"Will I Die Before They Get To Know Me?" From J. Cole to Oscar Grant III "Will I live or will I die before they get to know me? If I go, I know the ones that's pourin' liquor for...>>
Blog
As a scholar who is deeply intrigued by both the ingredients and political consequences of public opinion, I often gauge public sentiment by simply reading the status messages and posts of my friends on Facebook and Twitter. These social media...>>
The past can be like an old wound that never heals, especially when the scab keeps being picked. In the wake of Oakland transit cop Johannes Mesherle's recent involuntary manslaughter conviction for the on-duty shooting death of unarmed, 22 year-old...>>
"Justice for Oscar Grant!" As I sit in front of these keys I know that I could have written this essay 100 times before and will likely need to write it 100 more times before I die, simply because I...>>
The Skim
The future of online publishing? Content farms.
WikiLeaks has released over 75,000 secret US military reports covering the war in Afghanistan.
Do you like Mad Men? Social Text Co-Editor Anna McCarthy blogs about the show on Huffpo.
An illustrated version of David Harvey on the crises of capitalism courtesy of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce.
What if the Tea Party was Black? Answer here
Jezebel compiles a clip of foul mouthed women on TV. The occasion? A Supreme Court ruling declaring the FCC's indecency policy unconstitutional.
A depressing photographic archive of wildlife affected by the Gulf spill.
A number of people have made analog covers of Aphex Twin tracks, but this one is undoubtedly the best.
Events
Social Text collective member José Muñoz will be among the presenters at this state of the field conference on performance, to be held July 8th - 10th, 2010, at the House of World Cultures in Berlin. Click here for the full conference program.
Reviews
Louis Menand's The Marketplace of Ideas offers suggestions for revamping liberal education at a time when the liberal arts seem increasingly irrelevant to incoming freshmen. Andrew Scull's notorious hatchet job "UCSD letter" and other imbroglios are signs of the hazardous times. Trained as a historian and working as an English professor, Menand digs up fascinating history and proffers bits of insider gossip. Nonetheless, he falls short with an "if you can't beat them, join them" attitude,arguing that market forces (one can infer, a hybrid corporate-university model) stimulates competition and innovation in an academic culture which he views as mostly stagnant and out of touch with "real" societal concerns. Indeed the first line of his book is: "Knowledge is our most important business," he writes, noting that the "value-added" component of a college education is lost when "most of th[e] esoterica [of a professor's knowledge] is available instantly on Wikipedia" (19). He also seems to imply that women, minorities, and the 1980s "culture wars" instituted the decline in Academic culture away from its mission of disinterested research and non-ideological, or apolitical, vetting and debate. Read More. >>
Periscope
critical intelligence on current events
World Cup 2010
In this dossier, a series of football enthusiasts (who also happen to be social and cultural critics), offer their reflections upon the meaning and significance of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Commentators include Jennifer Doyle, Sean Jacobs, Nikhil Singh, Andrew Ross, Patrick Bond, Kwame Nyong'o, Ron Krabill, Mark Sawyer, Paul Silverstein, Karam Singh, Imani Perry and Eli Jelly-Schapiro. >>
