Retort is a community of about forty writers, teachers, artists, and activists, all self-styled opponents of

capital Capital and its variations may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** Capital region, a metropolitan region containing the capital ** List of national capitals * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Econom ...

and

empire An empire is a political unit made up of several territories, military outpost (military), outposts, and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a hegemony, dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the ...

, which has been based for the past two decades in the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a List of regions of California, region of California surrounding and including San Francisco Bay, and anchored by the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose, California, S ...

. Retort is a gathering of

antinomians Antinomianism ( [] 'against' and [] 'law') is any view which rejects laws or Legalism (theology), legalism and argues against moral, religious or social norms (), or is at least considered to do so. The term has both religious and secular meaning ...

. It is not a typical

collective A collective is a group of entities that share or are motivated by at least one common issue or interest or work together to achieve a common objective. Collectives can differ from cooperatives in that they are not necessarily focused upon an e ...

; there is no explicit program. Retort is a motley crew - writers, artists, teachers, artisans, scientists, poets - joined in a web of sustaining friendships, who share an antagonism to the present order of things. Retort has been meeting on a regular basis for the last two decades, for the most part to eat and drink together, but also to discuss politics, history,

aesthetics Aesthetics (also spelled esthetics) is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of beauty and taste (sociology), taste, which in a broad sense incorporates the philosophy of art.Slater, B. H.Aesthetics ''Internet Encyclopedia of Ph ...

, and the terms and tactics of root-and-branch opposition to capital, empire and the various versions of barbarism currently on offer. There is a deep appreciation of old cafes and city taverns, competing with a tendency to favor the open air - rambles, the back country,

tidepool A tide pool or rock pool is a shallow pool of seawater that forms on the rocky intertidal shore. These pools typically range from a few inches to a few feet deep and a few feet across. Many of these pools exist as separate bodies of water only ...

picnics, wild swimming. The gathering has produced broadsides and pamphlets for particular occasions, and from time to time they also organize more public events - readings, conviviums, evenings of film, and so forth. There are collaborations of many kinds within the milieu. The name "Retort" acknowledges that the project is engaged in a wider conversation whose terms and assumptions they reject, and that Retorters stand on ground, rhetorical and otherwise, not of our own choosing. Some feel forced to spend much of the time - far too much - in rebuttals, demurrers, rejoinders. In a word, retorting. The name gestures to an obscure non-sectarian 1940s journal of that title, which at first, (new) Retort thought seriously about reviving. It was edited and published out of a cabin in Bearsville, a hamlet near

Woodstock, New York Woodstock is a Administrative divisions of New York#Town, town in Ulster County, New York, United States, in the northern part of the county, northwest of Kingston, New York, Kingston. It lies within the borders of the Catskill Park. The popula ...

. ''Retorts printing press had belonged to the eloquent Wobbly agitator

Carlo Tresca Carlo Tresca (March 9, 1879 – January 11, 1943) was an Italian-American dissident, newspaper editor, orator, and labor organizer and activist who was a leader of the Industrial Workers of the World during the 1910s. He is remembered as a leadi ...

, before he was assassinated on the streets of Manhattan, perhaps by agents of

Benito Mussolini Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who, upon assuming office as Prime Minister of Italy, Prime Minister, became the dictator of Fascist Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 un ...

. The journal ''Retort'' was anti-statist and anti-militarist. It published essays on art, politics, culture and poetry - It first published the

Kenneth Rexroth Kenneth Charles Marion Rexroth (December 22, 1905 – June 6, 1982) was an American poet, translator, and critical essayist. He is regarded as a central figure in the San Francisco Renaissance, and paved the groundwork for the movement. Althoug ...

poem that begins: : "Now in Waldheim where the rain/ Has fallen careless and unthinking/ For all an evil century's youth, / Where now the banks of dark roses lie..." Retort Press also published ''Prison Etiquette: The Convict's Compendium of Useful Information'' compiled by

war resister A war resister is a person who resists war. The term can mean several things: resisting participation in all war, or a specific war, either before or after enlisting in, being inducted into, or being conscripted into a military force. History, ...

s, specifically those imprisoned for refusing to collaborate either with the state or with the Anabaptist "

peace churches Peace churches are Christian churches, groups or communities advocating Christian pacifism or Biblical nonresistance. The term historic peace churches refers specifically only to three church groups among pacifist churches: * Church of the Breth ...

" who had agreed with the US government to self-manage the rural work camps for conscientious objectors. Finally, a retort is like the

alchemist Alchemy (from the Arabic word , ) is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition that was historically practised in China, India, the Muslim world, and Europe. In its Western form, alchemy is first ...

's vessel that ferments, distills, transforms. It's fragile, it needs fire, there may be problems with the underlying theory, but there's occasional magic. Retort's broadsheet ''Neither Their War Nor Their Peace'' was produced for distribution at demonstrations against the impending US invasion of Iraq in the spring of 2003. It was later expanded into the book ''Afflicted Powers: Capital and Spectacle in a New Age of War'', written by Iain Boal, T.J. Clark, Joseph Matthews and

Michael Watts Michael or Mike Watts may refer to: *Michael Watts (geographer) (born 1951), English geographer and professor at the University of California, Berkeley * Michael Watts (journalist) (1938–2018), British journalist *Mike Watts (record producer), Am ...

and published by

Verso Books Verso Books (formerly New Left Books) is a publishing house based in London and New York City, founded in 1970 by the staff of ''New Left Review'' (NLR) and includes Tariq Ali and Perry Anderson on its board of directors. According to its webs ...

. The broadsheet "All Quiet On The Eastern Front" was part of Retort's installation at the second

Seville Biennial Seville ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Spanish autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the River Guadalquivir, in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula. Seville h ...

. Associated members include English geographer

, Irish social historian Iain Boal, British art historian T.J. Clark, radical attorney Joseph Matthews, labor historian Cal Winslow, editor Eddie Yuen, economic geographer Richard Walker, art historian Anne Wagner,

Victor Serge Victor Serge (; born Viktor Lvovich Kibalchich, ; 30 December 1890 – 17 November 1947) was a Belgian-born Russian revolutionary, novelist, poet, historian, journalist, and translator. Originally an anarchist, he joined the Bolsheviks in Janu ...

translator

James Brook James William Brook (1 February 1897 – 3 March 1989) was an English first-class cricketer, who played one match for Yorkshire against Glamorgan at Bramall Lane, Sheffield in 1923. Born in Ossett, Yorkshire, England, Brook was a right-handed ...

, microbial ecologist Ignacio Chapela, poet and writer Summer Brenner, broadcaster and editor Sasha Lilley, Balkan anarchist

Andrej Grubačić Andrej Grubačić (born 1976) is a Yugoslav world historian, world-systems theorist, and activist based in the United States. Early life and education Grubačić was born in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The grandson of Rato ...

, and Italian literary scholar

Franco Moretti Franco Moretti (born 1950 in Sondrio) is an Italian literary historian and theorist. He graduated in Modern Literatures from the University of Rome in 1972. He has taught at the universities of Salerno (1979–1983) and Verona (1983–1990); in th ...

References

{{Reflist, refs= "Talking Back with Retort" (interview with Emilien Bernard), PacificFreePress.com, October 25, 2009, webpage:
PFP4937
"Iain Boal", ''Mute'', February 20, 2006, webpage:
MM
; Sources * Retort

London Review of Books, April 21, 2005. * Retort
Afflicted Powers: Capital and Spectacle in a New Age of War
Verso, 2nd edition with afterword, 2006. Activists from the San Francisco Bay Area American anti-war activists Politics of the San Francisco Bay Area Organizations based in the San Francisco Bay Area