How to maintain hope in the face of despair.
In the struggle for a better world, setbacks are inevitable. Defeat can feel overwhelming at times, but it has
to
be endured. How then do the people on the front line keep going? To answer that question, Hannah Proctor draws
on
historical resources to find out how revolutionaries and activists of the past kept a grip on hope.
Burnout considers despairing former Communards exiled to a penal colony in the South Pacific; exhausted Bolsheviks recuperating in sanatoria in the aftermath of the October Revolution; an ex-militant on the analyst’s couch relating dreams of ruined landscapes; Chinese peasants engaging in self-criticism sessions; a political organiser seeking advice from a spiritual healer; civil rights movement activists battling weariness; and a group of feminists padding a room with mattresses to scream about the patriarchy. Jettisoning self-help narratives and individualizing therapy talk, Proctor offers a different way forward - neither denial nor despair. Her cogent exploration of the ways militants have made sense of their own burnout demonstrates that it is possible to mourn and organise at once, and to do both without compromise.
Hannah Proctor is one of the best writers on the left today, and this is an extraordinary and extremely timely book – a kaleidoscopic work of revolutionary history on what happens when our day doesn’t come and we have to cope with the consequences. Refusing both the easy temptations of left melancholia and forced ‘just another push, comrades!’ optimism, this is a book full of unromantic communist longing, deadpan humor, and hard-won wisdom.
Not since Freud first described war neurosis have we been treated to such an astonishing taxonomy of the human mind. In Burnout, Hannah Proctor takes that feeling we all have, and names it again and again, helping us to resee the past and present of revolutionary struggle. A must-read.
Excerpts
"Beyond Left Melancholy" — The Baffler
Interviews
"Solidarity and Defeat, with Astra Taylor"
—
Yale Review
"The Vanquished of Yesterday"
—
Tribune
"We Can’t Ignore the Difficult Emotions of Political Defeat"
— Jacobin
"How Activists Can Push Through Burnout and Defeat"
—
Dazed
"Paranoia and Guilt"
—
Institute of Network Cultures
Podcasts
"The Politics of Grief, with Sarah Jaffe" — Haymarket
"With or Without Hope" — Verso Podcast
"A Short History of Burnout" — Macrodose
"Burnout, with Hannah Proctor" — Uncommon Sense
"Feeling Bad, Politically" — Red Medicine
"The Emotional Experience of Political Defeat" — Politics Theory Other
Reviews
"Between Victory and Defeat" — The Nation
"Falling Apart Together?" — LARB
"How Do We Feel in the Wake of Political Defeat?"
— ArtReview
"How We Keep Going" — Unison
"Don't Get Burnt" — California DSA
"Why We Must Both Mourn and Organize"
—
New Internationalist
"Losing the Fight for a Better World Takes a Toll"
— Jacobin
"Haud Forrit" — Morning Star
"Burnout" — Anti*Capitalist Resistance / Asylum Magazine
"Burnout" — Revolutionary Socialism in the 21st Century
"Burnout" — Somatosphere
Events
10 April 2024, London launch — Peer Gallery
11 April 2024, London talk — MayDay Rooms
18 April 2024, Glasgow launch — CCA
1 May 2024, New York launch — n+1
4 May 2024, New York talk — Triple Canopy
29 June 2024, Prague talk — Matter of Art
02 July 2024, Graz talk — Forum Stadtpark
04 July 2024, Vienna talk — Kunsthalle Wien
04 July 2024, Amsterdam talk — Bricks and Mortar @ Framer Framed
08 January 2025, Nijmegen talk — Politiek Cafe de Klinker
07 February 2025, Glasgow talk — Glasgow School of Art
21 February 2025, Manchester talk — Manchester University Student Union
25 February 2025, Dublin talk — Connolly Books