Category Archives: Critique

Interweb Motley # 21

Lapham’s Quarterly‘s new issue, which takes up the topic of the sea, begins with this 1757 quote from Edmund Burke: “The ocean is an object of no small terror. Indeed, terror is in all cases whatsoever, either more openly or … Continue reading

Posted in Critique, Development, Interweb Motley, Science & Tech., Security, The Sea | Comments Off on Interweb Motley # 21

Bureaucracy is Beautiful? Or Death by Papelismo

Kyle Grayson’s Chasing Dragons pointed me to this extraordinary gallery of photographs called “Bureaucratics” by photographer Jan Banning. I recognized one of them (left): it graces the cover of Akhil Gupta’s new book Red Tape: Bureaucracy, Structural Violence, and Poverty in … Continue reading

Posted in Art, Critique, Everyday Life, Law, Power, The State, Violence | Comments Off on Bureaucracy is Beautiful? Or Death by Papelismo

Visualizing Space and Injustice in Palestine

In an old post about the potential political capacities of the infographic, I wrote: “If Guy Debord was right in highlighting that social relations between people are increasingly mediated by images and representations, then can the infographic be a popular … Continue reading

Posted in Art, Boundaries, City, Critique, Everyday Life, Guy Debord, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Maps, Media, Primitive Accumulation, Scale, Security, Spatiality, Spectacle, Territory, The State, Violence | Comments Off on Visualizing Space and Injustice in Palestine

Holy Hatchet Job

In the literary world, a book review with this caliber of snarkiness and bite is known as a “hatchet job.” The review opens: “In disgust research, there is shit, and then there is bullshit. Colin McGinn’s book belongs to the … Continue reading

Posted in Art, Critique | Comments Off on Holy Hatchet Job

Op-Ed: Summit of the Americas Post-Mortem

Last week, I published an op-ed on the recent Summit of the Americas recently held in Cartagena, Colombia. By now, you’ve probably heard about it because of the media frenzy around Secret Service scandal (don’t get me started on that … Continue reading

Posted in Critique, Drugs, Illegality, Media, Violence | Comments Off on Op-Ed: Summit of the Americas Post-Mortem

On Academic Blogging

It’s always interesting to read about why people blog. Academic blogs are particular creatures that share similarities with, but are also distinct from, more journalistically oriented blogs. Over at the London School of Economics’ “Impact of Social Science” blog, Patrick … Continue reading

Posted in Critique, Everyday Life, Work Hack | 1 Comment

Jameson: Representing Capital

Canadian magazine Rabble has an interview with Frederic Jameson about his new book Representing Capital: A Reading of Volume One. Jameson explains what he means when he writes in the book, “Capital is not a book about politics, and not … Continue reading

Posted in Critique, Dialectics, Karl Marx, Marxism, Political Economy | Comments Off on Jameson: Representing Capital

Arendt, Foucault, Benjamin: On Violence, State, Law

This post discusses some scattered points raised about violence  by Hannah Arendt’s On Violence, Walter Benjamin’s “Critique of Violence,” and Michel Foucault’s Society Must be Defended. Arendt makes a worthwhile distinction between power and violence, while recognizing that the two rarely … Continue reading

Posted in Carl Schmitt, Critique, Illegality, Law, Michel Foucault, Power, Race & Ethnicity, Sovereignty, The State, Violence | 1 Comment

Meow: The Politics of Anonymous

Quinn Norton, a writer with Wired, has published a fascinating three-part series titled, “Anonymous: Beyond the Mask” (Part I, Part II, Part III). She tracks the progressive politicization of Anonymous from its diaper days chatting on 4Chan to #Occupy by … Continue reading

Posted in #Occupy, Art, Bandits, Critique, Everyday Life, Illegality, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Law, Networks, Pirates, Science & Tech., Spectacle | 1 Comment

A Nation of Workplace Junkies?

Anthropologist Arjun Appadurai recently published a column in Anthropology News on the proliferation of business-related news in U.S. media. He observes the “growing and now hegemonic domination of business news” both in print and on television. The business machine has … Continue reading

Posted in Critique, Everyday Life, Science & Tech., Spectacle | Comments Off on A Nation of Workplace Junkies?