Burnout by Hannah Proctor

Burnout by Hannah Proctor

In the struggle for a better world, setbacks are inevitable. Defeat can feel overwhelming at times, but it has to be endured. How then do the people on the front line keep going? To answer that question, Hannah Proctor draws on historical resources to find out how revolutionaries and activists of the past kept a grip on hope. Burnout considers despairing former Communards exiled to a penal colony in the South Pacific; exhausted Bolsheviks recuperating in sanatoria in the aftermath of the October Revolution; an ex-militant on the analyst's couch relating dreams of ruined landscapes; Chinese peasants engaging in self-criticism sessions; a political organiser seeking advice from a spiritual healer; civil rights movement activists battling weariness; and a group of feminists padding a room with mattresses to scream about the patriarchy. Jettisoning self-help narratives and individualizing therapy talk, Proctor offers a different way forward - neither denial nor despair. Her cogent exploration of the ways militants have made sense of their own burnout demonstrates that it is possible to mourn and organise at once, and to do both without compromise.

Hannah Proctor is one of the best writers on the left today, and this is an extraordinary and extremely timely book - a kaleidoscopic work of revolutionary history on what happens when our day doesn't come and we have to cope with the consequencesRefusing both the easy temptations of left melancholia and forced 'just another push, comrades!' optimism, this is a book full of unromantic communist longing, deadpan humour and hard-won wisdom. -- Owen Hatherley, author of The Ministry of Nostalgia
Not since Freud first described war neurosis have we been treated to such an astonishing taxonomy of the human mind. In Burnout, Hannah Proctor takes that feeling we all have, and names it again and again, helping us to resee the past and present of revolutionary struggle. A must-read. -- Hannah Zeavin, Founding Editor, Parapraxis
Achieves commendable synthesis between its argument and sources ... The more people are writing books like Burnout, the better we might overcome our pains, and remain in the struggle. -- Juliet Jacques * ArtReview *
Brilliant ... an invigorating reader experience. Activists will find strange comfort in knowing that burnout is a collective affliction that has loomed large over our social movements for centuries ... While its effects can be profoundly personal, it can unite us too. -- Janey Starling * Unison Magazine *
Proctor deftly dismantles contemporary 'self-care' edicts that aim to 'streamline' our participation in capitalism. -- Decca Muldowney * New Internationalist *
A joy to read ... deeply thoughtful and intelligent. -- Hel Spandler * Asylum Magazine *
Elegantly and forensically investigates the historic suffering of revolutionaries and the pain of living in the gap between communist dreams and capitalist reality. -- Henry Bell * Morning Star *

Hannah Proctor is a Wellcome Trust Research Fellow at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, interested in histories and theories of radical psychiatry. She is a member of the editorial collective behind Radical Philosophy, and has been published in Jacobin, Tribune, The New Inquiry and elsewhere.

SKU	Nicht verfügbar
ISBN 13	9781839766053
ISBN 10	1839766050
Titel	Burnout
Autor	Hannah Proctor
Buchzustand	Nicht verfügbar
Bindungsart	Paperback
Verlag	Verso Books
Erscheinungsjahr	2024-04-09
Seitenanzahl	272
Hinweis auf dem Einband	Die Abbildung des Buches dient nur Illustrationszwecken, die tatsächliche Bindung, das Cover und die Auflage können sich davon unterscheiden.
Hinweis	Nicht verfügbar