This essay examines the graffiti that covers the portion of the West Bank’s segregation wall that traverses Bethlehem. That the majority of the representations covering the wall are intended for international rather than local consumption complicates the prevalent tendency in … Continue reading “The Materiality of Resistance: Israel’s Apartheid Wall in an Age of Globalization”
Issue: Issue 118 Spring 2014
The Uses of Happiness in Counterinsurgencies
Laleh KhaliliThis essay examines the instrumentalization of emotions and affect—especially of happiness—in evaluating the outcome of counterinsurgencies. Traditionally, metrics and statistics have been utilized as the main means of measuring the achievement of military goals. However, given the centrality of noncombatant … Continue reading “The Uses of Happiness in Counterinsurgencies”
Institutionalizing the Margins
kerri“Institutionalizing the Margins” treats intersectionality as a feminist orientation in time, as an analytic that powerfully describes both what women’s studies could be and what women’s studies has already become, that speaks about the discipline’s aspirations and progress. The paper traces two ways that … Continue reading “Institutionalizing the Margins”
The Zapatista “Mother Seeds in Resistance” Project: The Indigenous Community Seed Bank as a Living, Self-Organizing Archive
Tania Aguila-WayThis paper takes up the Zapatista “Mother Seeds in Resistance” seed-preservation project as a case study for exploring the interconnections between contemporary biotechnology, biocultural diversity, and cultural institutions such as the archive. Drawing on environmental theories that employ the bioscientific … Continue reading “The Zapatista “Mother Seeds in Resistance” Project: The Indigenous Community Seed Bank as a Living, Self-Organizing Archive”
The Anatomy of a Dumpster: Abject Capital and the Looking Glass of Value
David Boarder GilesThis essay explores the cultural economy of commercial waste. Drawing from ethnographic research with Dumpster divers in Seattle, Washington, and other cities with comparable waste streams, it explores the ways in which waste may constitute a distinct cultural-economic logic with … Continue reading “The Anatomy of a Dumpster: Abject Capital and the Looking Glass of Value”
Untitled. Gramsci Monument, 8/21/2013 [photograph]
Alex Pittmanthe gramsci monument
fred motenThe Event of the Poem: “the gramsci monument”
kerriThis piece reflects on two orders of the poetic event. On one hand, it describes Fred Moten’s reading of the poem “the gramsci monument” at the public art project of the same name. On the other, it meditates on the … Continue reading “The Event of the Poem: “the gramsci monument””