels of progress will break open the locks of hidden knowledge and reveal the buried stores of plenitude.’
The only complaints I would make about this fascinating and entertaining book are a few typos and the difficulty I had in finding a copy. Mine came from The Book Hive, an absolutely fantastic bookshop in Norwich.
January 5, 2018
In this text, Evan Calder Williams comes across as that rare fellow English graduate student who you suspect MIGHT be smarter than you -- because he has read everything you've read and occassionally references things you haven't read or seen -- and then you get incredibly jealous and defensive when you find out he published a book about zombies and apocalyptic cinema, and you say, I should have done that! But then once you've read the book you relax, because it wasn't quite as good as you'd feared, but good enough that you want to start hanging out with this person, maybe develop some ideas together, ask him what he meant here, what he meant there...
This book is kind of like philosophical beach reading. This is not technical philosophy, here. It skims a lot of surfaces and name drops a lot of ideas, but doesn't dig into them or suggest modifications to them. As Jameson once said [and I paraphrase], "The greatest minds create Marxism or deconstruction or whatever, and the rest of us apply it to King King." It comes across as a long ramble, but an entertaining one, nonetheless.
I'd hoped for the salvage punk "manifesto" part to actually propose some kind of program or suggestions for action or aesthetics, but none whatever are to be found. It is like he had a really cool idea but had no idea how to flesh it out. He'll leave that to us, apparently. I love that he talks at length about Return of the Living Dead, one of my fav movies [although he seems to hate the punks in the movie. I liked them, as they are basically as stupid as we were back in the punk days, I can't say we were any better at age 16. Were you a cooler punk?]. Williams takes a few moves from Zizek, including dialectical reversals of popularly held notions/ideas, which occassionally work and sometimes just comes across as pretentious [for instance, playing of Zizek's clarification of Freud's idea of dream analysis, Williams says [and I paraphrase], "Althought everyone thinks that the politics of Dawn of the Dead's anti-consumeristic politics are what is important or interesting, this is wrong, because what is important or interesting is the form of blah blah blah, etc." That said, he makes lots of interesting points, even if they don't always get developed. I like how Williams brings the discussion of zombies back to being about labor, for instance. This section is well worth reading for anyone interested in zombie philosophy.
The sections about apocalypse are equally engaging, with lots of nuggets to chew on throughout. I especially liked the sections about punk cinema, and the bits about the lost/near miss of gang/punk cinema's revoutionary potential [think The Warriors before Cyrus gets shot]. A few times the book inspired by to dig out on old tome and re-read sections of it [for instance, Critique of Cynical Reason], or watch some movies I haven't seen in a while [for instance, Plague of the Zombies], or watch films I've never seen before [i.e., The Bed Sitting Room].
Regarding the quality of the publication, the material seems cruddy, as the cover immediately dog-eared and warped. There are innumerable editing errors, repeated lines, grammar mistakes, etc. There is no index, which is annoying.
That said, if the subject of this book seems interesting to you, pick it up. I appreciate that this is a work of unabashed communist theory, of Lucifarian Marxism [whatever this mean. Why is this subheading listed on Amazon page but not on the book?]. I'd like to hear Williams talk more about these subjects, but there is very little on the way of interviews or Youtube videos featuring him, except one with China Mieville, which made me understand where the blurb on the back of tje book came from: "Hey China, would you mind..." There is enough here to be stimulating for the right kind of person. Again, even though a lot here isn't worked out in great detail, the concept of "combined and uneven apocalypse" is itself clever and has provoked within me a more dialectical understanding of the end-of-days, which has been invigorating in my little dark daydreams. Everything you like is discussed in here: Swamp Thing, Ballard, Mad Max, slamming the Voluntary Extinction Movement, Escape from New York, Weekend, etc. All said and done, I'm pretty sure Williams is smarter than me, at least enough to be annoying, but not enough to make him a Subject Supposed to Know, at least not yet. I look forward to seeing what Williams writes next.
This book is kind of like philosophical beach reading. This is not technical philosophy, here. It skims a lot of surfaces and name drops a lot of ideas, but doesn't dig into them or suggest modifications to them. As Jameson once said [and I paraphrase], "The greatest minds create Marxism or deconstruction or whatever, and the rest of us apply it to King King." It comes across as a long ramble, but an entertaining one, nonetheless.
I'd hoped for the salvage punk "manifesto" part to actually propose some kind of program or suggestions for action or aesthetics, but none whatever are to be found. It is like he had a really cool idea but had no idea how to flesh it out. He'll leave that to us, apparently. I love that he talks at length about Return of the Living Dead, one of my fav movies [although he seems to hate the punks in the movie. I liked them, as they are basically as stupid as we were back in the punk days, I can't say we were any better at age 16. Were you a cooler punk?]. Williams takes a few moves from Zizek, including dialectical reversals of popularly held notions/ideas, which occassionally work and sometimes just comes across as pretentious [for instance, playing of Zizek's clarification of Freud's idea of dream analysis, Williams says [and I paraphrase], "Althought everyone thinks that the politics of Dawn of the Dead's anti-consumeristic politics are what is important or interesting, this is wrong, because what is important or interesting is the form of blah blah blah, etc." That said, he makes lots of interesting points, even if they don't always get developed. I like how Williams brings the discussion of zombies back to being about labor, for instance. This section is well worth reading for anyone interested in zombie philosophy.
The sections about apocalypse are equally engaging, with lots of nuggets to chew on throughout. I especially liked the sections about punk cinema, and the bits about the lost/near miss of gang/punk cinema's revoutionary potential [think The Warriors before Cyrus gets shot]. A few times the book inspired by to dig out on old tome and re-read sections of it [for instance, Critique of Cynical Reason], or watch some movies I haven't seen in a while [for instance, Plague of the Zombies], or watch films I've never seen before [i.e., The Bed Sitting Room].
Regarding the quality of the publication, the material seems cruddy, as the cover immediately dog-eared and warped. There are innumerable editing errors, repeated lines, grammar mistakes, etc. There is no index, which is annoying.
That said, if the subject of this book seems interesting to you, pick it up. I appreciate that this is a work of unabashed communist theory, of Lucifarian Marxism [whatever this mean. Why is this subheading listed on Amazon page but not on the book?]. I'd like to hear Williams talk more about these subjects, but there is very little on the way of interviews or Youtube videos featuring him, except one with China Mieville, which made me understand where the blurb on the back of tje book came from: "Hey China, would you mind..." There is enough here to be stimulating for the right kind of person. Again, even though a lot here isn't worked out in great detail, the concept of "combined and uneven apocalypse" is itself clever and has provoked within me a more dialectical understanding of the end-of-days, which has been invigorating in my little dark daydreams. Everything you like is discussed in here: Swamp Thing, Ballard, Mad Max, slamming the Voluntary Extinction Movement, Escape from New York, Weekend, etc. All said and done, I'm pretty sure Williams is smarter than me, at least enough to be annoying, but not enough to make him a Subject Supposed to Know, at least not yet. I look forward to seeing what Williams writes next.
July 11, 2019
Similar in its practical (or tactical, whichever you prefer) aim to perhaps John Berger's "Ways of Seeing" (1972), Evan Calder Williams' "Combined and Uneven Apocalypse" (2011) lays bare a different understanding of the world: a world in which its subjects can no longer point beyond themselves to any given cause. The apocalypse is here, it has been, and it will be. So now what? First, Williams really wants us to get a handle on what the apocalyptic actually is - on his terms - so that we can understand what it means to become post-apocalyptic:
"...post apocalyptic here does not mean that we have witnessed the destruction of our society or nation. It means what we don't know who are enemies are anymore. The very category of enemy is rendered diffuse, reduced to the bad smell of fear stinking up the place." (p. 55)
Williams is interested in the literature, language, and filmic readings of zombie films, films about catastrophe, the theory and practice of salvagepunk (as an offshoot, if not opposed to) cyberpunk and more, with an appropriate balance between interpretations of massive blockbuster hits and lesser known, older materials. You need not watch/read these in order to grasp what is going on here (though I have watched a number of those mentioned, because of this book, still you need not): Williams terms - throughout the whole of "Combined and Uneven Apocalypse" are an example of the best teaching of Marxism I've ever read. An excerpt:
"In a more Marxist language: the film [Dawn of the Dead] is a capture not just of how the structuring effects of the 'base' (the organization of productive capacity and the modes of labor there employed to produce value) are registered by the 'superstructure' (the social relations that both support and are produced by modes of production, the realms of culture and 'politics', the whole ideological project of a period and its tangle of contradictory impulses and rules). It is not the issue of critical output reflecting or expressing the economic order, as in the parodic version of Marxism in which everything is unidirectionally 'about' the economy in a banal and dogmatic way. ('What is slapstick hockey comedy about?' 'Class relations'. 'Obviously.') ... Rather, the capture is of the messy passages between base and superstructure." (p. 79, bold mine).
In one of my favorite bits (which takes up a big part of this book), Williams illuminates Marxist theory (put crudely and simply for the purposes of this review) basically by saying: You cannot make the zombie film a film about the problem of unconscious consumerism (the zombies) by those who don't know better, while those who do know better fight them off until they are doomed to the awful fate as well. Rather, how can we begin to see that the undead are in the exact same predicament as us? What can they - the zombies - tell us about how this system we are trying to protect both creates them and enables them just as the system (of the same) they are part of enables us to be and do what we do? Williams calls this a kind of necessary deadlock of the apocalypse that is fundamental to any move forward. Or backward or wherever, any movement at all. In my view this also means: our situation cannot be reduced to or blown up as identity politics, biopolitics, geopolitics, so on and so forth. It will and it does, but that is not the concern here, in what is indeed a gesture towards the post-apocalyptic. Post.
"Rather, the point is to grasp how the unified vision only gains consistency through its relationship to what cannot fit into it and how it provides an ideological backdrop for the material shaping of a world that will preserve those unwelcome zones. In other words, decisively not a flattening of the world and welcoming all equally into the financial fold, but providing the narrative of that as the cover story for an opposite practice." (p. 154)
To clarify: Combined and Uneven Apocalypse is asking for an end to the totality of organizing structures that believe in the hegemonic (for lack of better words) production of a unified whole, a unified whole which, as we can see, leaves a whole slew of poor unfortunate souls behind, not to mention a continuous, cyclical catastrophe that piles up absolutely everywhere, whether we refuse to see it or whether look at it dumbly in the face, albeit in awe (see the Angel of History). The apocalypse offers us something: a mode of understanding that makes whatever is other - the totality of that other - which we fickle humans knows changes week to week or even by the hour, depending on how paranoid or pissed we are - something wholly indifferent to individuality and subjectivity, yet thrives on our unwavering belief that these things exist. This cannot be reconciled.
"Therefore, a different tack here, moving through the dream-image of salavepunk and the nightmare-image of the dead rising, to venture an unstable third: the recognition that the post-apocalyptic is not an image of that to be. It is not that which lies beyond the apocalyptic event. It is a perspectival stance to be taken up now. It is a necessary optic onto the flourishing wastelands... the recognition that the apocalyptic event has been unfolding, in slow motion with sudden leaps and storms. Behind our backs and in front of our faces. In waiting for the cataclysm, we missed the drift of it. In looking for the catastrophe, waiting in the wings or already passed (a certain threshold of no return), we turned away. Instead, we slowly start to recognize that we stand beyond that threshold: we become post-apocalyptic when we start making something of what has been revealed." (p. 158).
To conclude: this book is obviously a labor of love (or hate) on the part of the author, a hell of a headache to read for the reader (but for those who know pleasure like I do, this isn't a problem), and a another awesome addition to contemporary philosophy/critical theory that I'm glad I found. ECW is definitely one of my favorite theorists of all time and I look forward to reading everything written by him in the near :)
"...post apocalyptic here does not mean that we have witnessed the destruction of our society or nation. It means what we don't know who are enemies are anymore. The very category of enemy is rendered diffuse, reduced to the bad smell of fear stinking up the place." (p. 55)
Williams is interested in the literature, language, and filmic readings of zombie films, films about catastrophe, the theory and practice of salvagepunk (as an offshoot, if not opposed to) cyberpunk and more, with an appropriate balance between interpretations of massive blockbuster hits and lesser known, older materials. You need not watch/read these in order to grasp what is going on here (though I have watched a number of those mentioned, because of this book, still you need not): Williams terms - throughout the whole of "Combined and Uneven Apocalypse" are an example of the best teaching of Marxism I've ever read. An excerpt:
"In a more Marxist language: the film [Dawn of the Dead] is a capture not just of how the structuring effects of the 'base' (the organization of productive capacity and the modes of labor there employed to produce value) are registered by the 'superstructure' (the social relations that both support and are produced by modes of production, the realms of culture and 'politics', the whole ideological project of a period and its tangle of contradictory impulses and rules). It is not the issue of critical output reflecting or expressing the economic order, as in the parodic version of Marxism in which everything is unidirectionally 'about' the economy in a banal and dogmatic way. ('What is slapstick hockey comedy about?' 'Class relations'. 'Obviously.') ... Rather, the capture is of the messy passages between base and superstructure." (p. 79, bold mine).
In one of my favorite bits (which takes up a big part of this book), Williams illuminates Marxist theory (put crudely and simply for the purposes of this review) basically by saying: You cannot make the zombie film a film about the problem of unconscious consumerism (the zombies) by those who don't know better, while those who do know better fight them off until they are doomed to the awful fate as well. Rather, how can we begin to see that the undead are in the exact same predicament as us? What can they - the zombies - tell us about how this system we are trying to protect both creates them and enables them just as the system (of the same) they are part of enables us to be and do what we do? Williams calls this a kind of necessary deadlock of the apocalypse that is fundamental to any move forward. Or backward or wherever, any movement at all. In my view this also means: our situation cannot be reduced to or blown up as identity politics, biopolitics, geopolitics, so on and so forth. It will and it does, but that is not the concern here, in what is indeed a gesture towards the post-apocalyptic. Post.
"Rather, the point is to grasp how the unified vision only gains consistency through its relationship to what cannot fit into it and how it provides an ideological backdrop for the material shaping of a world that will preserve those unwelcome zones. In other words, decisively not a flattening of the world and welcoming all equally into the financial fold, but providing the narrative of that as the cover story for an opposite practice." (p. 154)
To clarify: Combined and Uneven Apocalypse is asking for an end to the totality of organizing structures that believe in the hegemonic (for lack of better words) production of a unified whole, a unified whole which, as we can see, leaves a whole slew of poor unfortunate souls behind, not to mention a continuous, cyclical catastrophe that piles up absolutely everywhere, whether we refuse to see it or whether look at it dumbly in the face, albeit in awe (see the Angel of History). The apocalypse offers us something: a mode of understanding that makes whatever is other - the totality of that other - which we fickle humans knows changes week to week or even by the hour, depending on how paranoid or pissed we are - something wholly indifferent to individuality and subjectivity, yet thrives on our unwavering belief that these things exist. This cannot be reconciled.
"Therefore, a different tack here, moving through the dream-image of salavepunk and the nightmare-image of the dead rising, to venture an unstable third: the recognition that the post-apocalyptic is not an image of that to be. It is not that which lies beyond the apocalyptic event. It is a perspectival stance to be taken up now. It is a necessary optic onto the flourishing wastelands... the recognition that the apocalyptic event has been unfolding, in slow motion with sudden leaps and storms. Behind our backs and in front of our faces. In waiting for the cataclysm, we missed the drift of it. In looking for the catastrophe, waiting in the wings or already passed (a certain threshold of no return), we turned away. Instead, we slowly start to recognize that we stand beyond that threshold: we become post-apocalyptic when we start making something of what has been revealed." (p. 158).
To conclude: this book is obviously a labor of love (or hate) on the part of the author, a hell of a headache to read for the reader (but for those who know pleasure like I do, this isn't a problem), and a another awesome addition to contemporary philosophy/critical theory that I'm glad I found. ECW is definitely one of my favorite theorists of all time and I look forward to reading everything written by him in the near :)
January 3, 2020
I am a little bit disappointed by this book, because I thought that it would have taken its examples from books, but it is mostly all about movies and I am not a movie expert. So I am sure that I would have enjoyed the book a lot more if I knew the films that it was talking about, but it was not like that and in the end it was boring.
Sono un po' delusa da questo libro, perché pensavo che avrebbe fatto esempi tratti dai libri, mentre in effetti ha parlato quasi esclusivamente di film, e io non ne conoscevo praticamente nessuno con l'esclusione di Mad Max. Quindi sono sicura che se fossi stata una cinefila avrei apprezzato sicuramente questo saggio molto di piú, ma non é stato cosí e mi sono anche annoiata.
Sono un po' delusa da questo libro, perché pensavo che avrebbe fatto esempi tratti dai libri, mentre in effetti ha parlato quasi esclusivamente di film, e io non ne conoscevo praticamente nessuno con l'esclusione di Mad Max. Quindi sono sicura che se fossi stata una cinefila avrei apprezzato sicuramente questo saggio molto di piú, ma non é stato cosí e mi sono anche annoiata.
March 11, 2025
This book, to be honest, is very forgettable in terms of its content. The arguments put forward are not particularly compelling, and in my opinion, the writing style is too vague, as if attempting to mimic Mark Fisher. I bought the book because of its subtitle, Luciferian Marxism, which, unfortunately, is barely discussed—only mentioned in one or two sentences. The symbol of Lucifer as a rebel who might even deeply love God holds considerable potential for developing a new discourse on communism (which, according to the author, the book is about). That aside, I did enjoy reading about the attempts to theorise salvagepunk through several post-apocalypse films (especially the Mad Max series) and the phenomenon of zombies in pop culture, which the author applies to a unique understanding of apocalypse—one defined in the book by its separation from theological elements. But once again, the content of this book is truly forgettable, aside from the big claim that I find rather absurd regarding the ending of Wall‑E as a symbol of crypto‑fascism.
March 27, 2023
As in previous eras before great social, polictical and economic change societies become obsessed with the end times. The book analyses our enviroment using apocolyptic fiction from the 60s onwards to consider what shapes the contemporary view of the apocolypse in our current periods of turbulence.
Quite an interesting one.
Quite an interesting one.
March 30, 2021
Fairly good. One of the denser Zer0 books I've read (it took me a month to read a 250 page book which is abnormal for me).
One for fans of Mark Fisher or other CCRU authors but not nearly as readable as Capitalist Realism.
The analysis of the ideologies underpinning zombie films was easily the strongest section in my opinion.
One for fans of Mark Fisher or other CCRU authors but not nearly as readable as Capitalist Realism.
The analysis of the ideologies underpinning zombie films was easily the strongest section in my opinion.
January 31, 2021
Combined and uneven apocalypse is an interesting book, exploring our post-apocalyptic imaginations and how we should deal with them. In the three chapters it explores three different approaches and presentations of apocalypse, salvage, zombie and uneven. In the first the notion of apocalypse as revelations is discussed and how we through salvage can learn to live in a post-apocalyptic world, a world within which that what was hidden is revealed. The zombie chapter more discusses how zombie movies reveal certain aspects of our contemporary world and how we do and could relate to it. In the last chapter he discusses how the apocalypse is already here but spread unevenly across the globe. We should from this gather the strength to grasp that which is revealed and wretch ourselves from capitalisms grasp. As such the book was worth a read and while many of the cultural references, not highbrow but rather low, flew over my head it was still interesting. The problem is that it is far to long. This should have been a three-piece essay for an online magazine rather than a standalone book. So, in the end, if you’re really interested read it, otherwise read a good review or skim through it.
July 11, 2022
Inspiring and insightful! A bit too academic to be a 'light read' so it took awhile to get through and more than a bit of mental energy/fortitude to get through some parts. I found myself reading some paragraphs over and over to really 'get' them. I loved all the film and book examples and analysis though, and definitely see them in a new light now. I will be checking out the ones I haven't seen or read already as well. A great book that's still relevant for our endtimes. I hope to purchase it, use it for inspiration for some of my own writing, and recommend it to comrades and friends with similar philosophical and political leanings in the future.
July 5, 2018
Excellent...
June 14, 2025
Take this rating with a grain of salt because I DNF'ed this halfway through. Don't get me wrong -- the thesis is, in fact, quite compelling and Williams argues it well. But I think ultimately I'm just not the right kind of reader for this stuff. I love cultural criticism and film studies and Marxism and political theory and all the good stuff he's putting together here, but somehow the mashup just doesn't feel... Fruitful? Effective? Like, thank you, now I can recognize how zombie movies reflect certain neoliberal class anxieties, but then what do we actually DO about it? Beyond "creating" "Art" with a certain salvaged aesthetic in mind -- because if Art was going to free us, frankly, it would have already.
Maybe it's the focus on the word "punk" that I take particular issue with: I really, really struggle with the idea that an aesthetic can be/represent/induce a meaningful political act. Like, a certain set of visual cues and motifs is supposed to liberate us from... what exactly? It's unclear, and nothing is really that powerful, anyway. To be fair, it's true that I have no particular allegiance to the "punk" movement. In fact, if anything I slightly resent it for the ways that it seems to obfuscate and muddy leftist politics by introducing elements of "Culture" or "Lifestyle" or whatever the kids say punk Really Is nowadays. Even as a suffix, I don't think it adds anything to William's proposed project and only serves to defang and aestheticize the worthwhile politics he does in fact hold. Honestly, this is the same issue I have with all of this pop-cultural political analysis. I don't know. It's too vague to be actually Useful, and just pretty enough to be attractive for exclusively aesthetic's sake.
I guess at the end of the day, though, I do still want this book and books like it to exist. It's definitely valuable and I want more research like this to be funded and supported. But personally, I won't be the one to read them anymore. Admittedly, this is almost entirely my own insecurities talking, most likely: but it feels like petty bourgeois distractions. It's just word games and going to the movie theater. I've been talking with some Marxist friends about this a lot lately, and I just think this kind of analysis, while interesting and definitely still meaningful, is just not useful when it comes to sharpening our knives, so to speak.
Maybe it's the focus on the word "punk" that I take particular issue with: I really, really struggle with the idea that an aesthetic can be/represent/induce a meaningful political act. Like, a certain set of visual cues and motifs is supposed to liberate us from... what exactly? It's unclear, and nothing is really that powerful, anyway. To be fair, it's true that I have no particular allegiance to the "punk" movement. In fact, if anything I slightly resent it for the ways that it seems to obfuscate and muddy leftist politics by introducing elements of "Culture" or "Lifestyle" or whatever the kids say punk Really Is nowadays. Even as a suffix, I don't think it adds anything to William's proposed project and only serves to defang and aestheticize the worthwhile politics he does in fact hold. Honestly, this is the same issue I have with all of this pop-cultural political analysis. I don't know. It's too vague to be actually Useful, and just pretty enough to be attractive for exclusively aesthetic's sake.
I guess at the end of the day, though, I do still want this book and books like it to exist. It's definitely valuable and I want more research like this to be funded and supported. But personally, I won't be the one to read them anymore. Admittedly, this is almost entirely my own insecurities talking, most likely: but it feels like petty bourgeois distractions. It's just word games and going to the movie theater. I've been talking with some Marxist friends about this a lot lately, and I just think this kind of analysis, while interesting and definitely still meaningful, is just not useful when it comes to sharpening our knives, so to speak.
wish-list
January 14, 2012This book came to my attention through 'salvagepunk' and I bought a ticket to a talk next week by Williams together with China Mieville, the initiators of the 'newest rebel on the literary scene'.
Looks to be interesting, was told to think of the film waterworld with Kevin Costner, as much as people scoff at it, I enjoyed it, guilty pleasure maybe. Picture a scene around similar world ideas, post apocalyptic, salvaging parts of history left to rot and be forgotten, breathing new life into the old, am intrigued to hear more on it.
Looks to be interesting, was told to think of the film waterworld with Kevin Costner, as much as people scoff at it, I enjoyed it, guilty pleasure maybe. Picture a scene around similar world ideas, post apocalyptic, salvaging parts of history left to rot and be forgotten, breathing new life into the old, am intrigued to hear more on it.
February 23, 2012
An assemblage of different threads originally drafted on ECW's blog, this text walks through the developments of salvagepunk, zombies, and apocalypse, attempting to navigate their similarities and differences so that we can come to realize not what it means to exist in the fantastical and anxious space of our economic order collapsing, but rather what it means we can accomplish once we've determined the present to be post-collapse. Our work from here is to rearrange the existing pieces and have them function for us rather than against us.
April 29, 2012
A great discussion of apocalyptic and catastrophic films, revealing their inherent criticism of Western capitalist ideology. Furious prose and angry theorizing makes this book a great read. I find Williams' readings and arguments wholly convincing, but do find his urge for us to be post-apocalyptic now before the catastrophe strikes to be slightly too utopian - but one may hope.
May 6, 2016
One of those books I wish I had written. Simply a great theoretical mashup of the apocalyptic fantasies that mark our age's cultural imagination and a wonderful reassembling of their potential into a vision of politics.
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April 10, 2018Do you like obscure movies and Marxism? Then this book is for you! And, bonus, it will make you want to find and watch all the movies. And, bonus-bonus, you will not be disappointed when you do.
And actually, I read this book when it came out. I think I was reading it around the time of OWS. Weird.
And actually, I read this book when it came out. I think I was reading it around the time of OWS. Weird.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews