Survival is our politics now. So says French political anthropologist Marc Abélès in The Politics of Survival. And so say many cultural producers today, although this admission often comes by way of what cultural theorist Fredric Jameson called the political … Continue reading “Staying Alive”
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The US Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel: Unsettling Exceptionalisms
Sunaina Maira
On July 1, 2011, the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI), sent a letter to several scholars at US universities, inviting them to join a historic delegation to Palestine. The letter began:
Radical Cross-Currents in Black Berlin
Social Text Collective
Tavia Nyong’o (New York University) and Eva Boesenberg (Humboldt Universität) will present a one-day symposium on the radical black presence in arts, music and literature in Berlin since the 1980.
Keynote Speaker:
Alex Weheliye (Northwestern University)
“White Brothers With No Soul?” The Racial Politics of Techno in Berlin
The event will also feature a free screening of the new documentary “Audre Lorde’s Legacy in Berlin.”
The event will be held Friday, July 27th, 2012, at Humboldt-Universität, Berlin, Dorotheenstr. 24, Raum 1.501. It is free and open to the public.
Please visit http://radicalblackberlin.wordpress.com for more information.
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Anna McCarthyA certain laxness surrounding nationalist outdoor decor
Anna McCarthyIf you happened to have been driving around the Republic of Ireland in the days after the country’s elimination from soccer’s European Championship you would have noted an unusual level of nationalism on display. From stone houses in rural Kerry, … Continue reading “A certain laxness surrounding nationalist outdoor decor”
Bird on Fire
Social Text Collective
Cities are the cradles of human civilization, and they are also the testing grounds for humanity’s future. Over 50% of human beings now live in cities, and that percentage is going to accelerate rapidly as the megacities of the global … Continue reading “Bird on Fire”
Neuroculture
Social Text Collective
The articles here by Kim Cunningham, Victoria Pitts-Taylor, Jesse Prinz, Deboleena Roy, and Alyson Spurgas are collectively the outcome of an experiment we undertook with a broader group of faculty and graduate students at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. This experiment, called NeuroCulture, … Continue reading “Neuroculture”
Palestine Diaries
Nikhil Pal Singh
When I told the Israeli border official who interviewed me that I was going to Ramallah, she sneered and wrinkled her brow: “Okay.” Why would anyone go there, she seemed to say. There was no mistaking her disapproval. Looking … Continue reading “Palestine Diaries”
Normalized Supremacy, Dignifying Resistance
Robin D. G. Kelley
I arrived in Ramallah well prepared . . . or so I thought. I’d read Saree Makdisi’s chilling portrait of Palestinian life under occupation, historical accounts by Rashid Khalidi, Walid Khalidi, Ilan Pappe, Nur Mashala, and Gabriel Piterberg, powerful critiques of Israeli apartheid leveled by Ali Abunimah, Omar Baghouti, and Uri Davis, exposés penned by Israeli journalists Amira Hass and Gideon Levy, as well as pro-Zionist voices such as Amos Oz and A.B. Yehoshua. I had Edward Said by my side, and the Electronic Intifada and the Palestine Monitor in my web browser. Our small delegation, formed at the behest of the U.S. Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, consisted of some of the smartest people I know, their collective knowledge of the situation surpassed only by our hosts at Birzeit University in Ramallah. We were there on a fact-finding mission.
One Occupation
j. kehaulani kauanui
When reflecting on the week-long visit to Occupied Palestine and Israel – the delegation organized by the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI) – in some ways, the meeting that was the most provocative was with the Palestinian academics who hosted us at a public policy research center in Haifa called Mada al-Carmel: Arab Center for Applied Social Research. There we encountered critical and incisive perspectives on the academic boycott by Palestinian citizens of Israel that showed how the politics look different from their social location. Their penetrating critiques and our productive dialogue ultimately strengthened my understanding of the situation of fragmentation on the ground in Palestine, and of the need to grapple with this complexity to address what is, after all, one occupation.
Building the Palestinian International
bill v. mullen
The eight meter high Apartheid Wall bordering the Aida Refugee Camp near Bethlehem features a tattered and faded replica of Pablo Picasso’s 1937 painting “Guernica.” The painting famously commemorates the bombing and massacre of nearly 1,600 civilians by Nazi German and Italian warplanes during the fight against fascism in the Spanish Civil War. Hand-painted barbed wire and a Palestinian flag frame the Wall’s reproduction. The caption above reads:
529-2
Social Text CollectiveOn July 1, 2011, the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI), sent a letter to several scholars at US universities, inviting them to join a historic delegation to Palestine. The letter began: We … Continue reading “529-2”
Postcard from Letterkenny, Co. Donegal, Eire.
Anna McCarthy
They’re returning to time-tested austerity measures in the West of Ireland.
Living Autonomy Today
Malav Kanuga
Thought follows action. A new precarious generation of cognitive workers knows this all too well, for their struggles trace the crumbling edifice of both the university and the global economy that increasingly depends on knowledge, affects, and information for its operations. If we begin with these struggles, we can dare to know much more about how our present circumstances are shaped by the knowledge economy.
Beyond Biopolitics: The Governance of Life and Death
Social Text CollectiveMay 4, 2012, 5:00pm | The James Gallery, CUNY Graduate Center Under the auspices of neoliberalism, technical systems of compliance and efficiency have come to underwrite a biopolitics of war, terror, and surveillance. On the occasion of the publication of Beyond Biopolitics: Essays … Continue reading “Beyond Biopolitics: The Governance of Life and Death”