A World TO WinA WORLD TO WIN
Latest news and views on the AWTW Website
Stories and analysis on: American banks, Harry Patch, The Big Green Gathering, Global warming, Obama’s healthcare plans, Factory occupations, Swine flu, and much more.
See: http://www.aworldtowin.net/
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The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk
A new book by Sheila Macrine
CRITICAL PEDAGOGY IN UNCERTAIN TIMES
A new book edited by Sheila Macrine
Critical Pedagogy in Uncertain Times: Hope and Possibilities
Palgrave Macmillan (Education, Politics and Public Life Series)
1st September 2009 publication date: ISBN: 978-0-230-61320-1; ISBN10: 0-230-61320-9
This exciting edited collection by Sheila Macrine includes:
A Foreword by Stanley Aronowitz
Introduction by Sheila Macrine
Chapters by: Sheila Macrine, Henry Giroux, Maxine Greene, Antonia Darder, Peter McLaren and Nathalia E. Jaramillo, Donaldo Macedo, Dave Hill, Kenneth J. Saltman, Noah De Lissovoy, and Ramin Farahmandpur
An Afterword by Gustavo Fischman
Praise for Critical Pedagogy in Uncertain Times:
“The contributors in this volume simultaneously provide conceptually sophisticated and pragmatic tools to pursue the construction of pedagogies of freedom where commitment to justice and fairness is encouraged, where respecting different perspectives on sciences and arts is stimulated, where disagreement is not punished, where caring for the other and a desire to know is celebrated, and where a passion for democracy and creating fair and inclusive futures is welcomed.” Foreword by Gustavo Fischman, Associate Professor of Educational Leadership & Policy Studies, Arizona State University
“At a time when the ruinous results of dominant neo-liberal policies are becoming increasingly clear, Critical Pedagogy in Uncertain Times offers the activist educator a cogent analysis of recent educational trends as well as useful suggestions for finding a way forward.”–Patricia H. Hinchey, Associate Professor of Education, Penn State University
“When education is increasingly reduced to test scores, this book reminds us what education can be for and how pedagogy can be practiced. The authors’ critique of the present system and description of what might be will strengthen the reader in working for a democratic society and schools.”–David Hursh, Associate Professor, University of Rochester
Dr. Sheila Macrine is an Associate Professor in the Curriculum and Teaching Department at Montclair State University in New Jersey.
Further details on the book (and ordering instructions) from Palgrave Macmillan: http://us.macmillan.com/criticalpedagogyinuncertaintimes
From Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Critical-Pedagogy-Uncertain-Times-Possibilities/dp/0230613209/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1248878834&sr=1-2
Update 5th April 2012: Now out in Paperback!
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The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk
MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski
CAPITALISM AND THE RECESSION
A meeting organised by the Manchester Branch of the Socialist Party of Great Britain
Saturday, 12th September 2009, 13.00-17.00, Friends Meeting House, Mount Street, Manchester
Speakers: Adam Buick and Paddy Shannon
For further details: 02076223811, spgb@worldsocialism.org + http://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2009/07/manchester-branch-day-school.html
Posted here by Glenn Rikowski
The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk
Real Financial Literacy
THE ROUGE FORUM – UPDATE 28 JULY 2009
Dear Friends
Health and work delayed the update of the Rouge Forum No Blood For Oil web page at: http://www.rougeforum.org. There you will find those good-for-the-rest-your-life nifty No Blood For Oil posters on sale and more.
Plus, you will get a chance to see The Great Parade at the End of the Rouge Forum Conference in Ypsilanti this year:
http://richgibson.com/rouge_forum/2009/Parade.mov
On the Education for Irrationalism Front:
In a death by a thousand cuts, some one or some place may have to be first. It could be Detroit where between 1/3 and 1/4 of the teaching staff was notified that they had three days to find a new job in the school system as they were “reconstituted” by test scores. This announcement came from Bob Bobb, appointed Czar of the school system by the Democratic governor. What did the Detroit Federation of Teachers do? Less than nothing. They called a building rep meeting (not a mass meeting, too risky) for tomorrow, Tuesday, and then threatened a small group of teachers who tried to take up a petition opposing the firings, saying the petition had nothing to do with the DFT. This may be the end of what was once the finest school system in the western world. The end of the schools would mean, literally, the end of Detroit.
DPS Vacates 2600 Jobs, Schools Reconstituted:
http://www.detnews.com/article/20090722/SCHOOLS/907220369/DPS-vacates-2-600-jobs-at-41-schools
The Obamagogue’s Stimulus Money for Schools is Merit Pay: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-teachers24-2009jul24,0,6767455.story
How Will the UC Survive? http://laprensa-sandiego.org/editorial-and-commentary/how-will-the-university-of-california-survive/
California Faculty Association’s Narrow Vote For Furlough/Concessions:
http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/jul/24/us-california-university-cuts-072409/?dsq=13291864#comment-13291864
The American Federation of Teachers Sees Charters as a Cash Cow; NEA Next?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/27/education/27charter.html?hp
Calpers/Sters Lose $100 Billion: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-calpers22-2009jul22,0,5416427.story
On the War They Are Not Going to Win (Long supply lines, difficult communications, no moral standing, huge country to invade–can anyone remember the US Revo?) Front:
Payoff For War Crimes:New Gi Bill: http://www.detnews.com/article/20090721/SCHOOLS/907210345/1409/METRO/A-surge-from-bunker-to-dorm–New-GI-Bill-takes-battle-out-of-higher-ed
Hedges: We are Losing the AFPAK Wars: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090720_war_without_purpose/
On The Hoo-boy There Goes the Economy Again Front:
Wall Street Jacks up Pay After Bailouts: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/22/AR2009072203687.html
But US Manufacturing at 2/3 Capacity: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/72485.html
And, of course, people fight back, even if we have to look for them at a distance:
In France: More Bossnappings: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2009517317_apeufranceworkerunrest.html
In China, Steel Workers, Angered by Inequality and Layoffs, Demonstrate and Kill a Boss:
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE56P09620090726
Remember, nominations for the Rouge Forum Steering Committee close August 15.
We note with sadness the death of Ken Macrorie, an honorable man, a great teacher and writer:
http://www.webfh.com/fh/obituaries/obituary.cfm?o_id=254464&fh_id=11112
Thanks to Susan H and O, Amber, Kelly, Sandra, Sally, Joan, Donna, Eric, Carol, Sherry, Peter M, Don A, Bill A, Terry Schaeffer, Ramona, Sharon, Ken, Echo, Beau, Daniella, Candace, Bob, and Della.
Good luck to us, every one.
Rich Gibson
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The Ockress: http://www.theockress.com
Karl Marx - 1872
A MARXIAN INTRODUCTION TO MODERN ECONOMICS
Klaus Hagendorf: eurodos@gmail.com
Université Paris X – Nanterre, 22.7.2009
Dear friends
I have worked for some time on a project “A Marxian Introduction to Modern Economics” (MIME), and in particular on the labour theory of value. Some of the most important results you find at: http://eurodos.free.fr/mime
My work resolves long standing issues and puts the labour theory of value back at the heart of Historical Materialism.
You are invited to contribute to this project of economics and Historical Materialism.
In solidarity: Klaus Hagendorf
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Noir
FILM NOIR, AMERICAM WORKERS AND POSTWAR HOLLYWOOD
New Noir Book:
“Busts This Town Wide Open”: Film Noir, American Workers and Postwar Hollywood
Dennis Broe, University of Florida Press
Order now for a 40% Discount with Code Listed Below
Ever since French critics began using the term film noir in the mid-1940s, a clear definition of the genre has remained elusive. Broe’s interdisciplinary examination is a cogent argument for the centrality of class in the creation of film noir, demonstrating how the form itself came to fruition during one of the most active periods of working-class agitation and middle-class antagonism in American history.
In the 1940s, both radicalized union members and protagonists of noir films were hunted and pursued by the law. The book details how, after World War II, members of the labor movement who waged a series of strikes that paralyzed American industry, including Hollywood, were forced to use extralegal means because of pressure applied by new legislation such as the Taft-Hartley Act. In the same way the film noir protagonist moves further and further outside the law in this period until the films become a lament for a change hoped for but not achieved. The book then marks the sharp distinction between noir and the police procedural where the working class cop, now shorn of his or her radical sympathies, becomes the subject of the film.
A coda describes noir under Reagan and Bush (“A Thousand Points of Dark”) and post-9/11 noir which alternately resists and validates the replaying of the Cold War as the War on Terror.
What the Critics are saying:
‘[This is] an intriguing study of U.S. film noir as a left-wing cultural formation. Broe makes an informative and convincing case for the repressed, often overlooked working class determinants of early noir, and his discussion of individual films is consistently insightful. This is an important addition to the literature on the subject.’ James Naremore, author of More Than Night: Film Noir in Its Contexts
‘With keen insight and a deep appreciation of the politics of film noir, Broe has broken new ground in the interpretation of cinema itself. With this book film noir has found its most astute and informed critic.’ Gerald Horne, author of Class Struggle in Hollywood, 1930-50
‘Broe puts the red back in the black. His book contours amidst the shadows of film noir those battles and tussles of the laboring classes that have too often been written out of film history, as out of the authorized narrative of U.S. history. Through wonderfully synthetic overviews and deft extended readings, a panoply of films is shown to chart in devious and overt ways the ups and down of union power and working class perspectives.’ Esther Leslie, author of Walter Benjamin and Hollywood Flatlands: Animation, Critical Theory and the Avant-Garde
‘[The book is] a bracing alternative history of how noir represented the roiling state of American culture in the 1940s … His categorization scheme will carry great weight in all future discussion of noir’s thematic landscape.’ Donald Malcolm, Noir City Sentinel
For a special 40% discount, until October 1, 2009, call toll free 800-226-3822, or order online at: http://upf.com/book.asp?id=BROEXS07 with discount code NOIR9.
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NihilismTHE ITALIAN DIFFERENCE: BETWEEN NIHILISM AND BIOPOLITICS
The Italian Difference: Between Nihilism and Biopolitics
Lorenzo Chiesa and Alberto Toscano (eds.)
Price: $35.00 AUD; $25.00 USD; £16.00 GBP
ISBN-13: 978-0-9805440-7-7
ISBN-ebook: 978-0-9806665-4-0
Publication date: July 2009
Pages: 180
Format: 216×140 mm (5.5×8.5 in) Paperback
Series: ‘Transmission’
Download book as PDF (Open Access): http://www.re-press.org/content/view/66/38/
Description
This volume brings together essays by different generations of Italian thinkers which address, whether in affirmative, problematizing or genealogical registers, the entanglement of philosophical speculation and political proposition within recent Italian thought. Nihilism and biopolitics, two concepts that have played a very prominent role in theoretical discussions in Italy, serve as the thematic foci around which the collection orbits, as it seeks to define the historical and geographical particularity of these notions as well their continuing impact on an international debate. The volume also covers the debate around ‘weak thought’ (pensiero debole), the feminist thinking of sexual difference, the re-emergence of political anthropology and the question of communism. The contributors provide contrasting narratives of the development of post-war Italian thought and trace paths out of the theoretical and political impasses of the present—against what Negri, in the text from which the volume takes its name, calls ‘the Italian desert’.
Contents
Antonio Negri, ‘The Italian Difference’
Pier Aldo Rovatti, ‘Foucault Docet’
Gianni Vattimo, ‘Nihilism as Emancipation’
Roberto Esposito, ‘Community and Nihilism’
Matteo Mandarini, ‘Beyond Nihilism: Notes towards a Critique of Left-Heideggerianism in Italian Philosophy of the 1970s’
Luisa Muraro, ‘The Symbolic Independence from Power’
Mario Tronti, ‘Towards a Critique of Political Democracy’
Alberto Toscano, ‘Chronicles of Insurrection: Tronti, Negri and the Subject of Antagonism’
Paolo Virno, ‘Natural-Historical Diagrams: The ‘New Global’ Movement and the Biological Invariant’
Lorenzo Chiesa, ‘Giorgio Agamben’s Franciscan Ontology’
Authors, editors and contributors: Lorenzo Chiesa and Alberto Toscano
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Workshop
ALTERNATIVE WORK ORGANISATIONS
Call for Papers
Stream at the International Labour Process Conference 2010, Rutgers University 15-17 March 2010
Stream convenors:
MAURIZIO ATZENI, Loughborough University, UK, m.atzeni@lboro.ac.uk
DARIO AZZELLINI, Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Germany, dnapress@gmx.net
IMMANUEL NESS, Brooklyn College CUNY, US, manny.ness@gmail.com
Acute and deep economic crises, like the one we are currently experiencing, have always had an important role in reshaping people’s lives and societies. By momentarily breaking the flow of production and consumption, destroying wealth and creating unemployment, economic crises interrupt the regular working of accepted socio-economic systems and open the room to popular protests and searches for alternatives. In the labour movement’s history one of the forms in which the dominating system has been contested and responses to crisis have been found has been through workers’ run and controlled production. Defined as workers self-management or autogestion, to use the more catchy Spanish definition, different forms of workers’ empowerment at the level of production have been used in different geographical contexts alongside the history of the capitalist system of production. Reverting taken for granted assumptions about property and capital control of the labour process, cases of workers’ self-management can be seen as an alternative work organisation, a theoretical proposal to overcome capitalism and a form of radical struggle and rank and file strategy for collective action.
We thus invite papers with both an empirical and/or theoretical focus, based on historical, contemporary, worldwide cases that can assess workers’ experiences with alternative forms of work organisation, particularly, in relation to the following issues:
• Labour process and decision-making
• Workers’ collective actions and struggles for emancipation
• Social theory of work
• Alternative to capitalist societies
Research questions that address these issues may include:
• What is the historical-political development of workers’ control, its legacy and contemporary cogency?
• What is the theoretical relevance of all these attempts to challenge the `natural’ state of capitalist work relations?
• What would an alternative model look like?
• What would be the state’s role in promoting this alternative?
• Should be workers’ organisations actively supporting factories occupations and self-management?
• Are there feasible, sustainable long-term alternatives to conventional capitalist organisations?
• How market competition influences this new model?
• Which type of values will it be supporting?
• Who is going to take decisions in the new organisations? Will there be any leaders?
• What role, if any, for managers?
• How will tasks be distributed among workers?
We would welcome contributions from both academics and labour activists with different background and interdisciplinary approach based on worldwide examples of alternative forms of work organisations.
We would be happy to discuss initial ideas for papers with potential contributors.
Presented papers will be considered for an edited book on Alternative Work Organisation to be published by Palgrave in Spring 2011.
For further details see ILPC 2010 at: http://www.ilpc.org.uk/ILPC2010.aspx
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The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk
Mountain Lake
COUNTER NATURES
An upcoming symposium in November 2009 at Uppsala University
Confirmed keynote speakers include Lawrence Buell (Harvard
University), Ursula Heise (Stanford University), David Nye (University
of Southern Denmark, Odense) and Sverker Sörlin (KTH: The Royal
Institute of Technology).
Here’s a link to the official symposium website: http://www.cemus.uu.se/counternature
Steven Hartman
Research Fellow in American Literature
Department of English
Uppsala University
Box 527
751 20 Uppsala
Sweden
Tel.: +46-(0)18 471 12 61
Fax: +46-(0)18 471 12 29
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Red
THE ROUGE FORUM – UPDATE 20 JULY 2009
A Message from Rich Gibson
Dear Friends
The Rouge Forum No Blood For Oil page is up and updated at: http://www.rougeforum.org .
Remember, nominations for the Rouge Forum Steering Committee can be made to Community Coordinator Adam Renner by August 15 (arenner@bellarmine.edu)
On the Capitalist Education for War and Inequality Front:
Obama to Schools: Change Tenure Laws or Else: The Ed Stim is Merit Pay:
http://gothamschools.org/2009/07/09/obama-official-to-new-york-change-your-tenure-law-or-else/comment-page-1/#comment-154665
UC System Demands 9% Tuition Hike and 8% Pay Cut While Class Size Booms:
http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/jul/15/bn15uc-budget-cuts/?california
CSU Boss Wants 20% Tuition Hike: http://www.sacbee.com/topstories/story/2033136.html
Substance News carries the wrap up of the National Education Association Rep Assembly: http://www.substancenews.net
Linda Chavez, a top aide to the American Federation of Teachers’ Albert Shanker, testifies against Sotomayor:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/16/AR2009071603124.html
On “The Depression can only be a passing fancy” Front:
Paul Craig Roberts: “This should tell even the most dim witted patriot who “their” government represents.”
http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts07162009.html
Rolling Stone on Goldman Sachs and the Great American Bubble Machine: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/28816321/the_great_american_bubble_machine/print #
Chart on the Waves of California Jobs Lost: http://www.sacbee.com/1232/rich_media/2022115.html
Reuters: Foreclosures Hit Record High: http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE56F0XK20090716
The International War of the Rich on the Poor Front:
The Bushamagogue Assassination Schemes:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeremy-scahill/the-democrats-selective-a_b_233708.html
Michael Klare’s Shocker: Iraq as the New Oil Pump
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175095
And the Resistance (bad example/good example) Front:
So Long EFCA: Union Bosses Can Deliver—nothing: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/17/business/17union.html
UK Public Worker Strikes Rise
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aw6B8IQyUQME
The many crises grow around us apace. Unemployment and foreclosures mean an eradicated tax base, meaning more demands for cuts on education and services, increased taxation of those who have a little, more pr to crush hope in the sense that nothing can be done, more police activity to raise funds and tamp down resistance, and more spectacles. On the war front, more war—for oil, regional control, that is, profits, using the children of the poor to fight the children of the poor on behalf of the rich in their homelands.
What stops the madness? Understanding that the core issue of our time is the relationship of rising color-coded inequality to the potential of mass class-conscious resistance. That has been the project of the Rouge Forum, connection reason to power, for more than a decade. Please join us and help lead the fight-backs that will come.
Thanks to Bob, Al, Sean, Amber, Tony, Kino, Marisol, the Dean, Candace, Sally, Sheri, Barb and Ken (yes, that is right), Donna, Brian, Adam and Gina, Koli, Jesus, Ashwana, Bill, Joe, Dariah, the Susans, and Ann.
Good luck to us, every one
Rich Gibson
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The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk
Sensoria - by HeadenD
JACQUES RANCIERE
A message from Alan Finlayson
The issue of Parallax that we put together on Jacques Rancière is out now. It’s online legitimately here: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~db=all~content=g912900695
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Cambridge
EDUCATION IN A CHANGING ENVIRONMENT: CRITICAL VOICES, CRITICAL TIMES
CONFERENCE
Is the Student Really at the Heart of Higher Education? Critical Voices, Critical Times
The 5th Education in a Changing Environment Conference will be held at the University of Salford, 15-16 September 2009.
The conference will focus on four main themes that are key aspects of the changes affecting higher education:
* Giving Voice to the Student Experience: methods, approaches and evidence
* Emerging Technologies, the Curriculum and Student Engagement
* Student Diversity, Internationalisation and Managing Change
* Scholarship as Critical Pedagogy
The conference will provide a forum for colleagues involved in research in these areas to present papers, workshops and posters and to discuss the implications of change in relation to their findings.
For further information contact Eamon O’Doherty: E.N.ODoherty@Salford.ac.uk Tel: +44 (0) 161 295 2899
ECE website: http://www.ece.salford.ac.uk
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All that is Solid for Glenn Rikowski 