Raoul Vaneigem
Raoul Vaneigem (born 1934) is a Belgian writer and philosopher. He was born in Lessines (Hainaut, Belgium). After studying romance philology at the Free University of Brussels (now split into the Université Libre de Bruxelles and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel) from 1952 to 1956, he participated in the Situationist International from 1961 to 1970. He currently resides in Belgium and is the father of four children.
Vaneigem and Guy Debord were the two principal theoreticians of the Situationist movement. Although Debord was the more disciplined thinker, Vaneigem's slogans frequently made it onto the walls of Paris during the May 1968 uprisings. His most famous book, and the one that contains the famous slogans, is The Revolution of Everyday Life (in French the title was more elaborate: Traité de savoir-vivre à l'usage des jeunes générations).
After leaving the Situationist movement Vaneigem wrote a series of polemical books defending the idea of a free and self-regulating social order. He frequently made use of pseudonyms, including "Julienne de Cherisy," "Robert Desessarts," "Jules-François Dupuis," "Tristan Hannaniel," "Anne de Launay," "Ratgeb," and "Michel Thorgal." Recently he has been an advocate of a new type of strike, in which service and transportation workers provide services for free and refuse to collect payment or fares.
From www.nothingness.org: "Along with Guy Debord, the voice of Raoul Vaneigem was one of the strongest of the Situationists. Counterpoised to Debord's political and polemic style, Vaneigem offered a more poetic and spirited prose. The Revolution of Everyday Life (Traité de savoir-vivre à l'usage des jeunes générations), published in the same year as The Society of the Spectacle, helped broaden and balance the presentation of the SI's theories and practices. One of the longest SI members, and frequent editor of the journal Internationale Situationniste, Vaneigem finally left the SI in November of 1970, citing their failures as well as his own in his letter of resignation. Soon after, Debord issued a typically scathing response denouncing both Vaneigem and his critique of the Situationist International."
Further biographical information can be found at www.nothingness.org and www.notbored.org.
Partial bibliography
- The Revolution of Everyday Life, (Traité de savoir-vivre à l'usage des jeunes générations)
- Traité de savoir-vivre à l'usage des jeunes générations
- Le livre des plaisirs, (The Book of Pleasures), 1979, reprinted 1993.
- L'Ile aux delices, (The Island of Delights), an erotic novel, 1979.
- Le mouvement du libre-esprit (The Movement of the Free Spirit), 1986.
- Adresse aux vivants sur la mort qui les gouverne et l'opportunité de s'en défaire, 1990
- Lettre de Staline à ses enfants enfin réconciliés de l'Est et de l'Ouest, 1992
- La résistance au christianisme. Les hérésies des origines au XVIIIe siècle, 1993
- Les hérésies, 1994
- Avertissement aux écoliers et lycéens, 1995
- Nous qui désirons sans fin, 1996
- La Paresse, 1996
- Notes sans portée, 1997
- Dictionnaire de citations pour servir au divertissement et à l'intelligence du temps, 1998
- Déclaration des droits de l'être humain. De la souveraineté de la vie comme dépassement des droits de le l'homme, 2001
- Pour une internationale du genre humain, 2001
- Salut à Rabelais ! Une lecture au présent, 2003
- Rien n'est sacré, tout peut se dire, 2003
- Le Chevalier, la Dame, le Diable et la Mort, 2003
- Modestes propositions aux grévistes, 2004
- Journal imaginaire, 2005
Further reading (in french)
- CHARLES (Pol), Vaneigem l'insatiable, L'Age d'Homme, Lausanne, Suisse, 2002, ISBN 2-8251-1647-5
- LAMBRETTE (Grégory), Raoul Vaneigem, St-Georges d'Oléron-Bruxelles, Editions Libertaires/Editions d'Alternative Libertaire, coll. Graine d'ananar, 2002
- SIX (Laurent), Raoul Vaneigem. L'éloge de la vie affinée, Avin, Luce Wilquin, coll. L'Oeuvre en Lumière, 2004
External links
- English and French texts on nothingness.org library
- Raoul Vaneigem archive at Libcom.org
- The Decline and Fall of Work free mp3 recording of Vaneigem's essay of the same name, from the Audio Anarchy project
