Before everything else, the Cochabamba conference was remarkable for bringing together a large group of radical activists from all around the world. The social connections and sense of possibility that resulted from the exchanges that unfolded in this setting were … Continue reading “From Copenhagen to Cochabamba”
Online Features
On Internet Punditry and Engendering Change
Biella ColemanOne day a very well known Internet theorist writes a rant on women. The rant generates controversy, controversy lands theorist on WNYC (On the Media), despite the fact the he does not really work on the politics of gender. If … Continue reading “On Internet Punditry and Engendering Change”
Issue 102 Reception April 30th
Social Text CollectivePlease join the collective Friday April 30th in celebrating the publication of Social Text 102, a special issue on “The Politics of Recorded Sound,” guest edited by Gustavus Stadler.
Report from ‘Innovation and the American Metropolis’ conference
Social Text CollectiveRecently, collective member Ashley Dawson live blogged from “Innovation and the
American Metropolis” organized by the Regional Plan Association. You can read the transcript here.
The Will to Power
Ashley DawsonThe World Bank yesterday approved a $3.75 billion loan for a new coal-fired power plant in Limpopo, South Africa. Named Medupi, the 4,800 megawatt plant will draw on South Africa’s abundant sources of coal to provide power for an increasingly … Continue reading “The Will to Power”
Postcard: Heaven and/or Hell
Social Text CollectiveBy Ernest Larsen and Sherry Millner. Suppose you take a barefoot walk along the sweeping stretch of white-powder China Beach toward what the marines called Monkey Mountain (toward Da Nang, that is, where U.S. soldiers were sent for R&R–the first marines deployed to Vietnam, came ashore at Namo Beach, on the north end of Da Nang in ’65). It’s best, if you have any sort of a sensitive streak, not to allow your gaze to stray too far ashore.
Postcard: My Lai Letter
Social Text CollectiveBy Ernest Larsen and Sherry Millner.It was the more than 40-year resonance of all those indelible place names that made the final reckoning for us to come to
Vietnam–but no such name was more fraught than My Lai. We hired a car and driver to take us on a cloudy day to what is called–not My Lai–the Son My Vestige Area.
Postcard from Cambodia: Siem Reap & Angkor Wat
Social Text CollectiveBy Ernest Larsen and Sherry Millner. The bus from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap makes its routine rest-stop in Kampong Thom, a dusty bustling provincial town. From the open-air restaurant, where we consume a quick bowl of pho, Sherry points out that the street corner sign reads in English: “Democrat Street.” I take a quick photo, noticing that we are in fact at the eternally imperiled corner of Democrat Street and National Road.
collateral murder
Biella ColemanIf anyone claims that “geek” or hacker politics is x (x usually being some version of libertarianism), I wouldn’t buy it. In fact, just like any sphere and arena, geek politics are remarkably varied.
Party with the Authors
Social Text CollectiveDear ST Collective Friends,
Please join Ed Cohen and David L. Eng, authors of A Body Worth Defending and A Feeling of Kinship for a joint book party on Sunday, 18 April 2010 at the Asian American Writers’ Workshop.
Postcard: Phnom Penh Notes
Social Text CollectiveBy Ernest Larsen and Sherry Millner. Travel: Getting from this place to that place in one piece. We arrived in Phnom Penh on the so-called fast boat from Chau Doc, a mere six hours upriver, and weighing at least two kilos lighter, after the slow/fast sweatbath in the ever-increasing heat. At the Viet/Cambodian border, a minor blip with Sherry’s passport might well have sent us back downriver.
Author Event and Book Party
Social Text CollectiveThe Center for Place, Culture and Politics invites you to celebrate publication of Protest and Organization in the Alternative Globalization Era by Heather Gautney.
Postcard: Saigon Letter
Social Text CollectiveBy Ernest Larsen and Sherry Millner. Sherry and I arrived at Tan Son Nhut Airport–a designation like so many others with a grim resonance for us for more than forty years–just minutes before Tet, the week-long New Year’s Festival was to begin. Outside the airport people were clamoring for taxis–so anxious or so excited were they to get into Saigon proper before the Year of the Tiger began. We got in the mood.
Out of Now: The Lifeworks of Tehching Hsieh
Alex PittmanReviewed: 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”
Meet the Regents
Susette MinWho are The Regents of the University of California? What is their role within this recent crisis and the entire UC system? Meet the Regents is an exhibit that raises these questions. More here.