Third World Protest – Book Launch with Rahul Rao

Books

THIRD WORLD PROTEST – BOOK LAUNCH WITH RAHUL RAO

Book Launch – Third World Protest: Between Home and the World, by Rahul Rao

Date of event: 1^st November 2010

Venue: Khalili Lecture Theatre, School of Oriental & African Studies, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG

Speaker: Dr Rahul Rao

Chair: Dr Stephen Hopgood

Rahul Rao, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, discusses his new book /Third World Protest: Between Home and the World/.

If boundaries protect us from threats, how should we think about the boundaries of states in a world where threats to human rights emanate from both outside the state and the state itself? Arguing that attitudes towards boundaries are premised on assumptions about the locus of threats to vital interests, Rahul Rao probes beneath two major normative orientations towards boundaries – cosmopolitanism and nationalism – which structure thinking on questions of public policy and identity. Insofar as the Third World is concerned, hegemonic versions of both orientations are underpinned by simplistic imageries of threat. In the cosmopolitan gaze, political and economic crises in the Third World are attributed mainly to factors internal to the Third World state with the international playing the role of heroic saviour. In Third World nationalist imagery, the international is portrayed as a realm of neo-imperialist predation from which the domestic has to be secured. Both images capture widely held intuitions about the sources of threats to human rights, but each by itself provides a resolutely partial inventory of these threats. By juxtaposing critical accounts of both discourses, Rao argues that protest sensibilities in the current conjuncture must be critical of hegemonic variants of both cosmopolitanism and nationalism. The second half of the book illustrates what such a critique might look like. Journeying through the writings of James Joyce, Rabindranath Tagore, Edward Said, and Frantz Fanon, the activism of ‘anti-globalization’ protesters, and the dilemmas of queer activists, Rao demonstrates that important currents of Third World protest have long battled against both the international and the domestic, in a manner that combines nationalist and cosmopolitan sensibilities.

*Please note that the book will be available at the event at a 20% discount

— 
Lecturer in International Relations
Centre for Inter national Studies & Diplomacy
School of Oriental & African Studies
Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square
London WC1H 0XG
Tel: +44(0)20 7898 4534
http://goog_1113873052

Third World Protest:  Between Home and The World: http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199560370.do

Available now through all good bookshops, or direct from Oxford University Press

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The Return of the Public – Dan Hind Book Launch

THE RETURN OF THE PUBLIC – DAN HIND BOOK LAUNCH

NEW BOOK AND LAUNCH EVENT: THE RETURN OF THE PUBLIC

By Dan Hind

Published October 11th, 2010

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“A book marked by a sombre and scathing rhetoric that recalls the Frankfurt School critique of thinkers such as Adorno and Marcuse… Pointed, eloquent and forceful.”  Boyd Tonkin, INDEPENDENT

“If there is a future to look forward to, it will come from the invigorated public domain pictured by Dan Hind … This is a handbook for a very modern liberation struggle. Buy it and help set yourself free.“ — Andrew Simms, Policy Director, New Economics Foundation and author of Tescopoly

“A brilliant, provocative and sweeping assessment of our current predicament … this is a book that deserves widespread attention and debate.” — Robert W. McChesney, Gutgsell Endowed Professor in the Department of Communication, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and author of Communication Revolution

“Dan Hind provides us with the strategies we will need to reinvigorate the public debate and, in so doing, re-empower the people. Go to Mapquest and ask for directions to the next and better society; the response will be Dan Hind’s The Return of the Public.” — John Nichols, political correspondent of the Nation and author of The Genius of Impeachment

“As the official culture of politics limps from scandal to corruption, Hind turns to the only thing that can save democracy: the people. Dan Hind has produced one of those rare books that transcend the world of “discourse” and become essential levers of historical change.“ — David Miller, co-author of A Century of Spin and professor of sociology at the University of Strathclyde

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AUTHOR EVENTS

Monday 25 October, 7pm at Kings Place, London:

The Return of the Public: Journalism and Democracy in the 21st Century:

Dan Hind in conversation with Professor Natalie Fenton, chaired by Tony Curzon Price, editor-in-Chief of openDemocracy

For decades, the public has been told to leave democracy to the experts. But is it not apparent that our politicians have ever-decreasing legitimacy? Even as they amass ever more riches our financiers are now morally and intellectually bankrupt. In their different ways politicians and those who control the private economy system claim to be acting in the public interest.

Yet we, the public, have little say in decision-making and almost no power to change the terms of a series of increasingly absurd debates about economic and foreign policy. How have we been excluded from so many discussions about the public interest?

Dan Hind is in conversation with Professor Natalie Fenton about public commissioning: a controversial way forwards for a new participatory politics and a regenerated public sphere, one based on the wholesale reform of the media.

For more information and to book: http://www.kingsplace.co.uk/spoken-word/words-on-monday/the-return-of-the-public-journalism-and-democracy-dan-hind-in-conversati

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Eloquent exploration of the public’s exclusion from political participation

Our politicians have ever-decreasing legitimacy. Even as they amass ever more riches our financiers are now morally and intellectually bankrupt. In their different ways politicians and those who control the private economy system claim to be acting in the public interest. Yet we, the public, have little say in decision-making and almost no power to change the terms of a series of increasingly absurd debates about economic and foreign policy. How have we been excluded from so many discussions about the public interest?

Dan Hind traces how, historically, political and intellectual elites constructed deeply ambiguous ideas of the public, designed to serve their own ends and preserve the status quo. After the Second World War, as women, ethnic minorities, the young, and the working majority became more assertive and self-confident, the propertied and their allies in the state made fresh attempts to deny most of us a public identity. The financial crisis, and the ability of those who caused it to preside over policy-making in its aftermath, have made it impossible to ignore what has long been obvious: the institutions on which most of us rely for our knowledge of the wider world have become radically and demonstrably unaccountable and unsafe.

For decades, the public has been told to leave democracy to the experts. Now, Hind outlines a way forwards for a new participatory politics, one based on the wholesale reform of the media. After the failure of the private, now is the time for the return of the public. 

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DAN HIND was a publisher for ten years. In 2009 he left the industry to develop a program of media reform centred around public commissioning. His journalism has appeared in the Guardian, New Scientist, Lobster and the Times Literary Supplement. His first book, The Threat to Reason, was published by Verso in 2007.

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ISBN: 978 1 84467 594 4 / £14.99 / $24.95

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For more information and to buy the book visit: http://www.versobooks.com/books/478-the-return-of-the-public

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Visit Verso’s new website for information on our upcoming events, new reviews and publications and special offers: http://www.versobooks.com

And get updates on Twitter too! http://twitter.com/VersoBooksUK

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)

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Update on the Globalisation Lectures at SOAS

Globalization

UPDATE ON THE GLOBALISATION LECTURES AT SOAS

‘THE GLOBALISATION LECTURES’
Organised by the Department of Development Studies
School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS)
University of London
Convenor: Prof. Gilbert Achcar
2010-2011

PEASANTS STRUGGLES AND ECOLOGY IN THE AGE OF GLOBALISATION

HUGO BLANCO
Wednesday 27 October, 6:30pm
SOAS, Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre

Free entrance

Born in 1934, Hugo Blanco reached international fame as the leader of the land struggle in Peru in the early 1960s, when he joined the peasants’ struggle in the Convencion valley. He led the indigenous Quechua peasants’ into unionisation, land occupation and armed resistance. Captured in 1963, he escaped the death penalty only thanks to an international campaign in which Bertrand Russell and Jean-Paul Sartre took a prominent part. Sentenced to 25 years imprisonment, he was chosen by Amnesty International as its ‘prisoner of the year’ in 1968, and released three years later only to be deported. He ended in Salvador Allende’s Chile, from where he was smuggled out by the Swedish embassy after Augusto Pinochet’s 1973 military putsch. Hugo Blanco was able to return to Peru in 1978, and was elected to parliament. In 1992, he had to flee the country again, and received political asylum in Mexico where he could observe the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas, an experience which contributed to shaping his understanding of the role of indigenous movements. Presently back in Peru, Hugo Blanco edits Lucha Indigena, a newspaper dedicated to the indigenous cause.

—
Gilbert Achcar
Professor of Development Studies & International Relations
University of London – School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS)
Russell Square – Thornhaugh Street
London WC1H 0XG
Phone +44 (0)20 7898 4557
Webpage: http://www.soas.ac.uk/staff/staff30529.php
Latest book: http://us.macmillan.com/thearabsandtheholocaust
http://www.saqibooks.com/saqi/display.asp?isb=9780863566394
Most recent reviews: http://www.economist.com/node/16789290
http://www.laviedesidees.fr/Hitler-the-Arabs-and-the-Jews.html

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‘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)

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International Socialism 128

Socialism and Hope

INTERNATIONAL SOCIALISM 128

International Socialism 128 is now online. 

http://www.isj.org.uk

With analysis of alternatives to the crisis and the BP oil spill, Tom Hickey & Phil Marfleet on the BDS campaign against Israel, Jamie Allinson on Hamas, Christakis Georgiou on the crisis in the Eurozone, Jane Hardy on Central and Eastern Europe, Jairus Banaji on Indian Maoism, John Molyneux on Michelangelo, Neil Davidson on uneven and combined development, Simon Pirani on the Russian Revolution, Jess Edwards on the sex work debate and reviews from Esme Choonara, Estelle Cooch, Beccy Reese and Gareth Dale. Plus Pick of the Quarter. 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

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

The Magic of Concepts: Wang Yan’An and the ‘Economic’ in the 1930 and 1940s

Idea

THE MAGIC OF CONCEPTS: WANG YAN’AN AND THE ‘ECONOMIC’ IN THE 1930s AND 1940s

Tuesday 16th November at 4.00 p.m. in RHB 309 Professor Rebecca E Karl will give a talk entitled The Magic of Concepts: Wang Yan’an and the ‘Economic’ in 1930s/40s.

This talk focuses on how ‘the economic’ was construed philosophically as a historically-specific conceptual problem as against the Austrian School of Economics in the context of 1930s/40s China. Karl’s main protagonist is Wang Yan’an, best known as the translator of Marx, Smith, and Ricardo, who was also a major Marxist (albeit not a Communist Party) social theorist at that time.

Please publicise widely to colleagues and students

Many thanks
Elaine Webb

Elaine Webb
Administrator, Department of Politics
Goldsmiths, University of London
Warmington Tower
New Cross, London
SE14 6NW
Tel: 020 7919 7740
Fax: 020 7919 7743

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)

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

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