Rob Nixon's Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor was published this spring by Harvard University Press. Nixon's work has been crucial to articulating the conjunction - as well as the fault lines - between postcolonial studies and ecocriticism. As the baleful impact of climate chaos becomes increasingly apparent around the world, the kinds of intellectual affiliations and openings charted in Nixon's work become ever more important. I conducted this interview with him via email exchange in August 2011.AD: The key conceptual framework for your book lies in the notion of slow violence. Can you explain how you developed this concept and how you see it as efficacious in struggles for environmental justice?RN: We are accustomed to conceiving... >>
In Interviews
An Interview with Matthew Frye Jacobson.
Michael Mandiberg: So tell us about the Historian's Eye project...
Matthew Frye Jacobson: This started for me back in about 2007-2008. I was trying to think about different ways of getting intellectual work out in the world, continuous with all the writing I've done but in a different register. Read more >>
Ben Reiss' article, "Madness after Virginia Tech: From Psychiatric Risk to Institutional Vulnerability" in the current issue of Social Text, will be the topic of discussion on KPFA's Against the Grain this Wednesday, February 2, beginning at noon Pacific/3 Eastern and worldwide via kpfa.org. The audio will be archived afterward at againstthegrain.org.
Reiss has also published a related commentary in the Chronicle of Higher Education, "Campus Security and the Specter of Mental-Health Policing," which you can read here. >>
Reiss has also published a related commentary in the Chronicle of Higher Education, "Campus Security and the Specter of Mental-Health Policing," which you can read here. >>
From the community
For nearly a month, a large swath of University of Puerto Rico students across campuses on the island are striking new policies that limit tuition waivers, among others. They have taken over the main campus leading to its shutdown until at least July 31st.It has received very little coverage in the US news despite the length and vitality of the strike as well as massive support shown by family, friends, professors, unions, artists and many others. This is not the first time students have gone on strike but it certainly has been on of the most vibrant and most important waves. Learn more about the strike and demands on Democracy Now:... >>
Introduction: The Wu Ming Foundation is a collective of four self-described "guerrilla novelists" based in Bologna, Italy. The collective was born in 1994, when hundreds of European and South American artists, activists, and pranksters hijacked the name of a Black British football player who briefly played as a striker for AC Milan during the 1980s. Blissett, who left Italy after being subjected to racist taunts from fans and players alike, metamorphosed into a multiple-use name or "open reputation" known as the Luther Blissett Project. For their contribution to the Luther Blissett Project, the four writers who are now Wu Ming penned Q, an epic account of radical Anabaptist rebels in central Europe during the 16th century. The novel became... >>
Periscope
Bird on Fire
Bird on Fire offers many crucial lessons for environmental and climate justice activists. To draw out some of those lessons, Social Text has assembled a group of prominent activist intellectuals to comment on Ross’s important book, as well as an excerpt from the book and a video of a talk that Ross gave at the CUNY Graduate Center. Sandy Bahr is the director of the Sierra Club's Grand Canyon Chapter in Arizona; Kristin Koptiuch is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Arizona State University; Laura Pulido is Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California; and Julie Sze is Associate Professor of American Studies at UC Davis. >>
