with Neferti Tadiar (Barnard), Micki McGee (Fordham), Randy Martin and Michael Ralph (NYU) 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 … Continue reading “2011 Left Forum Don't Take the Bait: The Left and Crisis A Social Text Roundtable”
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Unhappiness is everywhere
Anna McCarthyDon't Take the Bait: The Left and Crisis – A Social Text Roundtable
Social Text CollectiveThe 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
New Middle Eastern Uprisings: Gender, Class and Security Politics in Egypt and Iran
Social Text CollectiveTuesday, Feb. 22, 12:30 to 2:00pm
Department of Social and Cultural Analysis, NYU
20 Cooper Square, 4th floor
The recent uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt are electrifying the Middle East and the world. At this lunch time panel, Paul Amar will lay out the forces behind the popular democracy movement in Egypt, and Manijeh Nasrabadi will offer some comparisons to the Green Revolution in Iran. Both will address the wider context of popular revolt in the Middle East. Come, bring your lunch, and engage in discussion about these momentous events.
The Promise of Happiness
Sean GrattanReviewed: 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”
World Social Forum (Dakar, Senegal, February 6th-11th)
Michael RalphST 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”
Egypt Unveiled
Ashley DawsonCheck out this great collection of images of Egyptian women involved in the uprising. It’s a really important alternative to the male-dominated images of the uprising emanating from mainstream media sources. Egyptian women are evidently taking a leading role in … Continue reading “Egypt Unveiled”
Ben Reiss article discussed in media
Social Text CollectiveBen Reiss’ article, “Madness after Virginia Tech: From Psychiatric Risk to Institutional Vulnerability” in the current issue of Social Text, will be the topic of discussion on KPFA’s Against the Grain this Wednesday, February 2, beginning at noon Pacific/3 Eastern and worldwide via kpfa.org. The audio will be archived afterward at againstthegrain.org.
Reiss has also published a related commentary in the Chronicle of Higher Education, “Campus Security and the Specter of Mental-Health Policing,” which you can read here.
Brent Edwards on NYC Jazz in the 1970s
Ashley DawsonColumbia University professor and Social Text member Brent Edwards to speak on Jazz in NYC during the 1970s In jazz history, the 1970s have habitually been overlooked or dismissed as a period when the music went into severe decline. But … Continue reading “Brent Edwards on NYC Jazz in the 1970s”
The Egyptian Revolution
Ashley DawsonI have been watching recent events in Egypt avidly from afar this weekend for both their tragic death toll and their incredibly exciting potential to end the autocratic regime of Hosni Mubarak. The fall of the Egyptian dictator would no … Continue reading “The Egyptian Revolution”
Wrestling with the Image
Ashley DawsonThe Art Museum of the Americas (AMA) announces the opening of Wrestling with the Image: Caribbean Interventions, an exhibition of contemporary art from twelve Caribbean countries. Featuring work by artists from the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago, the exhibition is curated by artist and curator Christopher Cozier and art historian Tatiana Flores.
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”