Reviews in Cultural Theory – Call for Reviewers

Culture

REVIEWS IN CULTURAL THEORY – CALL FOR REVIEWERS

Dear All 

We’re inviting you to contribute to Reviews in Cultural Theory by offering to review one of the books listed below. We also welcome proposals for longer review essays, focusing on recent or forthcoming (2013-) titles. If you are interested in contributing a review or a review essay to RCT, please write to us at editors@reviewsinculture.com. 

If you have not visited us lately, we also invite you to our read recent reviews and essays, including Liam Young on Wolfgang Ernst’s Media Archeology, Melissa Haynes on Mel Y. Chen’s Animacies, Alison Shonkwiler on Marie-Hélène Huet’s The Culture of Disaster, as well as Graeme MacDonald’s research note, “The Resources of Culture.” 

Books Available for Review

Isabel Altamirano-Jiménez. Indigenous Encounters with Neoliberalism: Place, Women, and the Environment in Canada and Mexico. University of British Columbia Press, 2013.

Perry Anderson. The Indian Ideology. Three Essays Collective, 2013.

Emily Apter. Against World Literature: On the Politics of Untranslatability. Verso, 2013.

Nadine Attewell. Better Britons: Reproduction, National Identity, and the Afterlife of Empire. University of Toronto Press, 2013.

Alain Badiou and Fabien Tarby. Philosophy and the Event. Polity, 2013.

Étienne Balibar. Equaliberty: Political Essays. Duke University Press, 2014.

Maria del Pilar Blanco and Esther Peeren, eds. The Spectralities Reader: Ghosts and Haunting in Contemporary Cultural Theory. Bloomsbury, 2013.

Pierre Bourdieu. On the State: Lectures at the Collège de France 1989-1992. Polity, 2014.

Joram Ten Brink and Joshua Oppenheimer, eds. Killer Images: Documentary Film, Memory, and the Performance of Violence. Wallflower Press, 2013.

Judith Butler and Athena Athanasiou. Dispossession: The Performative in the Political. Polity, 2013.

Javier Sanjinés C. Embers of the Past: Essays in Times of Decolonization. Duke University Press, 2013.

Timothy Campbell and Adam Sitze, eds. Biopolitics: A Reader. Duke University Press, 2013. 

Anita Say Chan. Networking Peripheries: Technological Futures and the Myth of Digital Universalism. MIT Press, 2013.

Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, ed. Prismatic Ecology: Ecotheory beyond Green. University of Minnesota Press, 2013.

William E. Connolly. The Fragility of Things: Self-Organizing Processes, Neoliberal Fantasies, and Democratic Activism. Duke University Press, 2013.

Stuart Elden. The Birth of Territory. University of Chicago Press, 2013.

Maximillian C. Forte, ed. Who Is an Indian? Race, Place, and the Politics of Indigeneity in the Americas. University of Toronto Press, 2013.

Nancy Fraser. Fortunes of Feminism: From State-Managed Capitalism to Neoliberal Crisis. Verso, 2013.

Danielle Fuller and DeNel Rehberg Sedo. Reading Beyond the Book: The Social Practices of Contemporary Literary Culture. Routledge, 2013.

Sigfried Giedion. Mechanization Takes Command: A Contribution to Anonymous History. University of Minnesota Press, 2013 (orig. 1948).

N. Katherine Hayles and Jessica Pressman, eds. Comparative Textual Media: Transforming the Humanities in the Postprint Era. University of Minnesota Press, 2013.

Jennifer Henderson and Pauline Wakeham, eds. Reconciling Canada: Critical Perspectives on the Culture of Redress. University of Toronto Press, 2013.

Fredric Jameson. The Antinomies of Realism. Verso, 2013.

Adrian Johnston and Catherine Malabou. Self and Emotional Life: Philosophy, Psychoanalysis, and Neuroscience. ColumbiaUniversity Press, 2013.

Stefan Jonsson. Crowds and Democracy: The Idea and Image of the Masses from Revolution to Fascism. ColumbiaUniversity Press, 2013.

Razmig Keucheyan. Trans. Gregory Elliott. Left Hemisphere: Mapping Critical Theory Today. Verso, 2013.

Thomas King. The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America. University of Minnesota Press, 2013.

Bruno Latour. An Inquiry into Modes of Existence: An Anthropology of the Moderns. Harvard University Press, 2013.

Lisa Lee and Hal Foster, eds. Critical Laboratory: The Writings of Thomas Hirschhorn. MIT/October, 2013.

A. L. McCready. Yellow Ribbons: The Militarization of National Identity in Canada. Fernwood, 2013.

Meg McLagan and Yates McKee, eds. Sensible Politics: The Visual Culture of Nongovernmental Activism. Zone Books, 2013.

Sandro Mezzadra and Brett Neilson. Border as Method, or, the Multiplication of Labor. Duke University Press, 2013.

Michael Mikulak. The Politics of the Pantry: Stories, Food, and Social Change. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2013.

Timothy Morton. Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World. University of Minnesota Press, 2013.

Ronald Niezen. Truth and Indignation: Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Indian Residential Schools. University of Toronto Press, 2013.

Samantha Pinto. Difficult Diasporas: The Transnational Feminist Aesthetic of the Black Atlantic. New York University Press, 2013.

Janet Roitman. Anti-Crisis. Duke University Press, 2013.

Carrie Smith-Prei. Revolting Families: Toxic Intimacy, Private Politics, and Literary Realisms in the German Sixties. University of Toronto Press, 2013.

Squatting Europe Kollective. Squatting in Europe: Radical Spaces, Urban Struggles. Minor Compositions/Autonomedia, 2013.

Ann Laura Stoler, ed. Imperial Debris: On Ruins and Ruination. Duke University Press, 2013.

 

**END**

 

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Stagnant’ at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo  

‘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

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

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

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

The Global Uprisings of 2011 and the Anthropology of Direct Democracy

Deadwing

THE GLOBAL UPRISINGS OF 2011 AND THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF DIRECT DEMOCRACY

CALL FOR PAPERS

Session at the AAA Annual Meeting
San Francisco, November 14-18, 2012

The Global Uprisings of 2011 and the Anthropology of Direct Democracy

Critical theorists, including Slavoj Zizek (2011), Judith Butler (2011), and Michael Hardt and Toni Negri (2011), have framed the protest movements of 2011 as a response to a fundamental crisis of representative politics. The response—from Northern Africa, through Southern Europe to North America—has, in many cases, centered on a radicalization of democracy, especially an embrace of direct democracy. Our knowledge of these directly democratic experiments remains, however, inchoate. Little description and analysis is available on the specific forms of directly democratic practice enacted in settings as distinct as the Casbah in Tunis, Tahrir Square in Cairo, Syntagma Square in Athens, Puerto del sol in Madrid, Tel Aviv’s tent city, the Wisconsin statehouse as well as the hundreds of encampments associated with the Occupy Movement.

The need for ethnographic accounts of direct democracy is especially urgent because many movements have refused official representatives of their practices and because democracy has been extended beyond formal institutions into new spheres of life. By inviting initial ethnographic accounts of direct democracy, this panel hopes to contribute to the growing anthropology of democracy (Appadurai 2001, 2007; Brown 2006; Paley 2002, 2008; Shore 2000). The focus on direct democracy, which has been relatively neglected within anthropology, responds to David Nugent’s (2002, 2008) call for an unsettling of “normative democracy”—i.e. the dominance of a certain liberal variant of democracy—through a description of “alternative democracies,” especially those unique conceptions of democracy emerging among subaltern movements, groups, and peoples that allow us to think outside dominant assumptions. Proposed papers can address any of the movements that emerged in the wake of the 2011 uprisings around the globe, including but not restricted to the Occupy Movements or other recent struggles that have adopted directly democratic forms and practices. Please feel to contact me with any questions.

Practicalities

Please send a title and abstract of no more than 250 words to Maple Razsa mjrazsa@colby.edu by March 10, 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

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

‘What is Coalition?’ – With Judith Butler

Judith Butler

‘WHAT IS COALITION?’ – WITH JUDITH BUTLER

Call for Conference Papers: European Conference
What is coalition? Reflections on the conditions of alliance formation with Judith Butler’s work

Date: 15 May 2012 with Professor Judith Butler (UC Berkeley)
Venue: Institute for Gender Studies, Geneva University, Switzerland

Conception : Delphine Gardey (Geneva University) and Cynthia Kraus (Lausanne University)
Logistics: Aurélie Chrestian and Julien Debonneville (Geneva University)

In her groundbreaking book, Gender Trouble (1990), Judith Butler inaugurates and develops her critique of foundational reasoning – of identity categories such as (biological) sex, or of a transcendental subject such as “the woman” or even “women” (in the plural) – as a critique of identity politics in general, and of a women’s identity-based feminism in particular. For this reason, her antifoundationalism appears as a critical practice that seeks not only to rethink the political – along with genders, bodies, subjects and agency – in terms of performativity rather than of representation, but also, and most importantly, to theorize alternatives to identity politics in terms of coalition building.

Since then, we can consider that Butler has insistently returned to the action-oriented question of “what is coalition?” and further elaborated on the conditions of possibility of alliance formation – at least, as much as on the conditions of subversion – in order to move effectively toward what she calls a “progressive” or “radical democratic politics.” This one-day conference aims to reflect – historically, sociologically, philosophically – on the conditions of possibility, on the objects, means and purposes of alliance formation – between minorities, with the State, political parties, and other public actors, or between disciplines, or even across species (e.g. animal-human), etc. –, of political transformation, and thus of a collective agency, in both domestic and international contexts, through the concrete and generic question of “What is coalition?” – with special interest for the ways in which critical perspectives inspired from feminist and queer theory can be made into productive tools to theorize the political at various levels, at different times and locations, but also to intervene and do better democratic work. We encourage submissions from all research fields that present original material and engage, with creativity and precision, with both the theoretical and practical dimensions of the conference question with insights from – rather than directly on – Butler’s “political theory.”

Deadline for conference paper (including abstract) submission: 15 February 2012
Notification of acceptance by: 5 March 2012
Deadline for final conference papers: 15 April 2012

Abstracts, conference paper proposals and final conference papers should be sent to:  coalition-genderstudies@unige.ch
Please check the following link:  http://www.unige.ch/etudes-genre/Institut/Evenementsscientifiques/Coalition.pdf

————
Cynthia Kraus
Maître d’enseignement et de recherche
Institut des sciences sociales
Faculté des sciences sociales et politiques
Université de Lausanne
Bât. Anthropole – bureau 3087
CH-1015 Lausanne
Tel +41-21-692.32.23/ 31 80
Fax +41-21-692.32.15   
http://www.unil.ch/iss    
http://www.unil.ch/labso

*****

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

 

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

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

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

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

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

2nd International Summer Institute in Qualitative Research: Putting Theory to Work

Dr Linus

2ND INTERNATIONAL SUMMER INSTITUTE IN QUALITATIVE RESEARCH: PUTTING THEORY TO WORK

Education and Social Research Institute, Manchester Metropolitan University, 18 – 22 July 2011

Summer Institute Director: Maggie MacLure

Plenary Keynote Speakers 2011:

DEBORAH BRITZMAN, York University, Canada
‘On matters of soft theory and affected belief: a psychoanalytic approach to the defense of theory’.

LINDA TUHIWAI SMITH, University of Waikato, New Zealand
‘Decolonizing research in new spaces with new possibilities’?

HARRY TORRANCE, Manchester Metropolitan University
‘Mixed methods research: what is the role of qualitative methods’?

LISA MAZZEI, Gonzaga University, USA
‘Plugging one text into another: thinking with theory in qualitative research’

HELEN COLLEY, Manchester Metropolitan University
‘Time, space and ethics: thinking through Marx’

KATE McCOY, State University of New York (New Paltz)
‘Heroin’s monstrous beauties: mark(et)ing affect and abject

KERI FACER, Manchester Metropolitan University
‘Democracy, education and reclaiming narratives of the future’

BILL GREEN, Charles Sturt University, Australia 
‘Emergent methodologies in educational research’

MAGGIE MACLURE, Manchester Metropolitan University
‘”The first secret of the stammerer”: writing without representing’

Putting Theorists to Work (Practical Sessions): Butler, Derrida, Braidotti, Lacan, Foucault, Bourdieu, Deleuze, and others.

Delegate-led sessions (optional): for delegates wishing to present their own research.

The Summer Institute will be of interest to qualitative researchers who are looking for stimulating engagements with theory, from doctoral students to more experienced researchers, across the social sciences, education, health and caring professions.

Standard delegate fee: £295
Email inquiries: SIQR@mmu.ac.uk
Information and registration: www.esri.mmu.ac.uk/siqr/about.php

A note from Maggie MacLure:

This is just to let you know that the keynote presentations from *last year’s* Summer Institute are downloadable, as audio-files, text and/or powerpoint presentations, from: http://www.esri.mmu.ac.uk/siqr/downloads.php 

Speakers include: Patti Lather, Stephen Ball, Neil Mercer, Erica Burman, Ian Parker, Nick Lee, Maggie MacLure, Bridget Somekh, Lorna Roberts, Liz Jones, Rachel Holmes.  

We still have some places available for this year’s event, so I have included the information again below.

Do circulate to anyone who might be interested.

Best wishes 

Maggie MacLure

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Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

BDS: Boycott, Disinvestment, Sanctions

Gaza

BDS: BOYCOTT, DISINVESTMENT, SANCTIONS

Omar Barghouti, founding member of Palestinian Civil Society Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel, to Release New Book

BDS: Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions

The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights 

by Omar Barghouti (available for interview)

Book Release at the London Review Bookshop Monday, March 7^th at 7:00 pm, 14 Bury Place, London, WC1A 2JL.

“This is a book about the political actions necessary to hinder and finally to stop the Israeli state machine which is operating every day to eliminate the Palestinian people. It is like an engineer’s report, not a sermon. Read it, decide and then act.” —John Berger

“Barghouti’s lucid and morally compelling book is perfectly timed to make a major contribution to this urgently needed global campaign for justice, freedom and peace.” —Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Laureate

“Essential reading for all who care about justice and the plight of an oppressed people.” —Ken Loach

INTERNATIONAL BOYCOTT divestment, and sanctions (BDS) efforts helped topple South Africa’s brutal apartheid regime. In this urgent book, Omar Barghouti makes the case for a rights-based BDS campaign to stop Israel’s rapacious occupation, colonization, and apartheid against the Palestinian people. This considered, convincing collection contributes to the growing debate on Israel’s violations of international law and points the way forward to a united global civil society movement for freedom, justice, self determination, and equality for all.

OMAR BARGHOUTI is an independent Palestinian commentator and human rights activist. He is a founding member of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) and the Palestinian Civil Society Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering from Columbia University, and a master’s degree in philosophy (ethics) from Tel Aviv University.

Barghouti is AVAILABLE FOR INTERVIEW in London March 4-7, and by phone or email prior. To request, contact Sarah Macaraeg, sarah@haymarketbooks.org

*

Praise for Omar Barghouti and Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights:

“I warmly welcome the publication of Omar Barghouti’s book. It is timely and responsibly written by a man who will understand that creative and relentless nonviolence is the only way out of the dire situation in which Palestine, and our entire world for that matter, finds itself.” —Father Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, M.M., Former president of the UN General Assembly

“No one has done more to build the intellectual, legal and moral case for BDS than Omar Barghouti. The global Palestinian solidarity movement has been transformed and is on the cusp of major new breakthroughs.” —Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine and No Logo

“I have been to Palestine where I’ve witnessed the racially segregated housing and the humiliation of Palestinians at military roadblocks. I can’t help but remember the conditions we experienced in South Africa under apartheid. We could not have achieved our freedom without the help of people around the world using the nonviolent means of boycotts and divestment to compel governments and institutions to withdraw their support for the apartheid regime. Omar Barghouti’s lucid and morally compelling book is perfectly timed to make a major contribution to this urgently needed global campaign for justice, freedom and peace.” —Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Laureate

“Once again Omar Barghouti delivers a conceptually lucid argument for the BDS movement that is difficult to refute. He offers a principled position accompanied by nuanced and thorough analyses, and though one may not agree with all of his claims, one is fully persuaded by the passionate clarity of his appeal. Barghouti reminds us what public responsibility entails, and we are lucky to have his relentless and intelligent analysis and argument. There is no more comprehensive and persuasive case than his for boycott, divestment, and sanctions to end the Israeli occupation and establish the ethical claim of Palestinian rights.” —Judith Butler, Co-director of the Program of Critical Theory at the University of California at Berkeley

“The ABC for internationalist support for Palestine is BDS. And the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaign against Israeli cruelty and injustice is gaining in significance and scope. Like the anti-apartheid movement against racist South Africa, BDS is helping to make a tremendous difference in what has been a most difficult struggle for human rights and the right of a colonized and dispossessed people to national self-determination. This inspiring book is a weapon in a noble struggle in which all right thinking people can play a part.” —Ronne Kasrils, former South African government minister

*****

Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions

The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights

By Omar Barghouti

Releasing Apr. 1, 2011 from Haymarket Books

Distributed in the UK by Turnaround Publisher Services

ISBN 9781608461141

320 pages

www.haymarketbooks.org

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Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Radical Thinkers

Radical Thinkers

RADICAL THINKERS SET 5 & RADICAL THINKERS CLASSIC EDITIONS

OUT NOW

————————————–
RADICAL THINKERS SET 5

Verso presents Set 5 of the highly popular Radical Thinkers series,
continuing its commitment to bring classic works of philosophy to a new
audience readership through affordable, attractively designed new editions.
—————————————-
LAUNCH EVENT with TARIQ ALI and PETER OSBORNE

MEDITATIONS ON SPINOZA: THE APOSTLE OF REASON
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/eventseducation/film/22966.htm

Part of the ‘In Defense of Philosophy’ series at Tate Modern

Friday 25th February 2011, 18.30
Tate Modern, Bankside London SE1 9TG

Christopher Spencer’s SPINOZA: THE APOSTLE OF REASON (1994) is the second film to be shown in the In Defense of Philosophy series. Written by Tariq Ali, the film presents the life and thought of Baruch Spinoza against the turmoil of seventeenth-century Europe. A fascinating modern man, Spinoza challenged orthodoxy in both religion andpolitics, angering his traditional contemporaries. Spinoza’s remarkable intellectual legacy has influenced thinkers as varied as Ludwig Wittgenstein, Gilles Deleuze, Albert Einstein and John Berger.

The film will be followed by a conversation with Tariq Ali and Peter Osborne.

Tate Modern Starr Auditorium
£10 (£8 concessions), booking recommended

For tickets book online here: http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/eventseducation/film/22966.htm or call 020 7887 8888.
—————————————-
RADICAL THINKERS SET 5

OUT NOW

ALL BOOKS / PAPERBACK / ONLY ?8.99/$15.95
BUY THE FULL SET FOR THE DISCOUNT PRICE OF ?85
—————————————
Louis Althusser – MACHIAVELLI AND US, 978 1 84467 675 0
“Althusser, poised between modernism and postmodernism, meets Machiavelli, poised between the Middle Ages and modernity.”–Antonio Negri.
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Etienne Balibar and Immanuel Wallerstein – RACE, NATION, CLASS: AMBIGUOUS
IDENTITIES, 978 1 84467 671 2
The modernity of racism and its relationship to contemporary capitalism.
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Jean Baudrillard – PASSWORDS, 978 1 84467 676 7
In the spirit of Deleuze’s Abécédaire, PASSWORDS offers twelve entry
points into Baudrillard’s thought.
—————————————
Jeremy Bentham – THE PANOPTICON WRITINGS, 978 1 84467 666 8
A definitive collection of Bentham’s work on the model prison, key to Foucault’s theory of power
—————————————
Guy Debord – COMMENTS ON THE SOCIETY OF THE SPECTACLE,
978 1 84467 672 9
“Guy Debord is a time bomb, and a difficult one to defuse.” – Michael Löwy
—————————————
Hal Foster – DESIGN AND CRIME, 978 1 84467 670 5
“DESIGN AND CRIME is cool, measured, and steady, like a Gunsmoke shootout.”–Greil Marcus
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André Gorz – CRITIQUE OF ECONOMIC REASON, 978 1 84467 667 5
“Gorz’s greatest work, and a crucial book for our time” — LE MONDE

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Fredric Jameson – BRECHT AND METHOD, 978 1 84467 677 4

“Elegant dissection of Brecht’s method, from estrangements to allegory and beyond”– MODERN DRAMA
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Peter Osborne – THE POLITICS OF TIME: MODERNITY AND AVANT-GARDE, 978 1
84467 673 6
Elaborates a dialectics of modernity, eternity and tradition.
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Edward W. Soja – POSTMODERN GEOGRAPHIES: THE REASSERTION OF SPACE IN
CRITICAL SOCIAL THEORY, 978 1 84467 669 9
“One of the most challenging and stimulating books ever written”—David Harvey
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Sebastiano Timpanaro – FREUDIAN SLIP: PSYCHOANALYSIS AND TEXTUAL
CRITICISM, 978 1 84467 674 3
“A firework display of erudition.”–Perry Anderson
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Slavoj Žižek, Ernesto Laclau, and Judith Butler – CONTINGENCY, HEGEMONY,
UNIVERSALITY, 978 1 84467 668 2
The Hegelian legacy, Left strategy, and post-structuralism versus Lacanian psychoanalysis
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RADICAL THINKERS SET 5 (full set) 978 1 84467 678 1
—————————————–
Praise for RADICAL THINKERS:

“An extremely pleasant surprise: a new imprint from Verso called Radical Thinkers, and a pile of white-covered paperbacks by the likes of Theodor Adorno, Fredric Jameson, Guy Debord and Walter Benjamin. Not only do they have nifty cover designs, they are ridiculously cheap.” Nick Lezard, GUARDIAN:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/aug/15/jean-baudrillard-transparency-of-evil

“A compendium of left-wing philosophical and political thought, inoculating it against the ‘great idea’ of philosophy-as-self-help. As a way of transforming… formless disgust into educated critique, these books are a fine, cheap and decidedly elegant starting point.” —  Owen Hatherley http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/radical-thought/

“A golden treasury of theory” — Eric Banks, BOOKFORUM

“Verso’s beautifully designed Radical Thinkers series, which brings together seminal works by leading left-wing intellectuals, is a sophisticated blend of theory and thought. The 12 authors whose writings are included in the series have worked tirelessly to expose the mechanisms by which culture and knowledge are manufactured, managed and controlled” — Ziauddin Sardar, NEW STATESMAN http://www.newstatesman.com/200604170041
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For more information & to buy the books visit: http://www.versobooks.com/series_collections/5-radical-thinkers
—————————————-
RADICAL THINKERS CLASSIC EDITIONS
—————————————-
To celebrate 40 years of radical publishing, Verso is reissuing four of the most popular and seminal titles from previous Radical Thinkers series in beautiful new hardback editions with black and red foil-embossed covers.
—————————————-
RADICAL THINKERS CLASSIC EDITIONS:

HARDBACKS (EACH) ?14.99/$24.95
BUY THE FULL SET FOR THE DISCOUNT PRICE OF £45
—————————————-
Theodor Adorno – MINIMA MORALIA: REFLECTIONS FROM DAMAGED LIFE, 978 1 84467 661 3

“A classic of twentieth century thought…whose translation is by far the best yet done of any work of Critical Theory.” – TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT

“A volume of Adorno is equivalent to a whole shelf of books on literature.” – Susan Sontag
—————————————–
Louis Althusser – FOR MARX, 978 1 84467 662 0

“Louis Althusser influenced so many discourses, actions and existences by the radiant and provocative voice of his thought” –– Jacques Derrida
———————————–
Raymond Williams – CULTURE AND MATERIALISM, 978 1 84467 663 7

“The left’s foremost cultural historian and critic” – COMMENT
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Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Ernst Bloch, Bertold Brecht, Georg Lukács
– AESTHETICS AND POLITICS, 978 1 84467 664 4

“They are key texts in the study of modernism, of expressionist drama and of realism, and of many closely related general questions … It is genuinely an indispensable volume” — Raymond Williams
———————————–
Radical Thinkers Classic Editions (full set) 978 1 84467 665 1
————————————
For more information and to buy the books visit: http://www.versobooks.com/series_collections/14-14-radical-thinkers-classic-editions
————————————
Become a fan of Verso on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Verso-Books-UK/122064538789
And get updates on Twitter too: http://twitter.com/VersoBooksUK

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

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

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

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Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Frames of War – Judith Butler

Judith Butler

FRAMES OF WAR – JUDITH BUTLER

NEW IN PAPERBACK

FRAMES OF WAR: WHEN IS LIFE GRIEVABLE?  

By JUDITH BUTLER

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“Judith Butler is the most creative and courageous social theorist writing today. FRAMES OF WAR is an intellectual masterpiece.” – Cornel West

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Judith Butler will be giving a lecture entitled ‘The Right to Appear: Towards an Arendtian Politics of the Street’ at the University of Westminster on 4th February 2011.

For more information visit http://instituteformodern.co.uk/2011/4th-february-judith-butler-at-university-of-westminster-london

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The most celebrated feminist in the world and founder of the Queer Theory movement returns with this powerful analysis of the role of the media in the ‘War on Terror’.

In this urgent response to violence, racism and increasingly aggressive methods of coercion, Judith Butler explores the media’s portrayal of armed conflicts, a process integral to how the West wages war. In doing so, she calls for a reconceptualization of the Left, one united in opposition and resistance to the illegitimate and arbitrary effects of interventionist military action.

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Praise for JUDITH BUTLER:

“Judith Butler is quite simply one of the most probing, challenging, and influential thinkers of our time.” J.M. Bernstein

Praise for FRAMES OF WAR:

“To propose that Judith Butler is one of the world’s leading thinkers, a feminist philosopher whose writing has impacted on a wide domain of disciplinary fields inside the academy, as well as on political culture in the outside world, is hardly contentious. We are, many of us, deeply indebted to this body of work which has illuminated issues that are at the very core of life, death, sexuality and existence.” Angela McRobbie, Times Higher Education Book of the Week http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=407098

“An impressive and challenging book from one of the leading intellectuals of our time” – DIVA

“Frames of War [is] an important contribution to what will no doubt be an ongoing philosophical and political discussion about the rights and wrongs of war.” Nina Power, THE PHILOSOPHERS’ MAGAZINE

http://www.philosophypress.co.uk/?p=714

“Judith Butler’s focus in this collection of five essays written and revised between 2004 and 2008 is the USA under George W. Bush, with Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay looming in the background. The questions she addresses… have a clear bearing on the cultural politics of grief beyond the USA.” Mark Fisher, FRIEZE

http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/frames_of_war_when_is_life_grievable

“A trenchant and brilliant book.” – UTNE READER

http://www.utne.com/Politics/Utne-Reader-Visionaries-Judith-Butler-Abu-Ghraib-Torture.aspx    

Praise for PRECARIOUS LIFE:

“It’s clear that its author is still interested in stirring up trouble—academic, political and otherwise.” – BOOKFORUM

“Hers is a unique voice of courage and conceptual ambition that addresses public life from the perspective of psychic reality, encouraging us to acknowledge the solidarity and the suffering through which we emerge as subjects of freedom.” Homi K. Bhabha

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JUDITH BUTLER is Maxine Elliot Professor of Rhetoric and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of many highly influential books, including GIVING AN ACCOUNT OF ONESELF, PRECARIOUS LIFE and GENDER TROUBLE.

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ISBN 978-1-84467-626-2 / $16.95 / £9.99 / $21.00 / Paperback / 224 pages

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For more information or to buy the book visit: http://www.versobooks.com/books/460-460-frames-of-war

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Academics based outside North America may request an inspection copy – please contact: tamar@verso.co.uk

Academics based within North America may request an examination copy – please contact clara@versobooks.com  

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Summer Institute in Qualitative Research 2011: Putting Theory to Work

The Island

SUMMER INSTITUTE IN QUALITATIVE RESEARCH 2011: PUTTING THEORY TO WORK

Monday 18th – Friday 22nd July 2011
Education and Social Research Institute, Manchester Metropolitan University
Summer Institute Director: Maggie MacLure

We are pleased to announce the second international Summer Institute in Qualitative Research, organised and hosted by the Education and Social Research Institute at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. Please display or circulate to any colleagues who might be interested.

The Summer Institute provides the opportunity to learn about major trends in theory, in dialogue with leading theorists.

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS [further speakers to be announced]
Deborah Britzman, York University, Canada
Linda Tuhiwai Smith, University of Waikato, New Zealand
Lisa Mazzei, Gonzaga University, USA
Bill Green, Charles Sturt University, Australia
Kate McCoy, State University of New York (New Paltz)
Helen Colley, MMU
Harry Torrance, MMU
Keri Facer, MMU
Maggie MacLure, MMU

‘PUTTING THEORISTS TO WORK’ workshops (Butler, Deleuze, Derrida, Foucault and others)

Sessions will be a mix of keynote sessions from leading researchers, small-group discussions and workshops on the work of leading theorists. Opportunities for interaction are an important part of the week’s activities.

The Summer Institute will be of interest to qualitative researchers who are looking for serious and stimulating engagements with theory, from doctoral students to more experienced researchers, across a range of disciplines including education, social sciences, health and caring professions.

STANDARD DELEGATE FEE: £295 (including all lunches and refreshments, plus wine reception)

Initial inquiries and registration details: email SIQR@mmu.ac.uk
For information on last year’s Summer Institute: http://www.esri.mmu.ac.uk/siqr/about.php

Summer Institute in Qualitative Research
Education and Social Research Institute
Manchester Metropolitan University
799 Wilmslow Road
Didsbury
Manchester, M20 2RR
UK
tel +44 (0)161 247 2318 
fax +44 (0) 161 247 6353

The Education and Social Research Institute at MMU is a leading centre for applied social and educational research with a world-class reputation for the development of theory and methodology. It is one of the top ten UK education research establishments, according to the last Research Assessment Exercise. See http://esri.mmu.ac.uk

Admin Team, Summer Institute in Qualitative Research July 2011

Manchester Metropolitan University
Institute of Education, Research Centre, 799 Wilmslow Road, Didsbury
Manchester M20 2RR, U.K.
Tel: +44 (0)161 247 2318
Fax: +44 (0)161 247 6353

Email: siqr@mmu.ac.uk

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Middlesex Philosophy Department Closure – Video

 

Philosophy

MIDDLESEX PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT CLOSURE – VIDEO

A video of interviews with those protesting to save Middlesex University Philosophy Department from closure: http://vimeo.com/11523774

More information about the protest & campaign here: http://savemdxphil.com/

Update 9th May 2010:

There was a very interesting article in The Observer today about leading academics backing student and staff actions to save philosophy at Middlesex University. Slavoj Zizek and Alain Badiou (amonsgt others) have spoken out about the importance and quality of philosophy at Middlesex University.

The article can be found on p.8 in the hard copy version of The Observer:

Doward, J. (2010) Academic revolt over philosophy cutbacks, The Observer, 9th May, p.8.

However, the online version has a different title:

Doward, J. (2010) Middlessex University cuts spark international protest from philosophers, The Observer, 9th May, online at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/09/middlesex-university-cuts-protest-philosophers

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Marxism and Literature

Mediation

MARXISM AND LITERATURE

The editorial collective of Mediations, the journal of the Marxist Literary Group, is pleased to announce issue 24.2, a special issue that revisits the relationship between Marxism and literature. Mediations is published twice yearly. The Fall issues are dossiers of non-U.S. material of interest; the Spring issues are open submission and peer reviewed.

Mediations has circulated in various forms and formats since the early 1970s, and is now available free on the web. Both a web edition and a print edition, downloadable in pdf form, can be accessed at: http://mediationsjournal.org. Featured authors in the current issue include Gáspár Miklós Tamás, Imre Szeman, Neil Larsen, Mathias Nilges, Nicholas Brown, Aisha Karim, Leerom Medovoi, and Sarah Brouillette.

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Volume 24, No. 2 || Marxism and Literature Revisited

Mathias Nilges and Emilio Sauri, guest editors

CONTENTS

Editors’ Note

The Left and Marxism in Eastern Europe: An Interview with Gáspár Miklós Tamás – Imre Szeman interviews the political philosopher, journalist, and writer, Gáspár Miklós Tamás. Describing his own political move to the Left in relation to local post-Soviet politics in Hungary and global structures of contemporary capitalism, Tamás discusses the dangers of attaching hopes for greater rights and liberties to both free market structures and nostalgic forms of leftism. What answers can Marxism offer in response to the sociopolitical and philosophical pressures of the current conjuncture in which the free market agenda has become structurally and politically untenable? How must we re-think Marxism itself in a context in which solutions to the political impasses of the present can no longer be found in a return to Party politics of the past? How might Marxist political philosophy deal with pressing contradictions such as rising forms of ultranationalism? Addressing these and other questions, Tamás demonstrates how recent political developments in Hungary, and throughout Eastern Europe more generally, provide lessons for the Left throughout the globe.

Marxist Literary Criticism, Then and Now – Is there such a thing as a Marxist literary criticism? Imre Szeman argues that, despite the fact that Marxism has long privileged literature as an object of analysis and critique, there is no unitary methodology or set of considerations that distinguish a “Marxist” approach to literature from others. Here, Szeman provides a historicization and structural analysis of what he identifies as the three primary modes of Marxist literary criticism. At the same time, this essay also points to a fourth, as yet unnamed, possibility for Marxist literary critique that seeks to sublate the assumed “impasse” created by the limiting choice between “ideological” and “anti-ideological” culture, an impasse that, according to Szeman, bears witness to a profound historical shift.

Literature, Immanent Critique, and the Problem of Standpoint – What might a method for critical theory that advances beyond the tenets of “ideology-critique” look like? For Neil Larsen, the answer lies in Marxism’s own recourse to immanent critique. Yet, with the notable exceptions of Adorno and Lukács, immanent critique has bothered little with the problem of standpoint in relation to cultural, and, in particular, literary objects. Larsen, then, attempts to specify an immanent critical standpoint of literature that allows for the articulation of a dialectical critique that dispenses with what he identifies as the “fallacy of application.” Demonstrating how any literary theory – Marxist and otherwise – is, of necessity, immanent to the text, this essay turns to the question of method as a means of grasping the relationship between the literary text as “subject/object” and the social totality.

Marxism and Form Now – Contemporary literary criticism is everywhere marked by what appears to a revival of foundational questions: what is literature now? How do we argue now? What is form now? Rather than signal a new direction for literary criticism, this now-ness, Mathias Nilges maintains, points to a discipline in the midst of a crisis of futurity. Extending the French Regulation School’s suggestion that the history of capitalism is the history of the struggle between capital and its social regulation, Nilges argues that the current disciplinary crisis is best evaluated in the context of capitalism’s cultural regulation. Dialectically linking the (crisis-driven) movement of structural, epistemological and cultural forms, Nilges maintains that the study of the formal(istic) history of cultural regulation must replace cultural critique based on the assumed possibility of the subsumption of culture under capital, which, in turn, creates the conditions of possibility for an emergent Marxist literary criticism.

One, Two, Many Ends of Literature – What if we looked at the notion of the end of literature as a truism, only lacking in plurality and logical rigor? Nicholas Brown explains that one of these “ends” can be regarded as internal to the functioning of literature itself, and as such, the point of departure for a more complete formulation of a Marxist literary criticism. For Brown, this formulation reveals that both literary criticism and Marxism are to be regarded as what he calls “formal materialisms,” a mode of analysis that must be completed and revised every time in light of an object it cannot posit beforehand. What this means for a Marxist literary-critical project subsequently becomes all the more apparent in Brown’s reading of another end of literature – postmodernism.

Crisis of Representation in Wole Soyinka’s Season of Anomy – Perhaps one of the more consistent elements of Wole Soyinka’s work has been a commitment to an individual will that refuses collective mobilization. Aisha Karim argues that Soyinka’s novel Season of Anomy marks a departure from any commitment as such, opening his work to new political possibilities. But while Season of Anomy presents us with an alternative to the politics and poetics that underlie Soyinka’s dramatic output, Karim maintains that it does so only insofar as it imagines itself as a “failed text.” What emerges as a crisis of representation within the text consequently allows the reader to recognize herself as the agent of change on the level of the social.

The Biopolitical Unconscious: Toward an Eco-Marxist Literary Theory – If ecocriticism can and should be dialectically assimilated to the project of a Marxist literary and cultural criticism, how do we have to rethink both ecocritical and Marxist literary critical praxis? What can a Marxist ecocriticism lend to interrogations of the relation between literature and ecocriticism´s most undertheorized category: the environment? Leerom Medovoi illustrates that Marxism not only can, but must play a central role in the formulation of an ecocritical 
approach to literature capable of transcending the inability to think beyond thematic criticism and ethical critique.

Creative Labor – Sarah Brouillette suggests that literary studies can help de-naturalize contemporary capitalism by accounting for the rise of the pervasive vocabulary that imagines work as a form of self-exploration, self-expression, and self-realization. She discusses two manifestations of this vocabulary. One is the notion of a “creative class” branded by Richard Florida, management professor and guru consultant to government and industry. The other is the theory of “immaterial labor” assembled within autonomist Marxism. Despite their obvious differences, Brouillette demonstrates that both conceptions are more symptoms than diagnoses of a now dominant tendency to fathom creativity both ahistorically – as the essence of experimentation emanating from an internal natural source – and contradictorily – as newly valuable to capitalism but romantically honorable and free.

BOOK REVIEWS

It’s Dialectical!
Nicholas Brown reviews Fredric Jameson’s Valences of the Dialectic. To say that Jameson’s most recent contribution to dialectical thought is monumental in scope is perhaps an understatement. What, then, might this reengagement with the dialectic mean both in the context of Jameson´s work and for Marxism today?

A New Direction for Marxism
Jen Hedler Hammond reviews Kevin Floyd´s The Reification of Desire: Toward a Queer Marxism. Floyd’s book succeeds in producing a dialogue between Judith Butler and Fredric Jameson that will no doubt have far-reaching consequences for both queer and Marxist theory. But what insight does this dialogue provide into the undertheorized position of women in Marxism and Queer Studies alike?

Mediations: Journal of the Marxist Literary Group: http://mediationsjournal.org/

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Gender and Education Association Conference – Barcelona 2010

Gender and Education

GENDER AND EDUCATION ASSOCIATION CONFERENCE – BARCELONA 2010

Gender and Education Association Interim Conference 2010: Gender and Education. Diversity of Voices

8 – 9 April 2010,
Universitat de Barcelona
Edifici Històric de la Universitat de Barcelona, Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes, 585. 08007

Judith Butler

Capitolina Diaz

Lídia Puigvert

Myria Vassiliadou

Gaby Weiner

The conference will draw together outstanding international speakers and researchers as well as activists engaged in gender and education. We encourage submissions that address conceptual, methodological, and practical challenges and opportunities in research and practice, from a diversity of voices on gender and education. The aims of the conference are:

* To review the cutting edge feminist and gender theory research and learn current research trends

* To provide an environment for participants to dialog and share their concerns and claims on gender and education issues

* To create a learning space to network and strengthen collaborations

The Interim Conference 2010: Gender and Education. Diversity of Voices is organised by SAFO CREA Women’s group (CREA-UB is the Centre of research in Theories and Practices that overcome Inequalities at the University of Barcelona) with the support of the Gender and Education Association.

Our hope is that the submissions for the 2010 Interim Conference will stimulate new conversations and collaborations that broaden our understandings of gender and education, making it possible to use that knowledge to create learning opportunities for all.

Deadline for abstracts – 14th February
Information on the conference is posted on the website at: http://www.pcb.ub.es/crea/  https://exchange.lancs.ac.uk/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.pcb.ub.es/crea/  

Email enquiries to: gea@ub.edu

Telephone: +34 93 403 50 99

Complete details:

Dates: April  8- 9, 2010

Place: Edifici Històric de la Universitat de Barcelona, Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes, 585. 08007

Map: http://www.ub.edu/ubicat/  

https://exchange.lancs.ac.uk/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.ub.edu/ubicat/  

Tourist information and accommodation: http://www.barcelonaturismo.com  https://exchange.lancs.ac.uk/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.barcelonaturismo.com/

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Radical Thinkers Audio

Radical Politics

RADICAL THINKERS AUDIO

 

AUDIO NOW AVAILABLE FROM THE OCT 23 NEW SCHOOL EVENT:

Judith Butler, Simon Critchley and Jacques Rancière

On the importance of critical theory to social movements today

Radical Thinkers

To celebrate the release of a new set of titles in the acclaimed Radical Thinkers series, as well as publication of their own key texts, three of Verso’s most respected and influential writers met October 23 in New York to discuss the future of radical thought.

LISTEN TO THE ENTIRE TALK HERE:  http://versobooks.com/verso_info/butler-critchley-ranciere.shtml

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