The front and back cover art of ST 100 is by photographer Jorge Alberto Perez.
Issue: Issue 100 Collective History
Introduction to Issue 100
Anna McCarthyThe essay provides a short introduction to the special anniversary issue of Social Text, explaining the protocol for the “keyword” essays that make up the majority of the issue: each contribution takes up particular points (single essays) or threads (themes … Continue reading “Introduction to Issue 100”
The Collective as a Political Model
frederic jamesonFredric Jameson, Anders Stephanson, Stanley Aronowitz, John Brenkman, Sohnya Sayres, Andrew Ross, and Randy Martin discuss the role of the collective in the journal’s political-intellectual work. They reflect on the alleged founding principle of SOCIAL TEXT: the idea that politics … Continue reading “The Collective as a Political Model”
Aesthetics
Susette MinThe essay focuses on SOCIAL TEXT’s lack of engagement with aesthetics as a point of departure to think about art and politics in the wake of the culture wars, the intensification of globalization, and the aftermath of 9/11. The essay … Continue reading “Aesthetics”
Affect
Ann PellegriniThis essay traces Fredric Jameson’s important early analyses of the waning of affect and disappearance of the depth psychological subject under conditions of postmodernism, arguments he developed over the course of several essays in SOCIAL TEXT – beginning, in fact, … Continue reading “Affect”
AIDS
ed cohenThis essay considers key themes in the history of HIV/AIDS, including biopolitics, affective communities, epidemics, and the meanings of immunity. It traces a set of intellectual, existential, and material connections between bioscientific inquiry, human existence, care, and community. The authors … Continue reading “AIDS”
(Theorizing the) Americas
ana dopicoAs SOCIAL TEXT published its first essays on Latin America, the Americas were living the disastrous consequences of a hemispheric cold war in the forms of dictatorships, military rule, and brutal state violence; confronting popular and institutionalized revolutions; and suffering … Continue reading “(Theorizing the) Americas”
Art
Tavia Nyong'oWas the photograph Shepard Fairey used as a basis for his “Hope” image of Barack Obama a social text? The Associated Press thought not when it threatened to sue Fairey for using a photograph it owned as the basis for … Continue reading “Art”
Body
Micki McGeeWhile Barack Obama began his historic presidency with a “full plate” of economic and political challenges and an athletic build complete with a “six-pack” duly captured by the long lens of a paparazzo, the woman who had arguably paved the … Continue reading “Body”
China
david l. engHow should we go about interpreting, reading, and understanding “China” as a social text, in the face of persistent Orientalism and self-Orientalism, in an age when the ghosts of socialism are still all around us? Given its semicolonial history and … Continue reading “China”
Cold War
Nikhil Pal SinghThis essay explores the imperial and colonial genealogies of the Nazi Holocaust as a form of industrialized killing. It argues that cold-war discourse, and particularly the theory of totalitarianism, enacts a displacement of these outside the ambit of Western history … Continue reading “Cold War”
The Social Life of the Collective
andrew rossAndrew Ross, Sohnya Sayres, Bruce Robbins, Randy Martin, John Brenkman, and Anders Stephanson discuss the venues where the collective met face-to-face: conversations and debates at manuscript reviews and formal meetings, but also the role of reading groups, conferences, and the … Continue reading “The Social Life of the Collective”
Collective
brent hayes edwardsThe story of the SOCIAL TEXT collective begins with the desire to establish a counterpoint to possessive individualism, creating a means for valuing collaborative engagement against the singular authorship of genius; later it would come to stand against the deadening … Continue reading “Collective”
Commodity
Michael RalphIf commodification is endemic to the logic of capitalism, it is perhaps because the space of the sacred–that which cannot have a market value affixed to it–has apparently receded. Still the idea that commodities are born from secular revelations suggests … Continue reading “Commodity”
Culture
patrick deerModern cultural criticism, like the younger discipline of cultural studies, has long struggled to reconcile the antagonistic logic at the heart of the idea of culture. SOCIAL TEXT’s project as a journal has been energized throughout by the contradictory genealogy … Continue reading “Culture”