The recent financial crisis would seem to present precisely the opportunity that the left has been waiting for: a moment of reckoning when failure is undeniable and injustice unconcealed. Yet crisis has not proven to be so ready or willing an object to think with. Financiers continue to take crisis as their opportunity, while misery continues to be spread around. How the left might see itself if crisis is taken as its mirror? <a href="http://socialtextjournal.org/blog/2011/03/2011-left-forum-dont-take-the-bait-the-left-and-crisis-a-social-text-roundtable.php". Read more
Category: Topics
World Social Forum (Dakar, Senegal, February 6th-11th)
Michael Ralph
ST Editorial Collective member Michael Ralph shares photos from the 2011 World Social Forum (Dakar, Senegal, February 6th-11th), including a protest outside the Egyptian Embassy just hours before Mubarak’s resignation was announced. Patrick Bond and Immanuel Wallerstein share their reflections … Continue reading “World Social Forum (Dakar, Senegal, February 6th-11th)”
Orientalist propaganda/image-making by the Mubarak regime
Allen FeldmanConsider the recent violent image making by the Egyptian state in its staging of counterinsurgency terror in mufti. I refer to the charging of Liberation square in Cairo by thugs on horses and camels, and by vigilantes on foot armed … Continue reading “Orientalist propaganda/image-making by the Mubarak regime”
academic capitalist ground zero? day one.
Dan ReyesSomething violent and unfortunate has happened here. And yet it is hard to wrap one’s thoughts around it, to make contact with ’cause’ and ‘effect’ in any meaningful, productive and instructive way. This place is uninhabitable but inescapable. This place … Continue reading “academic capitalist ground zero? day one.”
The Nonstop Educational Common
Iveta JusovaNonstop Reading Group’s recent opportunity to engage with Sheila Slaughter via video dialogue, concurrent with our engagement of her and Gary Rhoades’ published work, brings their key observations about an ascendant capitalist learning regime both into clear relief and close … Continue reading “The Nonstop Educational Common”
The Educational Commons – Introducing the Nonstop Institute
Ashley DawsonAs Michael Cohen’s recent posting on the neoliberal crisis and the Open University makes clear, education as a human right is under assault around the world. Cohen’s discussion of the context in Britain paints a particularly dire picture, but universities … Continue reading “The Educational Commons – Introducing the Nonstop Institute”
The Neoliberal Crisis and the Open University
Michael CohenBy now we should all recognize the global economic effects of neoliberalism. David Harvey reminds us that free market policies have led, first and foremost, to a dramatic class realignment in which the relative egalitarianism of the post-World War … Continue reading “The Neoliberal Crisis and the Open University”
Letter from Italy
Ashley DawsonThe Berlusconi government seems to be on its last legs here in Italy, but somehow the old Mephistopheles seems to keep controlling the show — apparently bribery as well as arm-twisting has been involved. Meanwhile, in Torino, where I’m teaching … Continue reading “Letter from Italy”
The Dramatic Face of Wikileaks
Biella ColemanWikileaks: It has caused a firestorm of debate among very different sectors of the population and about different topics: from the state of journalism (is it broken is it not?); to how much secrecy is acceptable for diplomatic negotiations, the … Continue reading “The Dramatic Face of Wikileaks”
UK Higher Education cuts and Student Occupations
Tariq JazeelAs many will already know, following the UK Con-dem government’s Comprehensive Spending Review, universities in the UK are facing massive cuts to their core funding. Coupled with this, parliament will be voting next week on a bill that will enable … Continue reading “UK Higher Education cuts and Student Occupations”
HBO's postcolonial melancholic
Tavia Nyong'oSeason Three of HBO’s therapy verite series is now airing, so of course I am glued to the tube. This season’s analysands — whose sessions grants us a fly-on-the-wall view of — are especially engrossing. Jesse, the promiscuous, talented gay teen; Frances, the narcissistic mid-career actress; and Sunil, the postcolonial melancholic.
Affective Tendencies: Bodies, Pleasures, Sexualities
Social Text CollectiveOctober 7th – 9th
ST Collective members David Eng and Jasbir Puar will be among the Keynote Speakers.
Curtis Jackson and the Jeweled Skull
Chris Randle
It’s hard to say that someone had a bad year because they made fewer millions than usual. And it’s even harder to pity 50 Cent under any circumstances. But still, 2009 was rough on the hip-hop superstar otherwise known as … Continue reading “Curtis Jackson and the Jeweled Skull”
Trolling and refueling the tank of spectacle
Biella ColemanSo I got to Internet Trolls via my work on Anonymous vs the Church of Scientology but I have remained interested in grappling with them independent of Anonymous. In the last few weeks, I had the chance to bump up … Continue reading “Trolling and refueling the tank of spectacle”
Counting Towards Tenure
Tavia Nyong'oWho is counting on tenure? We are all counting on tenure, it seems, as the professional horizon of intellectual work, as the foundation of security upon which any edifice of independent thought might withstand the forces of erosion in our time. However, as far as the New York Times can tell, tenure primarily counts as a politically neutral reward for professionalism and an accommodation to a hierarchical ideal of expertise. Missing from this is any body count of those intellectuals whose activity inside and out of the academia, while crucial to its functioning, are not tracked for tenure.