Lumpen #144
Welcome to a special Lumpen collaboration with ROSA, a multi-tendency, free school in revolutionary history and theory run largely by academics in exile.
An experimental and aspirational project, ROSA is a school for those who take sides. This project has been several years in the making, arriving in Chicago by way of Italy. This past year, we’ve taken the tradition of revolutionary experiments as our curriculum, studying bourgeois revolutions, peasant uprisings, slave revolts, armed struggles, desertions, destructions, and communes amid the ICE occupation and continued struggle against genocide in Palestine.
We have been grateful to meet biweekly for the past year at Co-Prosperity, a southside Chicago art gallery, and to participate in building the community-driven future that is part of the Public Media Institute’s mission to be a “front for the left in the arts.”
A school is not the same thing as a reading group. It does not begin from affinity, as in the formation of a crew or action group, nor from a partisan event perceived in common. It rather begins from vulnerability, curiosity, and the desire to expand one’s imagination of what is possible in this world. These were the only prerequisites for attending our classes.
The following issue offers a glimpse into what we are exploring, imagining, and doing to create revolution together. On the green pages, you will find a summary of each ROSA lesson from our year of study, contributed by a diverse array of faculty who have collectively remained anonymous due to systemic censorship and retaliation within academia. Interspersed between curriculum, you will also find dozens of writings and reflections on our experiences taking sides in the world. There are perspectives shaped by upheaval, genocide, and diaspora. There are personal narratives reminding us of the strength found in radical communal love. There are visions of what could be and what currently is. We invite you to imagine alongside us: what does it mean to be revolutionary?
Thank you to everyone who made this school year possible—all of our lecturers, students, visiting friends, folks at Marz, Watershed, and the Co-Prosperity artists and Lumpen Radio folks with whom we’ve shared space.
ROSA Chicago is one schoolhouse among a growing national and international network. If you’re interested in finding or starting a schoolhouse in your area, find us online at rosachicago.com or drop us a line at rosa.chicago@protonmail.com. See you for school in the fall!
Click the cover image to download a pdf copy of the magazine.