1. On Genre Flailing In a crisis we engage in genre flailing so that we don’t fall through the cracks of knowledge and noise into suicide or psychosis. In a crisis we improvise like crazy, where “like crazy” is a … Continue reading “Big Man”
On December 4th of last year, Italians voted “no” in a referendum on constitutional reforms that would have allowed Parliament to make bills into laws without Senate approval. A date that for the proponents of the reform should have ushered … Continue reading “The “No You Can’t” of Italian Neo-Marxist Dissent”
When I asked the instructors of Tolstoy College if they found anything contradictory about establishing an anarchist college funded by the state of New York, they all kind of shrugged it off. Peter Murphy, who taught courses on radical history, … Continue reading “Tolstoy College: The War and Peace of an Anarchist Education”
When they vote in January’s primaries, leftists in France must choose entre la peste et la cholera. On 21 May 2002, millions of French people watched with surprise, anger, or disgust as the face of Jean-Marie Le Pen appeared on … Continue reading “What Is the French Left to Do?”
The Oakland-based press Timeless, Infinite Light has allowed us to publish an excerpt from Brian Whitener’s fantastic new book Face Down, which can be purchased here. From Face Down In the mid-1850s, a non-ethnically marked lady, Mother, and her partner … Continue reading “From Face Down“
I write not with the expertise of a political scientist or demographer, those emperors of data and partisan, capital ‘P’ politics whose new clothes—AKA ‘big data’-informed poll predictions—have only just been revealed to some (not others) as ruse. I write … Continue reading “Ballot Box as Klan Hood and the Rest of Us in the Wake of the Election of Donald Trump as 45th US President”
On July 6, 2016, St. Anthony police shot Philando Castile during a traffic stop. The police thought his “wide-set nose” matched that of a robbery suspect. For Mr. Castile, this was the forty-sixth and last such stop he would endure … Continue reading “Antigone in St. Paul, Minnesota”
We asked Gus Stadler to recommend some Woody Guthrie songs. He did not fail us. ALL YOU FASCISTS BOUND TO LOSE THE JOLLY BANKER THIS LAND IS OUR LAND (with private property verse) BETTER WORLD A-COMIN’
Nine days after Donald Trump is elected president of the United States, Social Text Online is relaunched. The timing couldn’t be better. Or worse. What to say in times like these, and so soon? Or even, how to phrase the … Continue reading “From the Web Editor”
I. The Iron Horse II. The Taiwan Blue III. The Mint Bang III. The Sitting Bull IV. The Leather Eagle II. THE TAIWAN BLUE YOU DO NOT REMEMBER WHERE YOU WERE OR WHEN IT WAS THAT YOU FIRST FOUND IT … Continue reading “FROM EUPHORIA“
I push the sharp edges of the shovel into the scorched, dry dirt. The ground gives way and a stinking clump of earth slides out. I dig in the earth because I must tend to the plants, and I must … Continue reading “Labors in a Field”
Dear Shiv, You told me to write to you. It was kind of you to tell me to write. You were writing to me of heartbreaks and hangovers and whether we’ll ever love or write again, and how to replace … Continue reading “Epistolary Romance on Love and Friendship”
Work Reviewed: Lorey, Isabell: State of Insecurity: Government of the Precarious New York & London: Verso, 2015. Editor’s Note: What does it mean to make a living, or a life for oneself, today? We live in a moment when corporations … Continue reading “On Precarity and the Freedom from Security”
The following is an edited transcript of an e-mail interview between the artist Luke Willis Thompson and Social Text editor Tavia Nyong’o that was conducted over the spring and summer of 2015, during and after the New Museum triennial, within … Continue reading “In Conversation with Luke Willis Thompson”
This short essay was commissioned by Dissent Magazine, which after putting me through an arduous editorial exchange rejected it. (Draw your own conclusions). I attach the original essay here, slightly revised and welcome any comments. I hope to expand … Continue reading “A Note on Race and the Left”
