Under Review: Marc Abélès, The Politics of Survival (Duke University Press, 2010) Kolya Abramsky, Sparking a Worldwide Energy Revolution: Social Struggles in the Transition to a Post-Petrol World(AK Press, 2010) Slavoj Zizek, Living in the End Times (Verso, 2010) Writing about Hollywood disaster … Continue reading “Insecure Times”
I saw Miral, the new film by Julian Schnabel last week. It was opening in New York and Los Angeles, to great controversy, as it was advertised as giving us a Palestinian point of view. My ears perked up when I … Continue reading “Painfully Beautiful”
Reviewed: Ahmed, Sara. The Promise of Happiness. Durham: Duke University Press, 2010 In her sweeping new work The Promise of Happiness, Sara Ahmed provocatively challenges the idea of happiness as a necessary social good. Ahmed delivers a compelling and engrossing argument about … Continue reading “The Promise of Happiness”
David Wojnarowicz and the Politics of Representation Discussed: “Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture,” National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC. October 30, 2000 through February 13, 2011. David Wojnarowicz often said that he wanted his art to be an “X-Ray of … Continue reading “X-Ray of Civilization”
Reviewed: Fernandes, Sujatha. Who Can Stop the Drums?: Urban Social Movements in Chávez’s Venezuela (Durham: Duke Univeristy Press, 2010) Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez is known for his popularity among the urban poor: they’ve provided a major voting bloc in three victorious national … Continue reading “Comrades in the Barrio”
Reviewed: Menand, Louis. The Marketplace of Ideas. New York: W.W. Norton & Co Ltd, 2010. Louis Menand’s The Marketplace of Ideas offers suggestions for revamping liberal education at a time when the liberal arts seem increasingly irrelevant to incoming freshmen. 1 Andrew Scull’s notorious hatchet job … Continue reading “Liberal Arts: Lurching towards Obsolescence?”
Reviewed: Adrian Heathfield and Tehching Hsieh, Out of Now: The Lifeworks of Tehching Hsieh (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009) Tehching Hsieh, One Year Performance: Art Documents, 1978-1999 (DVD-ROM); available for purchase at www.one-year-performance.com. While the artist Tehching Hsieh has enjoyed … Continue reading “Out of Now: The Lifeworks of Tehching Hsieh”
Reviewed: Tim Lawrence, Hold On to Your Dreams: Arthur Russell and the Downtown Music Scene, 1973-1992 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009). David Suisman, Selling Sounds: The Commercial Revolution in American Music (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009). I began reading these two … Continue reading “Listening at the End of the Twentieth Century”
A Review of “Capitalism: A Love Story,” directed by Michael Moore Crimes have been committed in this building. I am here to make a citizen’s arrest. In the final scene of “Capitalism: A Love Story,” Michael Moore drags police tape … Continue reading “The Forensics of Capital”
