Lumpen

31/07/2024

Hello world.

Loads of new and exciting stuff has happened for us recently 😃

Tl;dr highlights:

💥The new issue of Lumpen is with the printers and will be available soon! We promise it is awesome. We also refreshed its design and changed the size: we hope you will like it!

💥 We have a new logo and (soon) new website, and a new distro people!

💥 We are developing new workshops!

💥 We are super hyped to announce we have received significant grants from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation and the Guerrilla Foundation for our Migrant Experience and Class project. These grants will allow us to complete and deliver this project in the next three years.

All details here: https://www.theclassworkproject.com/so/1eP490SjY?languageTag=en

We are breaking for summer from tomorrow to recharge before the challenging and exciting work awaiting us from September. You shall hear more from us from then 😎😎

22/05/2024

Aaaaand we are back in full operation mode 💥💥

You may have noticed that we have been quiet of late. That's not because we were slugging off work; we just needed time and space to sort out some difficult back-end organisational issues and have conversations about how we will work in the future. Thank you for bearing with us during this challenging period. We are delighted to announce that the Class Work Project remodelling process is now complete, and we are back in full swing activity and in better organisational shape!

More details ----> https://www.theclassworkproject.com/post/the-class-work-project-is-back-in-action

01/05/2024

Lumpen #13 is now open for submissions!

We've been quiet lately, and there were reasons for it: we will tell you a bit more about it soon. But for now, we decided there is no better day than Mayday to open up for submissions for Lumpen #13!

So, without further delay, we are delighted to inform you that our renowned Lumpen: A Journal of Poor and Working Class Writers is back in the game. Thanks to our new graphic designer, we refreshed its look and format. The content is changing, too, and we are taking the magazine in a new direction: we will now endeavour to become a more current affairs socio-political publication that analyses and discusses contemporary issues.

What remains the same is that we will do the above based on real-life experiences, thoughts, and politics as told by poor and working-class people.

We want Lumpen to contribute to the general political discourse. We want to tune in to real people's political discussions and bring class focus to them. We want to provide a platform to develop solutions to contemporary world issues to help us progress towards a better societal model. We want to contribute to the development of class politics and theory that will provide ideas and solutions matching the actual reality of the 21st century rather than endlessly focusing on grand books of the past. We want to tackle class reductionism and the gatekeepers who obstruct the progress in the much-needed update of class analysis. We want to challenge the dismissal of class politics and the role class poses in our society. We want to give voice to those often talked for rather than listened to regarding the events and policies affecting them the most.

More details here: https://www.theclassworkproject.com/how-to-submit

Featured image: unrelated, picked solely to grab your attention. Credit: Terence Faircloth

07/10/2023

All set up at Anarchist Bookfair in London!

Come see us today, we are in Room 3 at Rich Mix, Bethnal Green Road.

04/10/2023

News from the Class Work Project: Workshopping & We Want Nice Words From You!

Check out what we have been up to and learn more about our workshops:

https://www.theclassworkproject.com/post/news-from-the-class-work-project-workshopping-we-want-nice-words-from-you

27/09/2023

We are reviving our blog to share some exciting news 🙌

⭐️ We are developing a new workshop that will discuss Class and Migration!

⭐️ Anarchist Bookfair in London, Antiuniversity Now and
Dorset Radical Bookfair Collective are coming up!

https://www.theclassworkproject.com/post/news-from-the-class-work-project-announcing-class-and-migration-workshop-development

29/06/2023

🥰Support a fundraiser🤙
Solidarity comes in all shapes and sizes!

We would like to make an unusual but special request of support for one of our members and the resident office mascot (Maya the dog).

Maya is a beautiful rescue dog, but like many rescues has many difficulties. Maya’s human needs help and a break from the knackering and isolating impacts of looking after a reactive traumatised dog.

The world is far from where we want it to be but collective support, care, and solidarity gives us the strength and resiliency to keep moving forward.

If you can, please donate to their crowdfunder or share share share!

to read more on the issues they are facing and to donate follow the link below:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/7wbatv-help-put-my-dog-through-rehabi

Please help put my dog, Maya, through behavioural rehabilitative training. … Hanouska Banaal needs your support for Help put my dog through rehabilitation

28/06/2023

🔥🔥 IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT 🔥🔥

Lumpen: A Journal of Poor and Working Class Writers is changing!

We decided to update our flagship magazine and its subscription conditions to better reflect our work outside the magazine production!

The highlights of the upcoming changes are:

* Lumpen subscriptions will convert to the Lumpen support scheme. This will include the magazine send-out as well as some other perks. We will contact our lovely subscribers before implementing changes to give everyone who wishes to do so the option to cancel their subscription.

* Lumpen itself will change from its current form to a magazine focusing on current social/political issues, as experienced and described by poor and working-class writers.

* While we will remain open to all levels of writing and will continue working with our contributors to improve their pieces, we will also introduce more text curation than we did in the past.

* Lumpen will be shorter, and we may change its frequency, but we will compensate for this with other perks!

* For those wishing to contribute, the first three issues following the changes will be themed: Migration, Queerness and Housing (all in the class context). We will announce deadlines in due course, but if you wish to pitch your piece on any of the above immediately, please get in touch: [email protected].

* We will no longer publish poetry in Lumpen. We do not think a magazine format does poetry any justice, so instead, we will become more active in poetry collection publishing.

* Before the planned changes are in place, we will publish a special issue celebrating the past five years of Lumpen in its full glory. We are working on this issue now, and it will be published towards the end of the Summer.

Exciting times!

17/05/2023

🔥🔥 We will have a party and you are invited! 🔥🔥

We are lucky to have a headquarters at Pelican House: a home we share with many other political groups. We will be celebrating with a Summer Fete! All those who live in London, or will be visiting London on this date, please come along and partake in our zine making workshops, eat some food from local places, join in on our raffle and have a little boogie to some great music!

When: Sunday 11 June 1pm to 9pm
Where: Pelican House, 144 Cambridge Heath Road London E1 5QJ
Free tickets: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/pelican-house-summer-fete-tickets-629903878457

Updates and such: https://www.facebook.com/events/470438161927024

See you there!

11/05/2023

Today is the day! See you this evening at Pelican House, Bethnal Green

Join us to celebrate the launch of Lumpen issue 12!

10/05/2023

This Thursday we are having a launch of Lumpen issue 12!

Don't forget to book your space, it is free :)

Join us to celebrate the launch of Lumpen issue 12!

18/04/2023

Cash Carraway on making her new show Rain Dogs:

'Episode one and two do linger on the beauty of brutalist poverty a bit too much for my liking. It’s a constant battle for a working-class writer or creator working with a whole room of people who went to boarding school.'

Trying to write a tv show (or anything else tbh) where poverty is the backdrop to people's lives, and not the narrative - is a struggle. When a tv company have hired you as the fetished proletarian, and you maybe just wanna tell a love story that also happens on a council estate, Carraway talks about sneaking in the real tale of Rain Dogs, 'about messed up people trying to form a family. ' like a Trojan Horse.

14/03/2023

Far from disappearing, as Marx thought likely - the middle class has ballooned to exert a huge influence over politics and society, with the condition of isolated work and competitive individualism extending to a far encompassing social reality. The insistence that any revolution should and will be led by the working class has plently of credence with us, but as the middle class lifestyle becomes increasing precarious, this mass of educated, frustrated individuals become even more important to consider as part of a revolutionary recipe. Learning to organise better across class boundaries is part of our work.

06/03/2023

The individualisation of health issues which are actually poverty issues is gross - piling further blame on people who have already been loaded with shame. From the psychological impact of austerity presenting itself as mental distress, then diagnosed as a mental health condition located within the individual, to respiratory issues from living in polluted areas and poor housing, to stubborn flus from lack of heating, over working and a poor diet (because the gov. has literally been telling people to suck it and eat gruel) we need a politicised understanding of how poverty impacts peoples bodies and wellness.

26/02/2023

Thank you to everyone who donated to help us recover from the robbery! There is still some way to go before we can replace stolen equipment, your help would be really appreciated! Please donate if you can, and share widely.

Hello everyone and thanks for taking the time to read it. This is an eme… Zofia Brom needs your support for Help The Class Work Project recover from burglary

22/02/2023

Stolen Laptop 😪

APPEAL to help us GET LUMPEN LAID OUT!

On 2nd February, our office at Pelican House in Bethnal was broken into. Along with other activist organisations we were burgled! Most damaging was the pricey mac book laptop which we use to lay out the journal. We are asking for donations up to 2.5k to cover this loss through Gofundme. Please give what you can, check behind your sofa, donate your morning coffee....

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-the-class-work-project-recover-from-burglary

15/02/2023

I would love to see films about happy working class childhoods, about joyous communities, about people filled not just with the pain of being poor and but also wonder and laughter, the way I know these communities to be.

'Most so-called working-class dramas these days feature a single mother who is positively suicidal, a he**in addict, a flustered person in a pair of marigolds trying to do seven things at once before screaming at the decaying walls of their grey council flat, and coppers way passed caring. On the other hand, what they don’t feature is a single laugh, any sign of bright-side defiance, a semblance of collectivist beauty, or the nuance of what the impacts of austerity actually look like for most people.'

Life ain't so grim in the gutter.

07/02/2023

We are looking for an accountant ! Details in image.

Please email us [email protected] with a relevant CV and contact details if you are interested.

27/01/2023

Consider that health workers are striking, not just for their basic right to decent pay, but also for all the patients which access the NHS and recieve neglectful, to the point of the being murderous treatment.

As thousands of nurses across England take to picket lines in a historic strike, Tribune sits down with the RCN's Denise Kelly to discuss the NHS crisis behind the dispute.

25/01/2023

Burn's poetry, as a tenant farmer in Scotland, inspired writing by working poets across Scotland and North England. The Piston, Pen & Press project has been collecting poetry, song and stories from industrial workers in Scotland and the North of England, from the 1840s to the 1910s, finding a huge wealth of material that attests both to the conditions people found themselves in at the time and the great literary activity of the workers, some brilliant, most forgotten due to their lowly station!

'...we have found three separate poems by miners addressing mice, a poem on an earthworm – by Richard Spencer, a brushmaker in Leeds – poems on rats, on cats, and one of my personal favourites, Fife miner Robert MacLeod’s ‘The Miner Tae the Midge.’

This poem pictured is from C. Ratcliffe, a miner in Segill.

https://www.pistonpenandpress.org/database/

19/01/2023

Tories are incredibly good at feeling that their wealth and fortunes are the result of their own discipline, good chracter and hard work. More often there's a background of wealth and privilege. Shaming poor people for their reality is a violent tactic that causes people lifetimes of self-doubt and low confidence.

17/01/2023

We've had a long social media winter holiday break. Computer screen's might not give you coal lung but the modern injuries of labour remain their own predicament. It's good to rest, it's good to be back.

13/12/2022

!!LAST CALL!!

If you were planning to buy something from our website, please note that the latest you can do this to ensure we post it to you before winter break is TOMORROW NOON!

Have a look at what we have in stock, we recently added two gift options that may be exactly what you were looking for as a present for the people in your life who should get one!