Anomie/Bonhomie & Other Writings

In this collection of writings, Howard Slater improvises around what Walter Benjamin could have meant by the phrase 'affective classes'. This 'messianic shard' and its possible implications leads Slater to develop a therapeutic micro-politics by way of a mourning for the Workers' Movement and a grappling with the 'becomings of capital'. The essay 'Anomie/Bonhomie' is the keystone of this book which also features tributary texts and poems drawn from the past ten years. These supplementary texts approach such themes as exodus, species-being, surrealist precedents, poetic language and the possibilities for collective 'affective' practices to combat capitalism's colonisation of the psyche.

Howard Slater is a volunteer play therapist, sometime writer and ex-housing worker. Whilst he has been writing since the early 1980s he has mainly been published in small press magazines, independent publishing initiatives and web sites. His texts and poetry have been supported and published by: 10th Floor, Alien Underground, Audiolab Arteleku, Autonomedia, Autotoxicity, Break/Flow, Copenhagen Free University, Datacide, Difficult Fun, Fatuous Times, Five Leaves Left, Here & Now, Infopool, Infotainment, Mute, Night Class, Noise Gate, Obsessive Eye, Palantir, Papakura Post Office, Penniless Press, Rebel Ink, Resonance Magazine (LMC), School of Walls & Space, Smile, TechNET, Variant, Working Press.