b_books

b_books is a collectively run publishing house and bookstore in Berlin-Kreuzberg. It was founded in 1996 by political activists, theorists, filmmakers, and artists. The collective runs a bookstore, a venue, and a publishing house specializing in political philosophy, art and film, and queer, feminist, and postcolonial theory, publishing titles in German and/or English. The publishing activities began in 1998 with publications by Antonio Negri, Jacques Derrida, Linda Singer, Maurizio Lazzarato, Renate Lorenz, Brigitta Kuster, Pauline Boudry, Harun Farocki, Marion von Osten, and Monika Rinck. Publications by individual authors, filmmakers, and artists are still published today, such as Chris Kraus, Paul B. Preciado, Tim Stüttgen, Jacques Rancière, Ètienne Balibar, Michaela Ott, C.L.R. James, Ulrike Ottinger, R.W. Fassbinder, Carla Lonzi, Sun Ra, Helen Keller, and Kerstin Honeit. Many b_books titles are edited by groups, and some have also created series on urban theory (metroZones) and art criticism (PoLYpeN) within the publishing house. Recently, the series RE FUSE has been founded by Çiğdem Inan. The program includes the publication of C.L.R James’s "Black Jacobins" and the forthcoming German translation of "Cruel Optimism" by Lauren Berlant as well as "We Must Learn to Sit Down Together and Talk About A Little Culture" by Sylvia Wynter. Other books are produced in cooperation with institutions or in the context of exhibitions. Manuscript submissions are reviewed collectively. Since the 1990s, events have been held at the b_books space under the title montagsPRAXIS.

Exzentrische 80er: Tabea Blumenschein, Hilka Nordhausen, Rabe perplexum und Kompliz*innen aus dem Jetzt

Burcu Dogramaci, Ergül Cengiz, Philipp Gufler, Mareike Schwarz und Angela Stiegler (eds.), Exzentrische 80er: Tabea Blumenschein, Hilka Nordhausen, Rabe perplexum und Kompliz*innen aus dem Jetzt, b_books, 2022 © Burcu Dogramaci, Ergül Cengiz, Philipp Gufler, Mareike Schwarz und Angela Stiegler (eds.)

Tabea Blumenschein (1952–2020), Hilka Nordhausen(1949–1993), and Rabe perplexum (1956–1996) were eccentric artists of the 1980s – they deviated from norms and operated outside of the centre in subcultural milieus. They worked in friendly constellations in the cities of Berlin, Hamburg, and Munich. Blumenschein, Nordhausen, and perplexum represented images of gender and identity that weren’t recognized at the time and lived their sexual orientations in a non-conformist manner. The artistic work of the eccentrics was formulated in performances, readings, films, concerts, or murals – in collaborative and often ephemeral forms. For the first time, they are now brought together in one book and discussed contextually.

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Marion von Osten, In the Making: In the Desert of Modernity: Colonial Planning and After, b_books, 2023 © Marion von Osten

"In the Making: In the Desert of Modernity: Colonial Planning and After. A Research-Based Practice" is about the working method of the artist and exhibition maker Marion von Osten (1963-2020). Through the genesis of one of her major exhibitions, "In the Desert of Modernity: Colonial Planning and After", and other related exhibitions, Marion von Osten recounts modes of research, forms of collaboration, research trips, and encounters. Was the book "Colonial Modern. Aesthetics of the Past, Rebellions for the Future" (ed. by Tom Avermaete, Serhat Karakayali, Marion von Osten) dedicated to the exhibition itself, which deals with the connection between architecture, urban planning, and colonialism, Marion von Osten's "In the Making" traces the conceptual and design settings of exhibition making and reveals connections in order to reconnect them where necessary. Almost as if incidentally and yet quite centrally, "In the Making" establishes walking, talking, listening, meeting, relating asessential components of inquiry – not only in a postcolonial context, but especially there. Addressing spatial politics, power relations, and social struggles at the time of colonialism, liberation struggles, and decolonization in North Africa, "In the Making" welcomes unexpected encounters and opens pathways to parainstitutional and feminist exhibition making.

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C.L.R. James, Die schwarzen Jakobiner: Toussaint Louverture und die Haitianische Revolution, b_books / Dietz Berlin, 2021 © C.L.R. James

Lange vergriffen erscheint C.L.R. James' Buch "Die schwarzen Jakobiner" in einer von Jen Theodor überarbeiteten Fassung der Übersetzung von Günter Löffler. Mit einem Vorwort von Raoul Peck, gemeinsam herausgegeben mit dem Karl Dietz Verlag.

Es war der einzige erfolgreiche Aufstand in der modernen Geschichte, in dem versklavte Menschen ihre Freiheit und Unabhängigkeit in einem über zehn-jährigen revolutionären Prozess von unten erkämpften. Die Insurrektion in der französischen Kolonie Saint Domingue von 1791 ist einmalig in der Geschichte; sie zählt zu den verdrängten und vergessenen welthistorischen Ereignissen und führte 1804 zur Unabhängigkeit Haitis. Das Buch "Die schwarzen Jakobiner" gehört immer noch zu den einflussreichsten Darstellungen dieser Ereignisse. Mehr als achtzig Jahre nach der Erstveröffentlichung im Jahr 1938 ist "The Black Jacobins" weiterhin ein Standardwerk der Black Radical Tradition, das seither zahlreiche Neuauflagen und Übersetzungen erlebt hat. In seinem Buch kritisiert C.L.R. James die rassistische Struktur der Kolonialgesellschaft des damals französisch besetzten Haiti. Er rekonstruiert die revolutionären Ereignisse und erzählt sie aus der Perspektive linker Geschichtsschreibung neu. Mit seinem Buch leistet er einen unschätzbaren Beitrag dazu, die Haitianische Revolution als Ereignis von welthistorischer Bedeutung zu begreifen.

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