The Aesthetics of Resistance Celebration with Joel Scott

Peter Weiss’s three-volume novel The Aesthetics of Resistance explores in breathtaking detail the actions and decisions of antifascist organizers in small underground cells across Europe from 1937–45. The novel’s characters—almost all actual historical figures, except the unnamed narrator—persevere through unbearable conditions. They weigh the failures and defeats that made that era’s fascist regimes possible, and they work to realize the coalitions they’ll need to undo the deadly alliance they face between capitalist interests and racist ideologies. As they organize, they also use art, drama and writing to think about their problems obliquely—collectively studying Picasso’s Guernica, or the Pergamon Frieze.

Thanks to Joel Scott’s translation of the second (2020) and third volumes (2025), the entire novel is now available in English, and new readers can learn what insights it has for our own antifascist organizing. The Poetry Project is thrilled to celebrate the final volume’s publication with a reading by Scott and a discussion of the novel.

This event will also be livestreamed for free on the Project's YouTube channel.