[Radical Action Cooperative ; Council for Liberation of Imagination]. [Samizdat on the 1968-9 Harvard protests]. Cambridge, MA: n.p., ca. 1968-69. n.p. [14 p.]; 21 x 29 cm.; black ink on xeroxed white stock.

Samizdat of hastily photocopied texts by the the Radical Action Cooperative (King Collins et al.) / Council for Conscious Existence / Council for Liberation of Daily Life, with an early 70s provenance. Almost all of the texts are unaccounted for (only one is included in Ken Knabb’s archive at Yale), but all relate to the brief, chaotic intervention at Harvard University in the spring of 1969

New York-based Radical Action Cooperative (RAC), which had originally formed on the margins of the Spring 1968 Columbia University strikes, migrated north to Cambridge the following year. While the mainstream American section of the Situationist International famously dismissed King Collins’ cohort as “ideologists of daily life” who staged “unimaginative confrontations,” these texts reveal a highly articulated, totalizing critique of the university system as an extension of the capitalist “spectacle.”

The centerpiece of this samizdat is the multi-page manifesto, A Response to Questions About Classroom Disruption, dated March 14, 1968 (evidently a typographical error for 1969, given the specific chronology of the events described). The document was rushed to standard duplicating machines immediately following the group’s highly controversial infiltration of Professor Alex Inkeles’ elite sociology course, Social Relations 153. Addressing the fierce student backlash to their intervention, the text rejects the liberal defense of Inkeles as a “good professor,” utilizing a classic anti-pedagogical position: “We do not aim to criticize any authority as an individual… within our society, the University serves as an Officers’ Candidate School, socializing tomorrow’s leaders… The ‘good teacher’ and ‘nice fellow’ is most dangerous. These authorities are doing violence to you and to themselves by creating a false consciousness.”. Responding to accusations on page 3 that their disruptions violated basic “norms of etiquette and politeness,” the text highlights the radical dissonance between classroom decorum and global violence: You say ‘It’s rude’ to interrupt your class but you probably don’t bat an eye to hear that 2000 Vietnamese have been killed and 5000 Biafrans have starved this week. How are you protesting these ‘insults’ to humanity?”. The manifesto relies heavily on detourned cultural markers to build its anti-authoritarian stance. It closes with a hand-typed excerpt from Bob Dylan’s It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) (“For them that obey authority / that they do not respect in any degree…”), positioned directly above their foundational aphorism: “Classrooms confine students. They can’t hold a free man.”

The companion flyer, [Why Do Soc. Rel. 153 Students Support the Cops?], acts as a theoretical post-mortem to the inevitable police intervention that followed. It targets the passivity of the student spectators, asserting that by willingly participating in the conventions of grading, examinations, and “professorial authority,” students become complicit in their own domestication. The arc of this short-lived experiment is starkly documented by the accompanying judicial tracking sheet, Bitter Fruit of the University: Pettiness That Plays So Rough. It registers the severe criminal sentences handed down by the Cambridge authorities to suppress the group’s performance-style disruptions: King Collins received two years in the House of Correction; Peter Waring was sentenced to one year; Peter O’Grady and Ed Hyman both received six months; while Sue Crane was penalized with a $220 fine.

To bridge this theoretical critique with the visual assault that covered the Cambridge campus, the Council relied heavily on détournement—the classic Situationist tactic of hijacking commercial comic strips and infusing them with radical philosophy. In a striking piece credited to the Council for Liberation of Imagination (titled “[I have been a PL member for a month now…]”), the group parodied clean-cut romance comics to satirize Marxist-Leninist student groups like the Progressive Labor Party (PL) and SDS. The comic skewers dogmatic students who trade the “boredom” of sociology for bureaucratic militancy, concluding that Capitalist society simply “learned from Eastern bureaucracies how to organize the illusion of participation.”

This artistic warfare was expanded across several others leaflets / broadsides that outlined the physical mechanics of campus revolt:

• Proletariat as Subject and Representation: Echoing the exact chapter titles of Guy Debord’s The Society of the Spectacle, this densely illustrated comic strip calls for a “proletarian revolution [that] depends integrally upon this crucial synthesis” of theory and practice. It fiercely denounces orthodox leftists as “pseudo-revolutionaries” whose predictable rumblings are merely the beats to which corporate-bureaucratic managers in “Peking-Harvard-Bonn-Moscow-Washington-Tel-Aviv and Tokyo” will dance.
• Initiation Rites for Professors and Administrators: Credited to les enragés of Harvard (with layout adapted from Detroit’s Black Red), this analytical poster provides a taxonomy of tactical subversion. It charts a progression from “Confrontation” (where the student rejects the grade as a limitation on action) to “Revolutionary Action,” declaring that when students cease to be passive observers, “THE SPECTACLE IS SHATTERED.” The text explicitly argues that the campus struggle cannot be isolated from daily life, as the capitalist system “colonizes every aspect of daily life.”
• The New Radical Middle Caucus of the Enraged of Harvard: This narrative comic strips away the authority of university officials by depicting panicking deans operating a conveyor belt of “submissive students.” When faced with disruptions, the comic’s caricatured administrators exclaim, “The solution is to stifle and destroy their demands by super-imposing our own issues!” before a final, chaotic frame showing a dean weeping, “I’m sorry! I’ll give it all up! I’ll join your strike!” below a triumphant call to reader-activists to “SMASH ALL ADMINISTRATIONS!”

Exceedingly scarce. No individual institutional listings for these specific Harvard titles are recorded in OCLC, though scattered remnants of the Council’s broader output occasionally surface within the radical pamphlet collections of the Tamiment Library or the Labadie Collection. Not in Knabb’s archive at Yale’s Beinecke Library.

STRARAM, Patrick. “L’Année dernière à Marienbad à Montréal” (in Situations Vol. 4, no.2). Montreal: Situations, July 1962. 68 p. [but only pp. 41-68 present]; ill.; 16 x 20 cm.; ill. Cover with collage by Patrick Straram. Very good; pages 1-40 have been torn out by Straram so that Alain Resnais would only receive the relevant section of the periodical

Patick Straram was the editor of this periodical. Two of the three articles written by Straram (those relevant to Resnais’ film) are present:

• “Sérénité délirante d’une tentative tentation” (p.50-57), an elegy of Alain Resnais’ “L’Année dernière à Marienbad“, released in 1961
• “Lettre de Montreal” (p.58-64), Staram’s take on the climate in Quebec and around the world in 1962

Straram argued that Resnais’ non-linear editing in Marienbad broke the “passive consumption” of traditional cinema. He was fascinated by the “maze-like topography” of the setting, and critiqued the film as a study of how the ruling class (the characters in the luxury hotel) is imprisoned by its own refusal to acknowledge the past, turning memory into a “malaise” or a “destructive obsession”.

This copy is exceptionally signed by Patrick Straram to the celebrated French filmmaker: “cette tentative pour l’expression d’une réciprocité, bien amicalement a vous , Alain – Patrick Straram” (trans: “This attempt to express reciprocity, with kind regards to you, Alain”)

[Debord, Guy] Raymond la Science (pseud.) La java des bons enfants, accompagnée de trois portraits linogravés, dont deux loupés de Jean-Michel Alberola. Grignan: Colophon, 7 Juillet 2006. 22 p.; ill.; 18 cm.; cream cover with text in red and black, uncut pages. One of 130 copies, including 30 signed and numbered by Jean-Michel Alberola (ours #26).

Reproduces the lyrics of the anarchist / Situationist song “La Java des bons enfants”, along with 3 illustrated portraits by Jean-Michel Alberola. The song (and lyrics) were first featured in “Pour en finir avec le travail. Chansons du prolétariat révolutionnaire”, an LP released in 1974 (nore detailed here: https://situationnisteblog.com/2015/04/06/pour-en-finir-avec-le-travail-lp-1974/). While the author of the song is identified as “Raymond la science” – the pseudonym of Raymond Callemin, a notorious member of the anarchist Bonnot Gang – this was a Situationist detournement: Guy Debord is the rightful author of the lyrics,while Francis Lemmonier wrote the music. The first verse reads (translation is mine)

On the Rue des Bons Enfants,
Everything is sold to the highest bidder,
There used to be a police station,
And now it’s gone,
A fantastic explosion,
Didn’t leave a single brick,
We thought it was Fantômas,
But it was the class struggle.

We locate a single copy of this rare volume on OCLC, at the French National Library.

We are happy to announce that Letizia Goretti’s . La Vertigine del Gioco: L’Azione dell’Internazionale Situazionista tra Arte e Politica, which was originally published in Italian in 2021 (see here for our announcement) has been translated into French!

GORETTI, Letizia. Le vertige du jeu. Révolution, jeu et fête dans l’Internationale situationniste. Paris: Editions de l’Atelier. 184 p.; 20 x 14 cm.

“Le jeu est politique. Le jeu est élévation. Il participe à l’invention d’un nouveau monde et à une réinterprétation de la vie. Prenant comme objet l’Internationale situationniste, mouvement contre-culturel culte des années 1957-1972 dont Guy Debord est l’un des fondateurs, Letizia Goretti propose dans cet ouvrage une réflexion sur la force politique et culturelle du jeu. Dessinant une cartographie du jeu situationniste, l’autrice nous montre comment il a été l’un des éléments moteurs du mouvement. Jeu collectif, théâtre, poésie, jeu langagier, fête, renversement des rôles, rupture dans le quotidien dans la ville. Ce sont tous ces aspects que le livre explore” (Publisher)

The book can be downloaded here but I recommend you purchase it to support the author and the editor (see here)

Francois Coadou writes a thoughtful review at the following link: https://www.en-attendant-nadeau.fr/2026/02/28/lautre-face-de-linternationale-situationniste/

Several years back, we were able to unearth previously undocumented articles by the little-known Situationist member Andre Frankin, published in Arguments in 1960 and 1962 – more details here: https://situationnisteblog.com/2019/04/22/andre-frankin-in-arguments-1960-and-1962/. They were as follows:

FRANKIN, Andre. Wilhelm Reich et l’economie sexuelle (in Arguments 18, 1960). Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1960. 64p.; 14 x 22.5 cm.; cream wrappers with text in black and red. Written while he was a member of the Internationale Situationniste, Andre Frankin’s “W. Reich et l’economie sexuelle” was published in issue 18 of Arguments (pp. 29-35). In this substantial article, Frankin provides an introduction to controversial psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, who had passed away 3 years before in New York. According to Frankin, “Wilhelm Reich attempted to combine Marxist dialectics and psychonalaysis, advocating for both sexual and social liberation. He was excluded from both the Communist Party…and the International Psychoanalytical Association (1930-1934). His analysis and strong criticism sought to remove all obstacles to full erotic satisfaction…” (pp.29). Post-situationist figure Jean-Pierre Voyer authored an important essay on Wilhelm Reich which was published by Champ Libre in 1971 and subsequently translated into Spanish, Italian, English, German and other languages.

FRANKIN, Andre. Le parti, le quotidien (in Arguments 25-26, 1962). Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1962. 96 p.; 14 x 22.5 cm.; cream wrappers with text in black and red. Written a few months after his resignation from the Internationale Situationniste in March 1961, Andre Frankin’s “Le parti, le quotidien” was published in issue 25-26 of Arguments (pp. 46-48), The article opens with a quote from noted sociologist Henri Lefebvre, then goes on to argue that the failure of Europen’s political parties can be explained by their inability to access workers’ everyday live. “The party, everyday life: there is no possible balance between the two, there is only a dialectical relationship” argues Frankin (pp. 46). Though Frankin is no longer an official member of the SI, the Situationist overtones are clear here. Debord and Lefebvre had met in 1960 and, despite a relatively quick falling out, the sociologist and his ideas had a major impact on the SI.

We are glad to report that both articles have now been translated into English, courtesy of Howard Slater. Slater has written about the Situationist International for several decades (see, for instance, https://scansitu.antipool.org/2001.html) and is also a seasoned translator. More about him here: https://monoskop.org/Howard_Slater . Files available here:

On Frankin, see also the excellent “Personne et les autres” by Coadou and Thomas, published in 2023. https://situationnisteblog.com/2023/03/04/andre-frankin-personne-et-les-autres-1960-2023/

It is with sadness that we announce the passing of Gianfranco Sanguinetti, which occured on October 3. He was 77 years old. The news were shared on his website, with the following press release (translation into English is mine):

Gianfranco Sanguinetti, a writer and major figure of the Situationist International, who denounced state terrorism, the crisis of capitalism, and the emergence of “Western despotism” from the 1970s onward, died in Prague on October 3, 2025, at the age of seventy-seven.

He was born in Pully, Switzerland, on July 16, 1948, to Teresa Mattei, a member of the French Resistance and politician, and Bruno Sanguinetti, a member of the French Resistance and industrialist.

From his youth, he was active in the avant-garde and rebel movements that, from the mid-1960s onward, shook Europe and the world at large. A member of the Situationist International, he founded its Italian section in 1969. Three years later, with Guy Debord, he affirmed the need to move beyond this period by co-signing the dissolution of the organization (The True Split in the International).

A connoisseur of the letters and thought of the Ancients, he used them as a powerful tool for interpreting contemporary reality with a sharp and relentless critique, lifting the veil that concealed the truth of things and highlighting the subversions carried out by the established powers.

In 1975, under the pseudonym Censor, he wrote and published the Rapporto veridico sulle ultime possibilità di salvare il capitalismo in Italia. It was a resounding hoax that kept politicians, authorities, security services, and the press busy for months, all of whom were committed to discovering the identity of the author of this cynical and merciless political-economic diagnosis, hailed as the work of a great right-wing operative.

He later revealed his identity in Proofs of the Inexistence of Censor Stated by its Author (1976), explaining the subversive intentions of this Report, revealing unspeakable truths.

He continued his work of demystification with On Terrorism and the State (1979), in which he was the first to expose the use of “false flag” terrorism by states—first and foremost the Italian state at the time—and their apparatuses.

He was responsible for the publication of Leopardi’s work in France.

During the years of his voluntary “exile” in Prague, Gianfranco Sanguinetti, while enriching his vast personal library, amassed a significant collection of erotic art. He also continued to write and publish on art, thought, and international political dynamics, always keeping a keen eye on what dominant propaganda strives to conceal, and denouncing the orchestration of appearances as well as the forms of contemporary authoritarianism, which he called “Western despotism.”

His archives are housed at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University. A dedicated website https://www.gianfrancosanguinetti.com/ offers a complete biography and photos.

From some of our posts on about Sanguinetti and his work, see:

• Internazionale Situazionista (1969)
• Internazionale Situazionista – Corrispondenza con un’editore [1972]
• Debat d’orientation de l’ex-Internationale Situationniste [1974]
• Rapporto Veridico Sulle Ultime Opportunia di Salvare il Capitalismo en Italia [1975]; Prove Dell’Inesistenza di Censor [1976]
• Le Secret c’est de tout dire! [1989]

Series of 5 letters from Alice Becker-Ho to Francoise Zylberberg, between February 14 and April 6, 1973.

Francoise ZYLBERBERG (1944-2010) was a close collaborator of Rene Vienet and a friend of Debord and Becker-Ho. She is first mentioned by Guy Debord in a letter sent to Gianfranco Sanguinetti from Lisbon on 13 May 1973: “François [Zylberberg] et Raspaud, au moins, avaient écrit il y a plus de trois semaines” (Correspondance Vol.5, p. 53) – nearly a month after the letters reproduced below. On 15 November 1973, she had already fallen out of favor, seemingly due to her ties to René Viénet: “Francoise [Zylberberg] apparaissant de plus comme la dernière compagne du misérable Vient, on préfère ne plus la voir (Viénet pensait manifestement se servir d’elle pour nous approcher de nouveau, ou au moins pour laisser entendre qu’il n’est pas sans relation indirecte avec nous)” (Correspondance Vol.5, p.106). She is last mentioned in a letter to Jacques Le Glou dated 9 [December] 1973: “[Viénet] n’impressione donc qu’une ou deux Zyl[berberg], lesquelles d’ailleurs ne sont même pas convaincues, mais assez pauvres – a tous les sens du terme – pour préférer la misère au néant” (Correspondance Vol. 4, p. 217-218). Later on, in 1979, Zylberberg traveled to Taiwan as an exchange scholar, teaching at the National Taiwan University’s Department of Foreign Languages. She would ultimately settle and become a citizen of that country. Zylberberg went on to open Taiwan’s only French-language bookstore in 1999. She passed away in 2010, at the age of 65.

1. BECKER-HO, Alice. [CORRESPONDENCE] [Zylberberg, Francoise] Signed autograph letter dated 14 February [1973]. n.p. [Florence, Italy]. 1 p.; 16.5 x 22 cm.; black ink on graph white paper. Original envelope; 16 x 11 cm.; black and blue inks on white stock.

Letter from Florence in which Alice-Becker Ho asks Francoise Zyllerberg to visit her and Guy in Florence towards the end of the month of February. She also asks Zyllerberg to bring funds across the border: “Est-ce qu’il te sera possible de venir ici quelques jours autour de la fin du mois (avant ou après). Si tu me confirmes que oui, je t’enverrai un chèque pour que tu apportes ici la dose d’argent qu’on peut passer à chaque voyage ; et qui nous sera bien utile ?” (p.1). Debord and Becker’s Ho address in Florence follows.

2. BECKER-HO, Alice; DEBORD, Guy. [CORRESPONDENCE] [Zylberberg, Francoise] Signed autograph letter dated 21 February [1973]. Florence, Italy. 2 p.; 16.5 x 22 cm.; blue ink on French lined paper. Original envelope; 16 x 11 cm.; black ink on white stock

Letter from Florence in which Alice Becker-Ho includes a check for 5,000 Francs, 3,500 of which should be changed to Lira and 1,000 brought in as French Francs. The balance (500 Francs) ought to be used by Zyllerberg to buy herself a roundtrip ticket. Finally, Becker-Ho asks her friend to bring cheese from Paris as well as French cigarettes: ” 2 camemberts Lanquetot (label rouge) pas trop faits (chez le crémier rue St Martin au coin de la rue Rambuteau), et aussi une cartouche de gauloises”. The letter is signed both “Alice” and “Guy” [Debord].

3. BECKER-HO, Alice. [CORRESPONDENCE] [Zylberberg, Francoise] Signed autograph letter dated 20 March [1973]. Florence, Italy. 3 p.; 14.5 x 20 cm.; black ink on college-lined white paper. Original envelope; 16 x 11 cm.; black ink on white stock

Letter from Florence in which Alice-Becker Ho alludes to the many experiences she and Guy have with younger women: Les filles se succèdent et ne se ressemblent pas. Les Canadiennes, si braves finalement, sont parties pour la Grèce […] Une théâtreuse de passage à Florence avec sa troupe pour une pièce de Brecht qui a laissé sa bague en souvenir. Enfin, Connie, qui occupe la petite chambre et qui reproduit ici, le drame de Milan dont tu as entendu parler à ton arrivée. Quant à la Signorina, on a appris avec l’effroi que tu imagines qu’elle approche des 70 ans! Elle veut me présenter à son amie américaine — je commence à m’inquiéter : quel âge peut-elle avoir, et surtout, dans quel état ? De Céleste — rien. Voilà tous les potins de Florence…”

4. BECKER-HO, Alice; DEBORD, Guy. [CORRESPONDENCE] [Zylberberg, Francoise] Signed autograph letter dated 5 April [1973]. Florence, Italy. 5 p.; 14.5 x 20 cm.; blue ink on college-lined white paper. Original envelope; 16 x 11 cm.; blue ink on white stock

Letter from Florence in which Alice Becker-Ho discusses renovations of Zylberberg’s apartment in Paris, located 4 rue Cherubini in the 2nd arrondissement: “Les petits carreaux de Miron c’est très joli, sauf à mon avis dans les chiottes – manque plus qu’un crucifix au bout de la chaine et on pourrait faire un tableau surréaliste tardif”. She also provides updates about the new cast of young women that Alice, Guy, and Gianfranco [Sanguinetti] are seeing: “Connie a quitté Florence, encadrée par les flics qu’elle avait appelés à son secours contre G[ianfranco] S[anguinetti] qui lui foutait une trempe pour une dernière saloperie digne de la pire des putains”. The letter is signed both “Alice” and “Guy” [Debord].

5. BECKER-HO, Alice; DEBORD, Guy; SANGUINETTI, Gianfranco. [CORRESPONDENCE] [Zylberberg, Francoise] Signed autograph postcard postmarked 6 April 1973. 1 p; 15 x 10 cm.; black ink on white stock.

Postcard from Florence, signed by Alice, Guy [Debord], and Gianfranco [Sanguinetti] that reads as follows: “Vue sur l’Oltrarno (ou soprarno) et sur the maison* dans la rue que tu connais”

[DEBORD, Guy, BECKER-HO, Alice]. [Original photograph of Guy Debord and Alice Becker-Ho]. 24 x 31 cm.; black & white photograph on Agfa stock. [August 1968] This photograph was taken by Marianne Ivsic (a piece of her jacket can be seen on the left-hand side, near Guy Debord) in the Vosges. A reader also alerted us that a different framing of this photograph is reproduced in “Panégyrique, tome second”, and described as “L’Oltrarno en 1972”.

[BECKER-HO, Alice]. [Original photograph of Alice Becker-Ho alone]. 14.5 x 10 cm.; black & white photograph on Agfa stock. [ca. 1973].

[DEBORD, Guy, BECKER-HO, Alice]. [Original photograph of Guy Debord and Alice Becker-Ho]. 14.5 x 10 cm.; black & white photograph on Agfa stock. Ca. 1973.

[DEBORD, Guy, BECKER-HO, Alice]. [Original photograph of Guy Debord, Alice Becker-Ho, and Connie]. 14.5 x 10 cm.; black & white photograph on Agfa stock. 1972.

A reader kindly informs us:

“The trio of photos of Guy and Alice and, as you identify, Francoise Zylberberg, are all from Gianfranco Sanguinetti’s archive at the Beinecke Library, and were all taken in Florence in 1972. The first is taken inside a trattoria in San Frediano, and in the one on the bridge Gianfranco says the woman in the shawl is Connie. The bridge is the Ponte Santa Trinita which leads into the Oltrano in a fairly straight line to the via delle Caldaie, and is the bridge Celeste would cross each night as mentioned in Panegyric“

[BECKER-HO, Alice]. [COPY of a photograph of Alice Becker-Ho as a baby]. 21 x 27 cm.; black & white photograph on Agfa stock. Date unknown [ca. 1942-43]

These photographs were found amidst a small set of letters and postcards mailed by Debord & Becker-Ho to Francoise Zylberberg from Florence. Therefore, it is possible (though not confirmed), these photographs (aside from Becker’s baby picture) were taken there. As usual, any insights from our readers are most welcome

Francoise Zylberberg (1944-2010) was a close collaborator of Rene Vienet and a friend of Debord through the 1970s. She came to Taiwan as an exchange scholar in 1979, teaching at the National Taiwan University’s Department of Foreign Languages. She would ultimately settle a Taiwan and become a citizen. Zylberberg went to open Taiwan’s only French-language bookstore in 1999. She passed away in 2010.