Suite (212)

In this month's Resonance 104.4fm show, Juliet talks to writers Sam Byers and Carl Neville about how they tried to represent 21st century Britain in their novels Perfidious Albion and Come Join Our Disease (Byers) and Resolution Way and Eminent Domain (Neville), and the concept of the 'state of the nation' novel. They talked about the challenges of writing in a time of rapid political flux, the need for such novels to capture a particular time and place, how the internet has affected ideas of the universal and the specific in literature, patriotic and dissident approaches to the genre, and how much it has been the preserve of straight white men.

For a full list of references, as well as an extra subscriber-only episode about how novelists might respond to the rise and fall of Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party, please subscribe at https://www.patreon.com/suite212 for as little as £1 per month.

In this preview of our subscriber-only episode about how British literature might write about Corbyn's Labour, the aftermath of the 2019 General Election and the 2020s, Juliet talks to novelists Sam Byers and Carl Neville about Ed Luker's 'How Did You Survive January?' and how poetry and film were better able to capture the emotions of 'the Corbyn project'. Carl discusses the difficulties of writing counter-factual literature about the 2017 and 2019 elections given the likely response of the state to a Corbyn victory, and how the actual reaction of the state, the media, the Tories and the Labour right to a left-wing Labour Party was far more savage than that portrayed in Chris Mullen's novel A Very British Coup. Finally, Sam talks about how artists and writers may find themselves co-opted into the culture wars that have subsumed the Labour left's structural and material analyses of British society, and the need to be brave in the face of relentless ridicule and hostility.

To hear the full episode, subscribe at https://www.patreon.com/suite212 for as little as £1 per month.

In this month's Resonance 104.4fm show, Juliet talks to artist Eirene Efstathiou and curator/writer iLiana Fokianaki, founder of the State of Concept gallery in Athens, about the visual art scene in Greece since the financial crash of 2007-2008, which badly affected the country. They discuss the impact on the arts of EU-mandated austerity, the rise and fall of the far-right Golden Dawn, the election of Syriza on a left-wing platform and the oxi referendum of 2015, the migration crisis, the return to party of New Democracy and the strict Covid-19 lockdown measures. They also consider the nature of Greek arts funding, what the decision to co-host Documenta 14 in Kassel and Athens said about Greece's relationship with Germany and the EU, and what it means to be a politically engaged artist in a time of crisis.

A full list of references is available for Patreon subscribers - go to https://www.patreon.com/suite212 to sign up. Cover image by Eirene Efstathiou; our theme music is 'Aus' by Fennesz.

In this extract from our subscriber-only show about 'It’s a Sin', Russell T. Davies’ recent mini-series for Channel 4 about the effects of the HIV/AIDS crisis on a group of friends living in London between 1981 and 1991, Juliet and writer Huw Lemmey talk about how the show portrays both the personal and the wider political impact. They talk about the role that the main female character, Jill (played by Lydia West) plays in the narrative, ideas of chosen family and the way It’s a Sin handles the politics of care, and how they are gendered within gay and queer communities.

To hear the rest of the episode, please subscribe at https://www.patreon.com/suite212.

This is a preview of our Patreon-only episode about Ousmane Sembène & Thierno Faty Sow's historical drama Camp de Thiaroye (1987), about the mutiny of French West African troops at a transit camp in Dakar and their subsequent massacre by French forces on 1 December 1944, following on from this month's Resonance 104.4fm programme.

Here, Juliet talks to Dr Samba Gadjigo, co-director of Sembène! (2015) and biographer of the writer/filmmaker, as well as Helen Day Gould Professor of French at the Mount Holyoake University in Massachusetts, about one of Sembème's greatest works. They discuss how closely it was based on the actual events and on Sembène's experiences; controversies around the film's content, commission and funding; its relationship with the history of colonialism and African independence movements; its reception in Senegal and France; its importance in the cultural memory of the massacre; and more.

To hear the entire episode, please subscribe at www.patreon.com/suite212.

In this month's Resonance 104.4fm show, made available a day early for our Patreon subscribers, Juliet talks to Dr Samba Gadjigo, author of a biography on the subject and co-director of the feature-length documentary Sembène! (2015), about the life and work of Senegalese writer and filmmaker Ousmane Sembène (1923-2007). They talk about the place of Senegal within the French empire, Sembène's upbringing in French West Africa and his political and literary awakening in post-war Marseille, his film training in the USSR and cinematic work in post-independence Senegal, his relationship with President (and poet/cultural theorist) Léopold S. Senghor, and his place within Senegalese, African and global cinema.

A full list of references is available for our Patreon subscribers - please visit https://www.patreon.com/suite212 to sign up.

This is a preview of our Patreon-only episode about how feature films dealt with the Holocaust, following on from this month's Resonance 104.4fm programme.

Here, Juliet talks to Dr Libby Saxton, Reader in Film Studies at Queen Mary University of London, about Wolfgang Staudte's The Murderers are Among Us (Die Mörder sind unter uns, 1946) - one of the first feature films made in East Germany after the war. They discuss the politics of the film's ending, changed after pressure from its Soviet backers as the Nuremburg trials began; its glancing references to Auschwitz; its refusal to identify the specifics of Jewish (or Roma, LGBT or other) suffering in favour of a humanist approach; and how Adam Curtis used the film in his BBC TV series The Living Dead (1995).

To hear the entire episode, please subscribe at https://www.patreon.com/suite212.

This month’s episode, coinciding with Holocaust Remembrance Day 2021, looks at the specific role that documentary film played in recording, relaying and representing the horrors of the genocide. Juliet talks to Dr Libby Saxton, Reader in Film Studies at Queen Mary University of London, about how the Nazis coerced directors into making propaganda films at Terezin and Westerbork to show the concentration camps in a positive light; the importance of newsreels in exposing the atrocities at the end of World War II; how filmmakers moved from short-form to long-form documentary, and why it took years for such films to focus specifically on anti-Semitism and Jewish suffering; the importance of testimony from survivors, perpetrators and witnesses in the epic films The Sorrow and the Pity (1969) and Shoah (1985), and the limits that Claude Lanzmann placed on representation of the extermination camps; the complicity of cinema in the Holocaust; and what future documentaries, and visual culture, of the Holocaust might look like as the last of the survivors die out.

For a full list of references with links, please subscribe to Suite (212) at https://www.patreon.com/suite212. Our theme music is 'Aus' by Fennesz.

Tying in with World AIDS Day, December 2020's Resonance 104.4fm programme is about the cultural response to HIV/AIDS in the UK and USA, first identified in both countries in 1981. Juliet talks to Novara Media co-founder James Butler and writer, historian and journalist Sarah Schulman about the emergence of the virus and the response from right-wing governments, activist movements and radical artists, as well as the long-term impact on queer culture and lifestyles. They discussed works by Tony Kushner, David Wojnarowicz, Larry Kramer, Rosa von Praunheim, Gran Fury and many others.

A full list of references, with links, is available to subscribers - please visit https://www.patreon.com/suite212 to sign up.

Established in 1965, the Greater London Council hosted one of the United Kingdom’s most radical experiments in cultural policy after Ken Livingstone and the Labour left took control of it in 1981. This month, Juliet talks to academic Hazel Atashroo and Red Metropolis author Owen Hatherley about the entrance of the “post-1968 generation” into the GLC, and their approach to the arts: their interest in cultural democracy and challenging the Arts Council’s model of centralised funding; the Ethnic Arts and Community Arts sub-committees, and their critics; their use of post-punk aesthetics and their hip hop festival; their engagement with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and other radical movements. They discuss the reasons for the GLC’s abolition in 1986, the media campaign against “the Loony Left” and Thatcher’s assault on local authorities; its influence on New Labour’s cultural policies and foundation of the Greater London Assembly in 2000; and what can be learned from the GLC’s approach to the arts in the 21st century.