I didn’t realize how claustrophobic Wall Street’s Liberty Park was until I arrived at my home Occupy in Oakland. Rather than the jumble of tarp-covered shelters that grew and morphed rhizome-like through Liberty Park, Occupy Oakland’s colorful tents felt positively … Continue reading “We interrupt this dispatch … Occupy Oakland and the General Strike!”
Online Features
A History of Debt
Maryam Monalisa Gharavi
Under Review: David Graeber, Debt: The First 5,000 Years. Melville House Publishing: NY, 2011 ‘Tis to be a slave in soul, And to hold no strong control Over your own wills, but be All that others make of ye. –The Mask … Continue reading “A History of Debt”
The Ritual of General Assembly and the Bureaucracies of Anarchy
Hannah Chadeayne AppelIf you have spent anytime with Occupiers, you have seen people (sometimes by the thousands) hold their hands above their heads and wiggle their fingers. Jazz hands? Cult sign? Known as “twinkling” when it expresses a positive sentiment, the hand … Continue reading “The Ritual of General Assembly and the Bureaucracies of Anarchy”
The Dirt, or, Matter Out of Place
Hannah Chadeayne AppelIn her 1966 book Purity and Danger, anthropologist Mary Douglas famously explains dirt as “matter out of place.” Dirt does not index an objective category of pathogens or pollutants she suggests, but rather the designation of “dirt” indexes a contravention to a social order, and by extension, its boundaries.
The People's Microphone
Hannah Chadeayne Appel“Mic check!” The shouted exclamation punctuates the days at Occupy Wall Street (OWS). A lone voice yells it from somewhere in the crowd, soliciting the hoped-for response, “mic check!” yelled back by all within earshot of the initial call. Often the response is weak the first time around. Maybe the caller is surrounded by people new to the movement, who aren’t yet familiar with the rituals, or don’t yet feel comfortable making them their own; maybe the voices around her are tired, from so many days and weeks of the people’s microphone. But with a second, often more insistent call, “mic check!” the surrounding voices rise in response, “mic check!”
An Introduction
Hannah Chadeayne AppelOccupy Wall Street’s numbers have swelled to thousands here in New York City, not to mention the Occupy Together Movement across the country. At the October 10th General Assembly meeting–held every evening at 7pm–the kitchen announced that it serves 2000 people free food every day. The Occupied Wall Street Journal is in its second edition, with the first also translated into Spanish.
Tropic of Chaos: Christian Parenti Interviewed
Ashley DawsonIn this interview, Christian Parenti and Mike Menser discuss issues raised by Parenti’s recently published book Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence. The Geography of Catastrophic Convergence MM: Kenya, Uganda and East Africa, Afghanistan, Pakistan, … Continue reading “Tropic of Chaos: Christian Parenti Interviewed”
I was a Wall Street zombie
Tavia Nyong'oTechnically, I never worked on Wall Street. But, for a difficult year in my early twenties, I did don a suit at the crack of dawn and schlep down to one bank or another in the financial district or, occasionally, to one of its outposts in Long Island City, Queens, or Stamford, CT. Citibank, Chase Manhattan, American Express, Swiss Bank. I was a perma-temp in a series of glorified secretarial pools, the highest paid work my liberal arts degree could secure me, even in the middle of the Nineties dot com boom.
Is it a Crime? The Transgressive Politics of Hacking in Anonymous
Michael Ralph and Biella Coleman“Ain’t no such thing as halfway crooks…” -Mobb Deep, “Shook Ones,” Infamous Mobb Deep “there are so many different anonymous networks with different terms of use so i keep mixing them up” -Anonymous on Anonymous (#anonops) September 25, 2011 Joseph … Continue reading “Is it a Crime? The Transgressive Politics of Hacking in Anonymous”
Cameras are Weapons for #OccupyWallStreet
Michael MandibergTo note that a camera is a weapon is nothing new. Susan Sontag articulated the relationship between the camera and the semiotic violence that “turns people into objects that can be symbolically possessed.” For Sontag the violence was symbolic, as … Continue reading “Cameras are Weapons for #OccupyWallStreet”
Reparations and the Human
Social Text CollectiveA Lecture by David L. Eng
September 28, Wednesday
6:30 to 8 pm
This presentation explores the relationship between political and psychic genealogies of reparation. Reparation is a key term in political theory, but it is also a central concept in psychoanalysis (specifically object relations theory), yet the two are rarely discussed in relation to one another. In this talk, I will explore how political and psychic genealogies of reparation might supplement one another in theories of the human and discourses of human rights, while helping us to understand better the social and psychic limits of repairing war, violence, colonialism, and genocide.
Saher Shah: Object Anxiety
Social Text CollectiveSaher Shah, whose art is on the cover of Social Text #108, is having a solo exhibition at Scaramouche gallery in New York between now and October 30, 2011. From the gallery:
Featuring a collection of drawings, prints, photographs, and sculptural
works, “Object Anxiety” continues the artist’s exploration of
architectural modernism, specifically, new Brutalism’s engineered social
spaces and urban environments.
works, “Object Anxiety” continues the artist’s exploration of
architectural modernism, specifically, new Brutalism’s engineered social
spaces and urban environments.
Click here for more information.
Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor: An Interview with Rob Nixon
Ashley DawsonRob Nixon’s Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor was published this spring by Harvard University Press. Nixon’s work has been crucial to articulating the conjunction — as well as the fault lines — between postcolonial studies and ecocriticism. … Continue reading “Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor: An Interview with Rob Nixon”
Is Anonymous Anarchy?
Biella ColemanFor many, the political movement known as Anonymous conjures one thing and one thing alone: anarchy. I have now seen this association made so many times, I thought it might be a good idea to lay out in some detail … Continue reading “Is Anonymous Anarchy?”
Deficits, Debts, and Deepening Crisis
Richard WolffStandard and Poor downgrades US debt, stock markets gyrate around the world, Sarkozy and Merkel do yet another pointless summit, the Chinese and Japanese economies look worrisome. Serious commentators worry about global recession, Eurozone dissolution, and austerity programs that only … Continue reading “Deficits, Debts, and Deepening Crisis”