Monthly Archives: October 2012

Interweb Motley # 10

Beat Generation author Jack Kerouac has been in the news lately. First, the 120-foot, type-written scroll of his 1957 classic On The Road has been put on display as part of an exhibition at the British Library (until December). The scroll was … Continue reading

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The New Aesthetic Part II: Writing Like A Drone

My first post on the “New Aesthetic”—that weird, sometimes unsettling irruption of digital phenomena into real life, particularly into our visual culture—described it as a “structure of feeling,” a term coined by cultural critic Raymond Williams. For him, a structure … Continue reading

Posted in #Occupy, Art, City, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Raymond Williams, Security | 2 Comments

Can Colombia’s Peace Talks Succeed?

Colombia’s fourth and hopefully definitive try at peace talks with the country’s largest rebel group begin today in Oslo, Norway. The previous three tries between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)—once in the 1980s and twice … Continue reading

Posted in Agriculture, Development, Drugs, Illegality, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Land, Peace, Security, Terror, The State, Violence | Comments Off on Can Colombia’s Peace Talks Succeed?

“Land laundering”: How Colombian Paramilitaries Hijack Grassroots Development

I wrote a guest blog post for Future Agricultures that gives a straight-forward preview of the talk I’m giving this week at the Global Land Grabs conference hosted by Cornell University. A teaser: With the start of peace negotiations this … Continue reading

Posted in Agriculture, Development, Drugs, Forests, Illegality, Political Ecology, Political Economy, The State, Violence | Comments Off on “Land laundering”: How Colombian Paramilitaries Hijack Grassroots Development

Medicating Austerity and Biopower

I read the article “Attention Disorder or Not, Pills to Help in School” this morning in the NY Times and it freaked me out. Then, the article was sent around on my department’s listserve and I just can’t get over it. … Continue reading

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The New Aesthetic Part I: Seeing Like A Machine

You know how sometimes you learn about something you had never heard of before and then you start seeing it everywhere? The New Aesthetic has been one of those things for me since Derek Gregory turned me on to it (sue … Continue reading

Posted in Art, Assemblages, Boundaries, City, Everyday Life, Media, Networks, Science & Tech., Spectacle | 2 Comments

Interweb Motley # 9

Benjamin Kunkel in the New Statesman critiques what he calls the “unbearable lightness of Slajov Žižek’s communism” and notes how the Slovenian philosopher’s celebrity produced an odd result: “A ruthless criticism of capitalism, it turned out, could still be contemplated … Continue reading

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In Conversation: E.P. Thompson and C.L.R. James

An interesting conversation recorded sometime around 1982 between two of my favorite historians: EP Thompson and CLR James. The most fascinating part of the 50-minute conversation/interview comes toward the end, beginning at about minute 43′ in which they start talking … Continue reading

Posted in Historical Materialism, Marxism, Nation/Nationalism, Post-Colonial, Race & Ethnicity | Comments Off on In Conversation: E.P. Thompson and C.L.R. James

Neil Smith and Eric Hobsbawm

Like so many others I was saddened to hear about Neil Smith’s untimely passing. People who knew him have all mentioned what a kind, warm, down to earth, and funny person he was—in this, I hope I follow his footsteps. … Continue reading

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