Julius Evola: The World's Most Right-Wing Thinker?

Baron Julius Evola (1898-1974) was probably the major extreme right thinker to emerge from the rubble of the Second European Civil War (1939-1945). This talk by Jonathan Bowden pin-points him as a metaphysical objectivist (unlike Nietzsche) who looked to primordial Traditions as the foundation stone for a new era. Evola's major works of a 'social' type are examined. These include Revolt Against the Modern World (1934), Men Among the Ruins (1953), Ride the Tiger (1961) and Metaphysics of War (2007). Nor does the speaker neglect his Occultism, mountaineering, studies of comparative religion, or Dadaist involvement - the latter seen as an anti-bourgeois fiat.

George Orwell's 1984 and Left-wing Totalitarianism

Dispensing with J.L. Talmon’s thesis, Jonathan Bowden examines in depth the major political novel of the twentieth century. He deals with Newspeak, Ingsoc (English Socialism), The Two-Minute Hate, Big Brother, the Inner and Outer Party, the Anti-Sex League and “The Book”, The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism. He also has occasion to look at torture and the Party’s dialectic – what Raymond Aron called The Dialectic of Violence in his critique of Sartre. This especially pertains to the figure of O’Brien (the party priest and Insider) whom Sir Richard Burton immortalised on film. In conclusion, Mr Bowden examines the BBC’s television play in the ‘fifties. Peter Cushing played Winston Smith on this occasion. An elderly Welsh viewer dropped dead during the rat-torture scene in the Ministry of Love. The ultimate review, perhaps?

Robert E. Howard and the Heroic

In this speech Jonathan Bowden chronicles the work, life and career of Conan’s creator. He also looks at his other pulp heroes or Supermen such as King Kull, Bran Mak Morn, Solomon Kane et al. The speaker surveys the demonisation of Masculinity and the forcing of heroic literature down into the ‘depths’ – primarily so as to escape liberal strictures. As a result of this analysis, he considers diverse work by Kipling, Robinson Jeffers, Henty, Edward Rice Burroughs, Robert Service and Sir Henry Newbolt, amongst others.

Stewart Home and Cultural Communism

This talk indicates the decay of Western academicism from the middle of the last century. Beginning with Existentialism, passing through to Structuralism, Post-Structuralism and then Deconstruction, Jonathan Bowden charts a declining self-confidence in our civilisation. He then changes tack and looks at those Art movements which parallel this. These are (dealt with in order of sequence) Lettrism, Situationism, Abstract Expressionism, Fluxus, Mail Art, Auto-Destructive Art, Funk Art, Action Act and other marginalia. By the by, the speaker deals with Stewart Home’s The Assault on Culture (Unpopular Books) as a taxonomy of decay.

The real meaning of Punch & Judy

This speech illustrates the folkish origins of those who control this popular art form, Punch & Judy. They are known as the Professors. Their retinue of dolls dates from Porsini (sic) and was explicated by Collier and Cruikshank in the early eighteen hundreds. A full retinue of these hand-carved puppets take their turn to strut upon this imaginary stage. All of the following appear in our red-and-yellow booth: Punch, Judy, the Baby, Devil, Policeman, Pretty Polly, Hangman (Jack Ketch), Jim Crow, Joey the Clown, Scaramouch, Toby Dog, Hobby Horse, the Bottler, Beadle, Judge, Minister, Doctor, Crocodile/Dragon and Skeleton… Root-Toot-Toot. That’s the way to do it!

Beowulf - Grendel

BEOWULF is an epic drama dating from the eighth century. It has to be considered a masterpiece of Old English and the first great work of our literature. In this version Jonathan Bowden utilises the tradition of the Skald - or semi-conscious poetic inspiration - in order to bring the work to life. He simultaneously inflects, translates, enunciates and interprets the narrative as it proceeds. Has our performer begun a Bardic quest of his own?

New Left marxism and the Frankfurt school

This lecture covers a wide panorama which deals with the extreme left in the 19th and 20th centuries. By dint of foregrounding T.W. Adorno's and Horkheimer's The Dialectic of Enlightenment, the speaker casts a critical eye over thinkers like Gramsci, Lenin, Plekhanov, Trotsky, Lowenthal, Marcuse, Gorz, Mach, Althusser, Lefebvre, Soboul, Hobsbawn, Cixous and mass-murderers such as Pol Pot.

Credo: a Nietzschean testament

In this speech or oration Jonathan Bowden looks back on his political career and discusses the factors which have influenced him. He also draws attention to a current of thinking called authoritarian individualism or egoism a la Nietzsche, Barres, Stirner, Carlyle and Junger.

Bill Hopkins

Bill Hopkins is one of the most important anti-humanist intellectuals of yesteryear. Born in Cardiff in 1928, he remains the author of one extraordinary novel, The Divine and the Decay (also known as The Leap), as well as the essay Ways Without a Precedent. Magisterially influential behind the scenes, his wingspan extends to outsider art, modernist criticism and elitist politics.

Robinson Jeffers

Robinson Jeffers died in 1962. An American poet, he proves to be the most radical pagan in verse to have composed in the last century. Outstripping D.H. Lawrence in works like Steelhead, Tamar, Roan Stallion and his version of Euripides’ Medea, Jeffers carries out a revolt against the modern world. Almost an intellectual terrorist – he remains unique.

Wyndham Lewis

Wyndham Lewis was the founder of vorticism in English modernist art. A revolutionary creator, Lewis fashioned a wide range of work in satire, abstraction, polemic, belletrism, autobiography and stylistic excess. Blinded by Cancer at the end of his life, one painting, The Siege of Barcelona, and a novel, The Apes of God, codify his range. A British encyclopaedist – only Picasso in painting and Celine in prose come close.

Heidegger & Death - Totality's Time

Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) is widely considered one of the most original and important philosophers of the 20th Century. In this live recording - written and presented by Jonathan Bowden at an academic lecture in 2006 - Heidegger's philosophy is evaluated. Seen as the twentieth century's chief metaphysical objectivist, the lecturer examines Being and Time within Dun Scotus' trajectory. Heidegger emerges, in this analysis, as a leading essentialist or religious philosopher. His aim was to place man's ontology before death, to give life verity, and to unmask the Sphinx's riddle. Deep in the Black Forest, writing in his isolated chalet, Heidegger sought ultimate answers.

Let us suppose truth to be a woman, Friedrich Nietzsche quipped at the beginning of Beyond Good and Evil. Well, Heidegger dropped a different stone into this whirlpool. Attempting to go back to the pre-Socratics, or Sophists, he wished to authenticate 'Being'. Like Nietzsche, in his Letters, he saw threnody in a shepherd slaughtering. For him, after the purity of Aeschylus and Sophocles, western civilisation entered a state of decadence. Given this crisis, a revolutionary antidote became necessary.