ST PODCAST: Web editor Ashley Dawson sits down with former Social Text editor Andrew Ross to discuss his newest book, Creditocracy and the Case for Debt Refusal (OR Books, 2014).
Tag: ows
Why I Occupy
Nicholas Mirzoeff
Social Text Collective Member Nicholas Mirzoeff reads his September 2012 Public Culture essay “Why I Occupy.”
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”
Occupy University
occupy university
Occupy University (OccU) grew out of the Education and Empowerment working group of the Occupy Wall Street movement in fall 2011. Initially named Nomadic University, OccU was formed with the goal of creating a university for everyone, at which education … Continue reading “Occupy University”
Social Text Periscope on OWS
Ashley Dawson
Click here to read. On the one year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, Social Text is pleased to debut “Is This What Democracy Looks Like?” a collection of original essays on horizontalism in theory and practice. Written and edited by faculty and graduate … Continue reading “Social Text Periscope on OWS”
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.
Maypole
Tavia Nyong'oSnapshot from May Day demonstration in New York’s Union Square.
May Day Event Guide
Social Text Collective
This Tuesday is May Day. It’s going to be an amazing day around New York. From art and music in the streets, to a free university in Madison Square Park with lectures by David Harvey and others, to a “guitarmy” over 1000 strong with Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello leading the way, to a Brooklyn high school strike in Fort Greene park, to an unprecedented coalition of immigrant justice, unions, and occupy groups marching together, we have injustices to decry and our own power to celebrate. Click here for a list of events.
Striking New Relationships
Nicholas Mirzoeff
Re-posted from Occupy 2012. 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 … Continue reading “Striking New Relationships”
Back to the Big Apple
Ashley Dawson
Italy was really great, but it’s so good to be back in NYC! Today I walked through Union Square, which is filled with tables distributing information for Occupy May Day. There’s a very exciting series of events planned, as well … Continue reading “Back to the Big Apple”
Striking New Relationships
Nicholas MirzoeffWhy 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.
Take Artists Space: Dissensus and the Creation of Agonistic Space
Andrea Liu“What does it mean to be uninvited?” This is the question Benjamin Buchloh posed in response to the work of Christopher D’Arcangelo exhibited at Artists Space in October 2011. D’Arcangelo created unauthorized anarchist interventions into the gallery and erased … Continue reading “Take Artists Space: Dissensus and the Creation of Agonistic Space”
On Fear, Theory, and Acting Anyways
Hannah Chadeayne AppelIt has been through my participation in Occupy that I’ve first come to feel my citizenship, not in the narrow national sense, but in a broader sense of intentional political subjectivity in the world. Through my adult life I’ve voted, … Continue reading “On Fear, Theory, and Acting Anyways”
Protests, Petitions and Publishing: Widening Access to Research in 2012
Social Text CollectiveHow can access to important research and scholarship be available to all, not just “the one percent”? OnTuesday, February 28, at 12:00 PM in Columbia University’s Faculty House Presidential Rooms 2 & 3, join us for “Protests, Petitions and Publishing: Widening … Continue reading “Protests, Petitions and Publishing: Widening Access to Research in 2012”
People Before Process: the Bureaucracies of Anarchy Pt. 2
Hannah Chadeayne AppelSometime in early October I showed up to an OWS organizer’s meeting at 16 Beaver Street. 16 Beaver, like 56 Walker or Charlotte’s Place, is one of these magically anachronistic spaces in lower Manhattan that feel like something out of Patti Smith’s Just Kids — free space for art, activism, and organizing, embedded in some of the most expensive real estate in the world. Of course, to label these spaces “anachronistic” is to cede to capital its totalizing power.