The World Bank and Education

The World Bank and Education

THE WORLD BANK AND EDUCATION: CRITIQUES AND ALTERNATIVES

THE WORLD BANK AND EDUCATION

Critiques and Alternatives

Steven J. Klees, University of Maryland, USA; Joel Samoff, Stanford University, USA; and Nelly P. Stromquist (Eds.) University of Maryland, USA

Sense Publishers

For more than three decades, the World Bank has been proposing global policies for education.  Presented as research-based, validated by experience, and broadly applicable, these policies are ideologically driven,  insensitive to local contexts, and treat education as independent of international dynamics and national and local economies and cultures.  Target countries, needing resources and unable to generate comparable research, find it difficult to challenge World Bank recommendations.

The World Bank and Education:  Critiques and Alternatives represents a powerful challenge to World Bank proposals. Probing core issues—equity, quality, finance, privatization, teaching and learning, gender, and human rights—highlights the disabilities of neoliberal globalization. The authors demonstrate the ideological nature of the evidence marshaled by the World Bank and the accompanying policy advice.

Addressing key education issues in developing countries, the authors’ analyses provide tools for resisting and rejecting generic policy prescriptions as well as alternative directions to consider. Robert Arnove, in his preface, says, “whether the Bank is responsive to the critiques and alternatives brilliantly offered by the present authors, the book is certain to influence development and education scholars, policymakers, and practitioners around the globe.”

 

Sense Publishers

Comparative and International Education: A Diversity of Voices volume 14

ISBN 978-94-6091-902-2 hardback USD99/EUR90

ISBN 978-94-6091-901-5 paperback USD19/EUR17.50

April 2012, 268 pages

Sense Online: https://www.sensepublishers.com/product_info.php?products_id=1450&osCsid=f3d0c8f0782b298c81ab3847a87e65dd

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‘Stagnant’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo  

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Europeanizing Education

Europeanizing Education

EUROPEANIZING EDUCATION

Published recently…

Europeanizing Education: governing a new policy space

MARTIN LAWN & SOTIRIA GREK

2012 paperback 172 pages US$48.00
ISBN 978-1-873927-61-8

 
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The study of common and diverse effects in the field of education acrossEuropeis a growing field of inquiry and research. It is the result of many actions, networks and programmes over the last few decades and the development of common European education policies. Europeanizing Education describes the origins of European education policy, as it metamorphosed from cultural policy to networking support and into a space of comparison and data. The authors look at the early development and growth of research networks and agencies, and international and national collaborations. The gradual increase in the velocity and scope of education policy, practice and instruments acrossEuropeis at the heart of the book.

The European space of education, a new policy space, has been slowly coaxed into existence; governed softly and by persuasion; developed by experts and agents; and de-politicized by the use of standards and data. It has increasing momentum. It is becoming a single, commensurable space on a rising tide of indicators and benchmarks. The construction of policy spaces by the European Union makesEuropegovernable: policy spaces have to be mobilized by networks of actors and constructed by comparative data. They are the result of transnational flows of people, ideas and practices across European borders; the direct effects of European Union policy; and, finally, the Europeanizing effect of international institutions and globalization.

The European space of education and research has become a new place of work through interconnected institutions, networks and companies, and it is being constructed through the flow of policy ideas, knowledge and practices from place to place, sector to sector, organization to organization, and across borders. This book will be useful to any scholar of the new arena of study, the European Space of Education.

Contents

1 Introduction
A Single Space? Comparison and Complexity; Networks and Standards; The Creation of the European Education Space; The Importance of ‘Soft’: networks, space and meaning; Concluding: main points of the argument

2 Research and Policy in European Education: the first stage
Europe in Competition; Mid-Twentieth-Century European Research Formation; Research Projects; Developing European Research Institutions and Skills; UNESCO and the Comparativists; The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) and Surveys; The International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP) and Educational Statistics; The Idea of a Common Project; Janne Report; Conclusion

3 Chaotic Uniformity: the rise of the European dimension in education, 1970-2000
Governing by Cooperation; Culture and Affinity; From Chaotic Uniformity to Networked Cooperation

4 Governing Education: the use of persuasive and unobtrusive power in the European Union
Introduction; Governing Associations Softly; Associations and Networks; Experts and Associations – EERA; Building a Platform: fluidity and stability in EERA; Finding a Platform – EERA; Idea of the Space and the Platform; Conclusion

5 Governance by Experts and Standards?
Using Experts; Ideas Brokers; Building a System through Standards; Assembling a Learning Space: data and platforms; Final Point

6 Second Wave Policy in European Union Education, 2000-2010
From Education to Learning: the role of data; Measuring Europe:Lisbon (2000) and after; ‘Key Data on Education inEurope’: an overview of the Eurydice Reports of 2000, 2002 and 2005; Conclusion

7 The New Political Work of Calculating Education
Constructing Data: European agencies; Eurostat; Eurydice; Constructing Europe: the role of actors; Concluding Comments

8 The OECD as an Agent of Europeanization in Education: the impact of international education assessment tools
Introduction; OECD and the Politics of Comparison; The Programme for International Student Assessment; The Case of Finland; The Case of Germany; The Case of the United Kingdom; PISA and Europe; Discussion

9 School Self-evaluation as Travelling Policy across Europe: the role of the Scottish Inspectorate and SICI
Introduction; From the View of the Local: school self-evaluation inScotland; SSE as a Travelling Policy: the Role of SICI; SICI: the beginnings; Self-Evaluation and SICI; Discussion

10 Conclusions

Notes – References – Notes on the Authors

Related titles:

Globalisation and Europeanisation in Education ROGER DALE & SUSAN ROBERTSON

An Atlantic Crossing? The Work of the International Examination Inquiry, its Researchers, Methods and Influence MARTIN LAWN

Materialities of Schooling: design, technology, objects, routines MARTIN LAWN & IAN GROSVENOR

Modelling the Future: exhibitions and the materiality of education MARTIN LAWN

SYMPOSIUM BOOKS
PO Box 204, Didcot, Oxford OX11 9ZQ, United Kingdom, info@symposium-books.co.uk

Specialist publishers of Comparative and International Education.
Please see our online catalogue at www.symposium-books.co.uk for bibliographical details, contents pages, and a secure order form.

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‘Stagnant’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo  

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Book Launch for ‘Truth and Revolution’ – by Michael Staudenmaier

Revolution

BOOK LAUNCH FOR ‘TRUTH AND REVOLUTION’ BY MICHAEL STAUDENMAIER

At Encuentro Cinco (33 Harrison Avenue in Boston MA)

Tuesday, May 22, 2012 at 6:00pm

Sponsored by the Howard Zinn Memorial Lecture Series:

Book launch for ‘Truth and Revolution’ by Michael Staudenmaier

Founded in Chicago in 1969 from the rubble of the recently crumbled SDS, the Sojourner Truth Organization (STO) brought working-class consciousness to the forefront of New Left discourse, sending radicals back into the factories and thinking through the integration of radical politics into everyday realities.

Through the influence of founding members like Noel Ignatiev and Don Hamerquist, STO took a Marxist approach to the question of race and revolution, exploring the notion of “white skin privilege,” and helping to lay the groundwork for the discipline of critical race studies.

Michael Staudenmaier is a twenty year veteran anarchist and student of revoutionary movements and a doctoral candidate in history at the University ofIllinois.

 

**END**

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‘The Lamb’ by William Blake – set to music by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw3VloKBvZc

 

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On Giant Hammers and the Poetics of Protest

Hammer

ON GIANT HAMMERS AND THE POETICS OF PROTEST

The El Martillo Project
Eclectic Electric Collective

In 2010 an inconspicuous looking suitcase was sent from Berlin to Mexico City containing a 39-foot tall inflatable silver hammer. Thus began El Martillo’s odyssey to protest the United Nations Climate Conference in Cancún. El Martillo’s short, but glorious life, climaxed when protesters from Marea Creciente (Rising Tide) stormed the conference complex fences, gigantic hammer above their heads. In full view of the press Mexican police tore the inflatable to pieces. Within an hour global the media corporations declared El Martillo a symbol of the climate changes protests as its image travelled across the world.

The El Martillo Project documents the whole process from its conception and construction to the media flurry it sparked off. Included are numerous full color images and documentation of the project; texts and analysis by David Graeber, Alex Dunst, and Cristian Guerrero; an interview with John Jordan from the Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination; and a fold out technical manual and plan for creating giant inflatable hammers.

Initially inspired by the quote “Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it,” The El Martillo Project aims to inspire creative action and joyful disobedience.

Bio: Eclectic Electric is a German art collective operating at the borders of art and activism.
Eclectic Electric Collective: http://www.eclectic-electric-collective.blogspot.com
Video Trailer for the El Martillo action: http://vimeo.com/32073199

PDF available freely online (http://www.minorcompositions.info/?p=357)

Released by Minor Compositions, Wivenhoe / Brooklyn/ Port Watson
Minor Compositions is a series of interventions & provocations drawing from autonomous politics, avant-garde aesthetics, and the revolutions of everyday life.

Minor Compositions is an imprint of Autonomedia
http://www.minorcompositions.info  |minorcompositions@gmail.com

**END**

 

‘I believe in the afterlife.

It starts tomorrow,

When I go to work’

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Human Herbs’ at: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic (recording) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h7tUq0HjIk (live)

 

‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

 

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The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

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Autonomedia – New Titles

Autonomia

AUTONOMEDIA – NEW TITLES

New Titles

 

Revolutions in Reverse: Essays on Politics, Violence, Art, and Imagination

David Graeber

Capitalism as we know it appears to be coming apart. But as financial institutions stagger and crumble, there is no obvious alternative. There is good reason to believe that, in a generation or so, capitalism will no longer exist: for the simple reason that it’s impossible to maintain an engine of perpetual growth forever on a finite planet. Yet faced with this prospect, the knee-jerk reaction is often to cling to what exists because they simply can’t imagine an alternative that wouldn’t be even more oppressive and destructive. The political imagination seems to have reached an impasse. Or has it?

In this collection of essays David Graeber explores a wide-ranging set of topics including political strategy, global trade, debt, imagination, violence, aesthetics, alienation, and creativity. Written in the wake of the anti-globalization movement and the rise of the war on terror, these essays survey the political landscape for signs of hope in unexpected places.

At a moment when the old assumption about politics and power have been irrefutably broken the only real choice is to begin again: to create a new language, a new common sense, about what people basically are and what it is reasonable for them to expect from the world, and from each other. In this volume Graeber draws from the realms of politics, art, and the imagination to start this conversation and to suggest that that the task might not be nearly so daunting as we’d be given to imagine.

More information

Buy the book here

++

Communization and its Discontents: Contestation, Critique, and Contemporary Struggles

Edited by Benjamin Noys

Can we find alternatives to the failed radical projects of the twentieth century? What are the possible forms of struggle today? How do we fight back against the misery of our crisis-ridden present? ‘Communization’ is the spectre of the immediate struggle to abolish capitalism and the state, which haunts Europe,Northern Californiaand wherever the real abstractions of value that shape our lives are contested. Evolving on the terrain of capitalism new practices of the ‘human strike’, autonomous communes, occupation and insurrection have attacked the alienations of our times. These signs of resistance are scattered and have yet to coalesce, and their future is deliberately precarious and insecure.

Bringing together voices from inside and outside of these currents Communization and Its Discontents treats communization as a problem to be explored rather than a solution. Taking in the new theorizations of communization proposed by Tiqqun and The Invisible Committee, Théorie Communiste, post-autonomists, and others, it offers critical reflections on the possibilities and the limits of these contemporary forms, strategies, and tactics of struggle.

More information

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++

19 & 20: Notes for a New Social Protagonism

Colectivo Situaciones, with introductions by Michael Hardt & Antonio Negri

New book from Colectivo Situaciones… an 18th Brumaire for the 21st Century: militant research on the December 19th and 20th, 2001 uprisings inArgentina… In the heat of an economic and political crisis, people inArgentinatook to the streets on December 19th, 2001, shouting “¡Qué se vayan todos!” These words – “All of them out!” – hurled by thousands banging pots and pans, struck at every politician, economist, and journalist. These events opened a period of intense social unrest and political creativity that led to the collapse of government after government. Neighborhoods organized themselves into hundreds of popular assemblies across the country, the unemployed workers movement acquired a new visibility, workers took over factories and businesses. These events marked a sea change, a before and an after forArgentinathat resonated around the world.

Colectivo Situaciones wrote this book in the heat of that December’s aftermath. As radicals immersed within the long process of reflection and experimentation with forms of counterpower that Argentines practiced in shadow of neoliberal rule, Colectivo Situaciones knew that the novelty of the events of December 19th and 20th demanded new forms of thinking and research. This book attempts to read those struggles from within. Ten years have passed, yet the book remains as relevant and as fresh as the day it came out. Multitudes of citizens from different countries have learned their own ways to chant ¡Qué se vayan todos!, fromIcelandtoTunisia, fromSpaintoGreece, fromTahrir SquaretoZuccottiPark. Colectivo Situactiones’ practice of engaging with movements’ own thought processes resonates with everyone seeking to think current events and movements, and through that to build a new world in the shell of the old.

More information

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++

Undressing the Academy, or The Student Handjob

University of Strategic Optimism

The weary student handbook genre is in need of a belligerent mauling. This is our crack at the job. We don’t want to talk down to anyone, but neither do we want to chat them up, so this is an attempt at thinking out the university from our own perspective, that of students. Here we air our dirty snapshot of the academy, at least semi-naked, just as we come across it. This potted guide is our pot shot at undressing and dressing down this place, the university, and understanding our place within it: its problems and potential, its power-relations and its possibilities for politicization. This is our attempt to share some of the knowledge to be gleaned in the university, but a knowledge that is rarely measured on any certificate come graduation day.

Written collectively by the University for Strategic Optimism, in the queasy come-down afterglow of the recent wave of student activism in the UK (but looking forward to cracking-off another round), this guide attempts to contextualize our struggle and to bring it closer to home. Just what is the university that we are fighting for anyway? And what perhaps could it be?

More information

Buy the book here

 

**END**

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The Politics of Postcolonialism

Books

THE POLITICS OF POSTCOLONIALISM

The Politics of Postcolonialism: Empire, Nation and Resistance
Rumina Sethi

Paperback | 9780745323633 | £17.99 / $28
Hardback | 9780745323640 | £60 / $90

To buy the book visit: http://www.plutobooks.com/display.asp?K=9780745323633

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ADOPTED ON 20 UNIVERSITY COURSES

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‘This book develops an argument that is both even-handed and radical. Rumina Sethi explores the history and the difficulties of post-colonial theory and without jettisoning its value she urges quite fresh thinking about its political and social implications.’ — Dame Gillian Beer, King Edward VII Professor Emeritus, University of Cambridge

‘Rumina Sethi challenges postcolonial critics to put their feet back on the ground and to link the postcolonial once again to the political activism by which it has always been inspired.’ — Robert J.C. Young, Julius Silver Professor of English & Comparative Literature at New York University

‘”If postcolonial studies is to be relevant today,” Rumina Sethi argues, “it must become the voice of the people and theorize about movements against globalization, not become part of its grand design.” Her critical analysis of the “politics of postcolonialism” and the lack of constructive dialogue with the Marxist perspective, interweaving with analysis of globalization and the state of “postcoloniality,” seeks to overcome the academic ossification of concepts that should be integrated with social change and activism.’ — Noam Chomsky

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In a period of global restructuring, unrestricted capital has eroded the traditional distinctions between nations and nationhood. In ‘The Politics of Postcolonialism’, Rumina Sethi devises a new form of postcolonial studies that makes sense of these dramatic changes.

Returning to the origins of the discipline, Sethi identifies it as a tool for political protest and activism among people of the third world. Using a sophisticated mix of spatial theory and local politics, she examines the uneven terrain of contemporary anti-capitalism and political upsurges in Africa, Asia and Latin America, emphasising postcolonial politics, dissent and resistance. Her analysis shows that as the traditional means of direct political control have largely lost their hold, postcolonial cultures, now dominated by neoliberalism, need to seek fresh ways to express their discontent.

This original and persuasive work frees the discipline from its current preoccupation with hybridity and multiculturalism, giving students of politics, cultural studies and international relations a new perspective on postcolonialism.

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RUMINA SETHI is a Professor in the department of English and Cultural Studies at Panjab University, Chandigarh, India. She is the author of ‘Myths of the Nation: National Identity and Literary Representation’ (1999). She wrote her doctoral thesis atTrinityCollege,Cambridge, and was a British Academy Fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford. She was awarded the Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship in 2006.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

1. Postcolonialism and its Discontents: An introduction
2. The End of the Nation?
3. Globalization and Protest
4. The United States and Postcolonialism
5. Conclusion: New Directions

Notes
Bibliography
Index

—————————————————————————————
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Get Political Campaign

Bonuses for Some

GET POLITICAL CAMPAIGN

Fifty key figures on the left, including China Miéville, Lindsey German, Ken Loach, Suzi Weissman, Michael Yates and Immanuel Ness, have backed a Pluto Press campaign urging activists fighting for the 99% to draw inspiration from the lives and writings of three giants of 20th century political change: Leon Trotsky, Rosa Luxemburg and VI Lenin. The Get Political campaign statement (www.getpoliticalnow.com) contends that ‘It will not be a simple thing to win the battle of democracy … Luxemburg, Trotsky and Lenin were among the most perceptive and compelling revolutionaries of the 20th century. The body of analysis, strategy and tactics to which they contributed was inseparable from the mass struggles of their time. Critically engaging with their ideas can enrich the thinking and practical activity of those involved in today’s and tomorrow’s struggles for a better world.’

********

‘The Occupy movement and the anti-cuts movement have made a huge impact in a short space of time, but we must build on these successes in order to advance struggles of the future. By engaging with the lives and ideas of Lenin, Luxemburg and Trotsky, activists will find vital analyses and organisational strategies which can help us overcome setbacks and cause a leftward shift of the political mainstream.’ - PAUL LE BLANC, author and co-ordinator

********

NEW ‘GET POLITICAL’ CAMPAIGN WEBSITE

FEATURES STUDY GUIDES, READING LISTS AND SLIDE SHOWS ON THE IDEAS OF TROTSKY, LENIN AND LUXEMBURG AND AN INTRODUCTION TO MARXISM

VISIT: www.getpoliticalnow.com

********

Leon Trotsky

Writings in Exile
Leon Trotsky, edited by Kunal Chattopadhyay and Paul Le Blanc
Paperback | 9780745331485 | £14.99 / $25
Hardback | 9780745331447 | £50 / $80

To browse contents or buy the book visit: http://www.plutobooks.com/display.asp?K=9780745331485

‘This bracing book provides theoretical nourishment for our times, just as millions take to the streets worldwide demanding a just economic system. Leon Trotsky hit the world stage as President of the St. Petersburg Soviet in the 1905 Russian Revolution and he continues to educate and inspire. His flame refuses to be extinguished.’ – Suzi Weissman, Professor of Politics, Saint Mary’s College of California

‘Leon Trotsky’s ideas inspired Minnesota teamsters and Bolivian miners, Filipino peasants from Mindanao and rebel students in the Latin Quarter, New York intellectuals and French Surrealist poets. Thanks to the initiative of Kunal Chattopadhyay and Paul Le Blanc, some of the most important writings from this period are now available in one volume; considered with an open and critical mind, they will certainly provide precious tools for a Socialism of the 21st Century.’ – Michael Löwy, Emeritus Research Director in Social Sciences at the National Centre of Scientific Research (CNRS), Paris
********

V.I. Lenin

Revolution, Democracy, Socialism: Selected Writings

V.I. Lenin, edited by Paul Le Blanc

Paperback | 9780745327600 | £14.99 / $25
Hardback | 9780745331447 | £55 / $89

To browse contents or buy the book visit: http://www.plutobooks.com/display.asp?K=9780745327600& 

‘We desperately need the resurrection and revival of the kind of strategic thinking and principled commitment that Lenin epitomised in the era of 1917, and all that it promised.  For those interested in this rebirth of the politics of alternative to capitalism, Paul Le Blanc’s account of the democratic, socialist, and revolutionary Lenin will prove indispensable.  Reading it is a reminder that what is, need not be, and that what has, seemingly, failed, can be reconstituted anew.’ - Professor Bryan Palmer,TrentUniversity

********

Rosa Luxemburg

Socialism or Barbarism: Selected Writings
Rosa Luxemburg, edited by Paul Le Blanc and Helen C. Scott
Paperback | 9780745329888 | £12.99 / $19.99
Hardback | 9780745329895 | £40 / $65

To browse contents or buy the book visit: http://www.plutobooks.com/display.asp?K=9780745329888& 

‘Rosa Luxemburg has never been more relevant!  Here, at last, in a single volume is an accessible introduction to one of the most important radical political thinkers of the 20th century with analysis and insight for a new generation of activist.’ - Elaine Bernard, Executive Director of the Labor and Worklife Program, Harvard Law School
********
INSPECTION COPIES
To request an inspection copy please send the following details to jonm@plutobooks.com:

- the course name
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- full university address (this is where the book will be sent)

We need all these details to be able to be able to process a request. Inspection copies are provided with an invoice that is cancelled if the book is adopted for a course, or returned in a resalable condition.

You can also request inspection copies using our online form at www.plutobooks.com/lecturers.asp.

REVIEW COPIES
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EBOOKS
Many Pluto books are available electronically. Libraries can subscribe to the Pluto eBook list via The Academic Library (www.theacademiclibrary.com). Individual titles can be ordered from many vendors, including Dawson (www.dawsonera.com) in the UK and Ingram (www.myilibrary.com) in the UK, US and worldwide.

ORDERS
To place an order, visit our website at www.plutobooks.com.

Best regards,
Jonathan Maunder

Academic Marketing
Pluto Press
Email: jonm@plutobooks.com
Tel: 020 8348 2724
www.plutobooks.com

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Online Publications at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

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Hisham Matar: Men Who Tiptoe Into Their Marital Bedroom

Marital Bedroom

HISHAM MATAR: MEN WHO TIPTOE INTO THEIR MARITAL BEDROOM

HISHAM MATAR was born in New York City to Libyan parents and spent his childhood first in Tripoliand then in Cairo.  His first novel, In the Country of Men, was published in 2006 and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the Guardian First Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award in the U.S.It won six international literary awards, including the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize Best First Book award for Europe and South Asia, the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize and the inaugural Arab American Book Award. It has been translated into twenty-eight languages. Hisham Matar lives in London.

‘THE GLOBALISATION LECTURES’
Winter 2012
Organised by the Department of Development Studies
School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS)
University of London
Convenor: Professor Gilbert Achcar

MEN WHO TIPTOE INTO THEIR MARITAL BEDROOMS: THE NOVELIST AND DICTATORSHIP

HISHAM MATAR
Libyan novelist, author of In the Country of Men and Anatomy of a Disappearance

Monday 5 March, 6:30pm
SOAS, Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre
Free entrance, registration requested (link on the SOAS front page), first come first seated

**END**

‘I believe in the afterlife.

It starts tomorrow,

When I go to work’

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Human Herbs’ at: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic (recording) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h7tUq0HjIk (live)

‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

‘Stagnant’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo  

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

‘The Lamb’ by William Blake – set to music by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw3VloKBvZc

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Workers, State and Development in Brazil

Brazil

WORKERS, STATE AND DEVELOPMENT IN BRAZIL

A book launch of Ben Selwyn’s ‘Workers, State and Development in North East Brazil: Powers of Labour, Chains of Value’ (Manchester University Press, 2012)

8 March 2012, Russell Square: College Buildings, 4418, London
5:15 PM – 7:00 PM

Within the field of development studies, the importance of class relations is usually relegated to lesser status than the roles of states and markets in generating and allocating resources. This book argues that processes of class formation, struggle, and crucially, the changing balance of class forces between capital and labour constitute a key determinant of different patterns of capitalist development. Workers, state and development in Brazil illuminates these key issues in political economy through a detailed empirical investigation of the nexus between class dynamics and developmental processes and outcomes in North East Brazil’s São Francisco valley. It details how workers in the valley’s export grape sector have utilized their structural and associational power to win concessions from employers, contributing to a progressive pattern of regional capitalist development. Based on a stimulating engagement with and critique of World Systems Theory and the Global Commodity Chains approach, this book will be of wide-ranging interest to those interested in understanding how global dynamics impact on local development. It will appeal to students and researchers interested in processes of capitalist development, class formation and dynamics, North East Brazilian political economy and International Political Economy.

Ben Selwyn is Senior Lecturer in International Relations and Development Studies in the Department of International Relations, University of Sussex

Contents
Introduction.
1. Global commodity chains, labour history and capitalist development.
2. Emergence of export grape production in North East Brazil.
3. Grape workers: structural power and associational power.
4. Women workers.
5. Managing labour.
6. Class compromise.
7. Conclusions.
Bibliography.

234x156mm 256pp
HB 978-0-7190-8531-4 £65.00
4 line illustrations, 1 map, 19 tables

Manchester University Press
Oxford Road
ManchesterM13 9NR

**END**

‘Stagnant’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo  

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

‘The Lamb’ by William Blake – set to music by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw3VloKBvZc

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic

The Ockress: http://www.theockress.com

Theory As History: Essays on Modes of Production and Exploitation – by Jairus Banaji

Panopticon

THEORY AS HISTORY: ESSAYS ON MODES OF PRODUCTION AND EXPLOITATION – BY JAIRUS BANAJI 

THEORY AS HISTORY

ESSAYS ON MODES OF PRODUCTION AND EXPLOITATION

JAIRUS BANAJI

AVAILABLE NOW

———————————–

WINNER OF THE 2011 ISAAC AND TAMARA DEUTSCHER MEMORIAL PRIZE
AVAILABLE AT A SPECIAL 30% DISCOUNT

In celebration of the fact that Theory as History, a title from the Historical Materialism Book Series (http://www.haymarketbooks.org/category/hm-series), has been awarded the prestigious Deutscher Prize, Haymaket Books is offering a 30% discount of all copies sold through our website. Simply enter the coupon code “THEORY30” at checkout to receive the discount.

———————————–

The essays collected here straddle four decades of work in both historiography and Marxist theory, combining source-based historical work in a wide range of languages with sophisticated discussions of Marx’s notion of ‘modes of production.’ From the emergence of medieval relations of production; the origins of capitalism; the dichotomy between free and unfree labour; and essays in agrarian history that range widely from Byzantine Egypt to 19th -century colonialism. The essays demonstrate the importance of reintegrating theory with history and of bringing history back into historical materialism.

———————————–

PRAISE FOR THEORY AS HISTORY

“The great merit of this volume is that it establishes an approach for [the debates about the nature and origin of capitalism] that is deeply theoretical, but at the same time refreshingly unhampered by the kind of doctrinaire attachment to a perceived (and often misread) orthodoxy that plagued so much of “historical materialism” for the past century. It is scholarly, without being purely academic … Banaji’s book deserves to be read and debated as one of the starting points for a new wave of Marxist historiography, still in the process of liberating itself from the ghost of its formalist past.”
—PEPIJNBRANDON, International Socialism

“Banaji’s seemingly idiosyncratic but in fact highly sophisticated and original approach to historical analysis provides not only a welcome stimulus and a challenge for scholars today, but also will give them plenty to think about for many years to come”
—MARCEL van der LINDEN, research director of the International Institute of Social History

“Theory as History is a book written at the summit of a lifetime’s engagement with issues of Marxist theory and practice … Banaji’s work demonstrates that no aspect of human history is irrelevant to the present. His scholarship shows immense skill, depth and range … [proving] it is not the Marxist method that has been at fault, but the dominance of non-Marxist theory and method in the minds of Marxist .” —Counterfire

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JAIRUS BANAJI spent most of his academic life atOxford. He has been a Research Associate in the Department of Development Studies, SOAS,University ofLondon, for the past several years. He is the author of Agrarian Change in Late Antiquity (Oxford, 2007).

———————————–

ISBN: 978-1-60846-1431 / $28 / Paperback / 408 pages

———————————–

For more information or to buy the book visit: www.haymarketbooks.org; to request review or examination copies write to john@haymarketbooks.org 

**END**

‘Stagnant’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo  

‘The Lamb’ by William Blake – set to music by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw3VloKBvZc

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Occupy Everything!

Occupy

OCCUPY EVERYTHING!

Just in time for Valentine’s Day… a new collection of essays on the composition of current struggles…

Occupy Everything! Reflections on why it’s kicking off everywhere
Edited by Alessio Lunghi & Seth Wheeler

Penned after the 2010 European student unrest and before what is now commonly referred to as the “Arab spring” began to escalate, BBC Newsnight economist Paul Mason’s “20 Reasons Why It’s Kicking Off Everywhere” sought to establish an understanding of the motivations behind these globally disparate, yet somehow connected struggles.

What roles do the “graduate with no future,” the “digital native” or the “remainder of capital” play in the current wave of unrest? What are the ideas, ideologies, motivations or demands driving these movements? How is struggle organized and coordinated in the age of memetic politics and viral ad campaigns?

This collection of essays seeks to further explore Paul Mason’s original 20 Reasons in an attempt to better understand our turbulent present.

“A startling insight into the aims, dreams and ideologies of a generation of radicalized youth.” –Paul Mason, author of Meltdown and Why It’s Kicking Off Everywhere

“…an encomium to still, as yet, unfocused possibilities. Each fragment is provocative and possessed of the same energies as the movements it seeks to describe.” – Aaron Peters, Open Democracy

“…this book has the inside track on how we can keep ‘kicking off’  for an end to capitalism and for the establishment of a global commons. Read, discuss and take action.”– Ewa Jasiewicz, Trade Union Organizer / Journalist

Contributors: 500 Hammers – Thomas Gillespie & Victoria Habermehl – The Free Association – Deterritorial Support Group – Ben Lear & Raph Schlembach – Camille Barbagallo & Nicholas Beuret – David Robertshaw, Rohan Orton & Will Barker – Antonis Vradis – Tabitha Bast & Hannah McClure – Andre Pusey & Bertie Russell – Federico Campagna – Emma Dowling

PDF available freely online (http://www.minorcompositions.info/?p=372).

Released by Minor Compositions, Wivenhoe / New York / Port Watson
Minor Compositions is a series of interventions & provocations drawing from autonomous politics, avant-garde aesthetics, and the revolutions of everyday life.

Minor Compositions is an imprint of Autonomedia
www.minorcompositions.info |info@minorcompositions.info

**END**

 

‘I believe in the afterlife.

It starts tomorrow,

When I go to work’

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Human Herbs’ at: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic (recording) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h7tUq0HjIk (live)

 

‘Maximum levels of boredom

Disguised as maximum fun’

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Stagnant’ at: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic (recording) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLjxeHvvhJQ (live, at the Belle View pub, Bangor, north Wales)  

 

‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

‘Stagnant’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo  

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

‘The Lamb’ by William Blake – set to music by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw3VloKBvZc

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic

The Ockress: http://www.theockress.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Online Publications at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Reviews in Cultural Theory

 

Aesthetics

REVIEWS IN CULTURAL THEORY

Dear All

We’re writing to announce the publication of several new reviews accessible at reviewsinculture.com. We’d also like to invite you to contribute to RCT by offering to review one of the books listed in the latter half of this message.

New Reviews

The Pig Stays in the Picture: Visual/Literary Narratives of Human-Animal Intimacies: Susan McHugh. Animal Stories: Narrating Across Species Lines. University of Minnesota Press, 2011. 280pp.

No Exit? Imagining Radical Refusal: Simon During. Exit Capitalism: Literary Culture, Theory, and Post-Secular Modernity. Routledge, 2010. 280 pp.

Architectural Positions: Pier Vittorio Aureli. The Possibility of an Absolute Architecture. MIT Press, 2011. 251 pp.

Pattern Pre-Recognition: Richard Grusin. Premediation: Affect and Mediality in America after 9/11. Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. 208 pp.

Reading Age and Disability in Film: Sally Chivers. The Silvering Screen: Old Age and Disability in Cinema. University of Toronto Press, 2011. 213 pp.

The Meaning of Christ and the Meaning of Hegel: Slavoj Žižek and John Milbank. The Monstrosity of Christ: Paradox or Dialectic? Ed. Creston Davis. MIT Press, 2009. 320 pp.

Affecting Feminist Subjects, Rewriting Feminist Theory: Clare Hemmings. Why Stories Matter: The Political Grammar of Feminist Theory. Duke University Press, 2011. 272 pp.
Books Available for Review

In addition to inviting reviewers for the books listed below, we also welcome proposals for longer review essays, focusing on recently published (2012-) titles. If you are interested in contributing a review or a review essay to RCT, please write to us at editors@reviewsinculture.com.

Charles R. Acland. Swift Viewing: The Popular Life of Subliminal Influence. Duke University Press, 2012.

Giorgio Agamben. The Kingdom and the Glory: For a Theological Genealogy of Economy and Government. Trans. Lorenzo Chiesa and Matteo Mandarini. Stanford UP, 2011.

Alain Badiou. Trans. Gregory Elliott. The Rebirth of History: Times of Riots and Uprisings. Verso, 2012.

Lauren Berlant. Cruel Optimism. Duke University Press, 2011.

Bruno Bosteels. Badiou and Politics. Duke University Press, 2011.

Susan Brown, Jeanne Perreault, Jo-Ann Wallace, and Heather Zwicker, eds. Not Drowning But Waving: Women, Feminism and the Liberal Arts. University of Alberta Press, 2011.

James V. Catano and Daniel A. Novak, eds. Masculinity Lessons: Rethinking Men’s and Women’s Studies. John Hopkins University Press, 2011.

Eric Cazdyn. The Already Dead: The New Time of Politics, Culture, and Illness. Duke University Press, 2012.

May Chazan, Lisa Helps, Anna Stanley, and Sonali Thakkar. Home and Native Land: Unsettling Multiculturalism in Canada. Between the Lines Press, 2011.

Rey Chow. Entanglements, or Transmedial Thinking about Capture. Duke University Press, 2012.

Jean Comaroff and John L. Comaroff. Theory from the South: or, How Euro-America is Evolving Toward Africa. Paradigm, 2012.

William E. Connolly.  A World of Becoming. Duke University Press, 2011.

Grant H. Kester. The One and the Many: Contemporary Collaborative Art in a Global Context. Duke University Press, 2011.

Vicky Kirby. Quantum Anthropologies: Life at Large. Duke University Press, 2011.

Tonya K. Davidson,OndinePark, and Rob Shields, eds. Ecologies of Affect: Placing Nostalgia, Desire, and Hope.  Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2011.

Kit Dobson and Áine McGlynn, eds. Transnationalism, Activism, Art. University of Toronto Press, 2012.

Boris Groys. Introduction to Antiphilosophy. Verso, 2012.

David Harvey. Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution. Verso, 2012.

Sharon Patricia Holland. The Erotic Life of Racism. Duke University Press, 2012.

Andrew Karvonen. The Politics of Urban Runoff: Nature, Technology and the Sustainable City. MIT Press, 2011.

Garry Neil Kennedy. TheLastArtCollege:Nova ScotiaCollegeof Art and Design, 1968-1978. MIT Press, 2012.

Katie King. Networked Reenactments: Stories Transdisciplinary Knowledges Tell. Duke University Press, 2012.

Michael G. Lacy and Kent A. Ono, eds. Critical Rhetorics of Race.New York University Press, 2011.

Stephanie Li. Signifying Without Specifying: Racial Discourse in the Age of Obama. Rutgers UP, 2011.

A. Ricardo López and Barbara Weinstein, eds. The Making of the Middle Class: Toward a Transnational History. Duke University Press, 2012.

Lucio Magri. The Tailor of Ulm: Communism in the Twentieth Century. Verso, 2012.

Walter D. Mignolo. The Darker Side of Western Modernity: Global Futures, Decolonial Options. Duke University Press, 2011.

Nicholas Mirzoeff. The Right to Look: A Counterhistory of Visuality. Duke University Press, 2011.

Martha Nussbaum. The New Religious Intolerance: Overcoming the Politics of Fear in an Anxious Age. Harvard UP, 2012.

Elizabeth A. Povinelli. Economies of Abandonment: Social Belonging and Endurance in Late Liberalism. Duke University Press, 2011.

S.S. Prawer. Karl Marx and World Literature. Verso, 2011.

Jacques Rancière. Staging the People: The Proletarian and His Double. Verso, 2011.

Jacques Rancière. The Intellectual and His People: Staging the People, Volume 2. Verso, 2012.

Sherene Razack, Malinda Smith, and Sunera Thobani,eds.Statesof Race: Critical Race Feminism for the 21st Century. Between the Lines Press, 2011.

Mark Rifkin. The Erotics of Sovereignty: Queer Native Writing in the Era of Self-Determination. University of Minnesota Press, 2012.

Gayle S. Rubin. Deviations: A Gayle Rubin Reader. Duke University Press, 2011.

Peter Sloterdijk. Bubbles: Spheres Volume I: Microspherology. Trans. Wieland Hoban. Semiotext(e), 2011.

Joe Soss, Richard C. Fording, and Sanford F. Schram. Disciplining the Poor: Neoliberal Paternalism and the Persistent Power of Race. University of Chicago Press, 2011.

Joan Wallach Scott. The Fantasy of Feminist History. Duke University Press, 2012.

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. An Aesthetic Education in the Era of Globalization. Harvard UP, 2012.

Bernard Stiegler. The Re-Enchantment of the World: The Value of the Human Spirit vs Industrial Populism. Trans. Trevor Arthur. Continuum, 2012.

Tiqqun. Preliminary Materials for a Theory of the Young-Girl. Trans. Ariana Reines. Semiotext(e), 2012.

Jini Kim Watson. The NewAsianCity: Three-Dimensional Fictions of Space and Urban Form. University of Minnesota Press, 2011.

Robyn Wiegman. Object Lessons. Duke University Press, 2012.

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

‘Stagnant’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo  

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

‘The Lamb’ by William Blake – set to music by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw3VloKBvZc

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski