Why I Occupy

Nicholas Mirzoeff

Social Text Collective Member Nicholas Mirzoeff reads his September 2012 Public Culture essay “Why I Occupy.”

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After Sandy

Nicholas Mirzoeff

  The memories are very clear. I remember the transformer exploding. A flash of white. Purple, green and a neon pink. Then the lights go out. Cut.   I am on Rockaway Beach, beloved title of The Ramones for the … Continue reading “After Sandy”

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Educational Outliers

Michael Mandiberg

Education outside of the traditional classroom is on the rise. Again. New non-traditional learning scenarios are emerging in many academic disciplines, spurred on by DIY culture, a tidal wave of student debt, and changes in technology. Moving beyond questioning whether … Continue reading “Educational Outliers”

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Introduction

alex wescott

  This book, being about work, is, by its very nature, about violence–to the spirit as well as to the body. It is about ulcers as well as accidents, about shouting matches as well as fistfights, about nervous breakdowns as … Continue reading “Introduction”

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Smoke Break

genevieve yue

  As expected, twenty cigarettes are consumed in James Benning’s latest experimental feature, 20 Cigarettes (2011). In a series of portraits that borrow from (as Benning has explained in interviews) but also depart from Andy Warhol’s iconic Screen Tests, the … Continue reading “Smoke Break”

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I am not an activist. This is not a protest.

Evan Neely

One of the members of my working group, The People’s Think Tank, recommended me as a good person to speak to young activists last week at the Civil Rights Student Summit in New York organized by Teaching Matters. The folder they gave to the set of people they brought in to speak to the students, most of whom were in eighth grade, said “community activist” on the front. Reading that brought me back to a discussion facilitated by the Think Tank on May Day, where we got to talking about what it meant for us to be activists. When it was my turn to speak, the only words on offer were something like “I really don’t like to think of myself as an activist. I kind of want to think of myself as a normal person.

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Striking New Relationships

Nicholas Mirzoeff

Why do we strike on May Day? What is that strike? We strike in solidarity with global labor, our own histories and with each other. The action of striking is not just a withdrawal of labor but what Marina Sitrin calls “striking new relationships.” The actions of refusal to play the part expected of us, in whatever way we can, and imagining other ways of relating to each other are what will constitute a day of generally striking, a striking day.

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