tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-61122932127431347902024-03-19T00:34:40.731-07:00MAPPSMappingPower&PoliticSUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger28125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6112293212743134790.post-69760083127319900672009-11-25T02:14:00.000-08:002009-12-02T15:19:14.155-08:00<div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHRwssVjZoinbF6eU2rF3LDPl_UgkzzgPETESF21uVeU2EGQ_ySoB9SjAR8y-8uzzI97VBOgXQ6Sgq0sB_gflnbeCQvI09PD0AF1akornCpjczTd_obSE6Rcajb-CHppYam59vC1Wk9E8/s1600/cop_quadViola_2.jpg"></a></span><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Una scheda bibliografica per </span></span></span></b><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">La Straniera </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">(...our booklet on racism and sexism is out!)</span></span></span></span></i></b></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);"><br /></span></span></i></b></span></div><div><b><i><br /></i></b></div><div><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; color: rgb(0, 0, 238);"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHRwssVjZoinbF6eU2rF3LDPl_UgkzzgPETESF21uVeU2EGQ_ySoB9SjAR8y-8uzzI97VBOgXQ6Sgq0sB_gflnbeCQvI09PD0AF1akornCpjczTd_obSE6Rcajb-CHppYam59vC1Wk9E8/s400/cop_quadViola_2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5407983116251447330" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 286px; height: 400px;" border="0" /></span></i></b></div><div><br /></div><i><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">La straniera. Informazioni, sito-bibliografie e ragionamenti su razzismo e sessismo</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">, (a cura di C. Bonfiglioli, L. Corradi, L. Cirillo, B. De Vivo, S. R. Farris, V. Perilli).</span></span></span></div></i><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify; font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Come il primo, anche il secondo numero dei Quaderni Viola si propone di fornire dati elementari di conoscenza, bibliografie e sitografie per chi desideri poi approfondire, spiegazioni brevi ma capaci di orientare un lavoro politico. Il tema del razzismo è esaminato nelle sue intersezioni con il genere e la classe, così come nel primo numero il tema del lavoro è stato analizzato nelle intersezioni con il genere e con la condizione migrante. Le intersezioni tra vari rapporti di oppressione hanno assunto un’importanza crescente nella ricerca femminista internazionale. In questo quaderno vengono offerti esempi concreti di come genere-classe-razza/etnia/cultura-generazione contribuiscano a determinare posizioni di oppressione nella gerarchia sociale, ma anche nuove possibilità di presa di parola. Allo scopo di indagare alcune delle forme storiche in cui il concetto di razza è stato creato e impiegato, la prima parte del quaderno ne analizza alcuni momenti centrali: l’antisemitismo e la scientizzazione della categoria di razza, il razzismo anti-Rom, il colonialismo e, in particolare, il periodo coloniale italiano e il razzismo anti-meridionale. Il dibattito sul concetto di intersezionalità, sul ruolo da attribuire a ciascuna componente della triade “razza- genere-classe” si è arricchito negli anni di contributi e riflessioni sempre più numerose. La seconda parte perciò offre le coordinate teoriche e bibliografiche per orientarsi in tale dibattito e per affrontare, con una prospettiva più avveduta, l’intera trama problematica che è oggetto del quaderno. La terza e ultima parte infine si concentra sulle forme assunte dal razzismo contemporaneo in Italia, in particolare nelle loro declinazioni di genere. Gli immigrati e le immigrate sono divenuti/e il bersaglio principale di retoriche e pratiche xenofobe. Tuttavia, oltre che discorso esplicito, il razzismo contemporaneo si camuffa principalmente dietro narrative “difensive” che sempre più per affermarsi strumentalizzano le donne, italiane e non. Sono soprattutto tali narrative oggi ad insidiarsi nelle coscienze ed è, pertanto, dalla decostruzione di esse che dobbiamo partire per smascherare la propaganda razzista e misogina.</span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span><div style="text-align: justify; font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Per l'indice del numero e brevi schede sulle autrici rinviamo al sito delle </span></span><a href="http://www.edizionialegre.it/cgi-bin/adon.cgi?act=doc&doc=237&sid=10"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Edizioni Alegre</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">. Sui </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Quaderni Viola</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> e </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">La straniera</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> si veda anche: Quaderni Viola </span></span><a href="http://sites.google.com/site/quaderniviola/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">sito </span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">e </span></span><a href="http://quaderniviola.blogspot.com/2009/11/la-straniera-secondo-numero-della-nuova.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">blog</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">, </span></span><a href="http://marginaliavincenzaperilli.blogspot.com/2009/11/una-scheda-bibliografica-per-la.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">marginalia</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">, </span></span><a href="http://femminismo-a-sud.noblogs.org/post/2009/11/26/razzismo-e-sessismo-la-straniera"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">femminismo a sud</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">, </span></span><a href="http://www.zeroviolenzadonne.it/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&type=news&id=5123"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">zeroviolenzadonne</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">, </span></span><a href="http://incidenze.blogspot.com/2009/11/la-straniera-quaderni-viola-n-2.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">incidenze</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">, </span></span><a href="http://www.diserzionisensibili.splinder.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">diserzioni sensibili,</span></span></a><span><a href="http://www.controstorie.org/content/view/55/34/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> controstorie</span></span></a></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6112293212743134790.post-44423480116419450552009-11-23T08:52:00.000-08:002009-11-23T09:02:34.752-08:00<div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0-S-KaB8voZjLhvLI-9-JsVC8hfxM7nueVd3lOVk22NfYr4h0t6YhhaEmoxG4NT-II4iKCFPXnQ-h4A3Ar_hemgGaoPcFLyaJz32UFU5wAml_rYT8nW0D9PUJmUWKz3EdIQsUV8ciClQ/s1600/crisis.jpg"></a><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CC0000;">Sixth Historical Materialism Annual Conference</span></b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CC0000;">‘Another World is Necessary: Crisis, Struggle and Political Alternatives’</span></b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CC0000;">27–29 November 2009</span></b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0-S-KaB8voZjLhvLI-9-JsVC8hfxM7nueVd3lOVk22NfYr4h0t6YhhaEmoxG4NT-II4iKCFPXnQ-h4A3Ar_hemgGaoPcFLyaJz32UFU5wAml_rYT8nW0D9PUJmUWKz3EdIQsUV8ciClQ/s400/crisis.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5407345250458547090" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 258px; " /></span></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The </span></span><a href="http://mercury.soas.ac.uk/hm/conference2009.htm"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">annual Historical Materialism</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> conference is organised by the editorial board of Historical Materialism in association with the Deutscher Memorial Prize committee and the Socialist Register. The conference has become an important event on the Left, providing an annual forum to discuss recent developments on the agenda of historical-materialist research and has attracted an increasingly high attendance over the past four years. The Editorial Board of Historical Materialism welcomes attendance and active engagement in discussion with panellists from new as well as prior participants with an interest in critical-Marxist thought.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">One of the principal objectives of the conference has been to build bridges among the various Marxist communities, including the breaking down some of the linguistic and intellectual barriers which continue to hamper the circulation and expansion of critical-Marxist thought. The sixth annual Historical Materialism Conference, under the banner of ‘Crisis, Struggle and Political Alternatives’, promises to continue and take forward this objective.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The conference is organised around three plenary sessions (the Deutscher lecture, the launch of the Socialist Register 2010, and Historical Materialism’s plenary) and a host of workshops dedicated to specific themes.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">THE FULL TIMETABLE IS NOW AVAILABLE AND YOU CAN BOOK/ REGISTER ONLINE NOW</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">For more details, please contact: historicalmaterialism@soas.ac.uk</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Attendance is free, but participants must register in advance online (if this is not possible, please contact historicalmaterialism@soas.ac.uk). However, the conference is largely self-funded and we will depend on voluntary donations by attendants and participants to support the organisation and running of the event. The suggested advanced online donation is £40 for waged and £15 for unwaged, and the suggested donation on the door is £50 for waged and £20 for unwaged.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">For logistical and other support, Historical Materialism would like to thank the School of Oriental and African Studies and the Centre for International Security and Diplomacy. For sponsorship, thanks to the Faculty of Law and Social Sciences at SOAS, SOAS Student Union, Brill Academic Publishers, the Deutscher Memorial Prize committee, Socialist Register, Journal of Agrarian Change, the International Initiative for the Promotion of Political Economy and Bookmarks.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">THEMES FOR THIS YEAR’S CONFERENCE INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING:</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">A LEFT PROJECT: TRANSFORMING THE STATE? * AGENCY * AGRARIAN CHANGE IN CONTEMPORARY CAPITALISM: TECHNICAL DYNAMICS AND ENVIRONMENTAL TRAJECTORIES * ALTHUSSER AND PHILOSOPHY * APOCALYPSE MARXISM * ART AGAINST CAPITALISM * ART AND CRITIQUE IN GERMANY BETWEEN THE WARS * BOOK LAUNCH: ALEX CALLINICOS'S IMPERIALISM AND GLOBAL POLITICAL ECONOMY * BOOK LAUNCH: KARL MARX AND CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY * CAPITALISM, CITIZENSHIP AND CRISIS * CLASS AND CONFLICT IN ANCIENT GREECE * CLASS AND POLITICS IN THE ‘GLOBAL SOUTH’ * CLASS, CRISIS, DISTRIBUTION * COGNITIVE MAPPING, TOTALITY AND THE REALIST TURN * COMMODIFYING HEALTH CARE IN THE UK * CUBAN REVOLUTION AND CUBAN SOCIETY * DERIVATIVES * DEVELOPMENTALISM, THE STATE AND CLASS FORMATION * DIMENSIONS OF THE FOOD CRISIS * EASTERN CENTRAL EUROPE FROM TRANSITION TO EU ENLARGEMENT: CHANGE AND CONTINUITY IN THE GLOBAL POLITICAL ECONOMY * ECOLOGICAL CRISIS * EMPIRE AND IMPERIALISM * ENERGY AND GEOPOLITICS * ENERGY, WASTE AND CAPITALISM * EPISTEMOLOGY, DIALECTICS AND HISTORICAL MATERIALISM * EXTENDING THE MINERALS-ENERGY-COMPLEX * FEMINISM AND SOCIALIST STRATEGY * FINANCE, THE HOUSING QUESTION AND URBAN POLITICS * GLOBAL LAW AND HUMAN RIGHTS: MARXIST REFLECTIONS * GRAMSCI RELOADED * GREEN CAPITALISM AND ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS * HISTORICAL MATERIALISM AND LATE CAPITALIST DEVELOPMENT * HISTORICAL MATERIALISM AND SOCIAL RESEARCH * HISTORICISING HISTORICAL MATERIALISM * HM BOOK SERIES LAUNCH: MIKKO LAHTINEN ON ALTHUSSER AND MACHIAVELLI * HM BOOK SERIES LAUNCH: PETER THOMAS’S THE GRAMSCIAN MOMENT * IN MEMORY OF PETER GOWAN * INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE CRISIS * INTERPRETATIONS OF THE CRISIS * ISAAC AND TAMARA DEUTSCHER MEMORIAL PRIZE LECTURE: KEES VAN DER PIJL, NOMADS, EMPIRES, STATES * KNOWLEDGE, NATURE, PROPERTY * LABOUR * LABOUR AND THE ECONOMIC SUBJECT IN CONTEMPORARY ART * LABOUR BEYOND THE FACTORY * LATIN AMERICAN WORKING CLASSES * LEARNING FROM PAST CRISES * LINEAGES OF NEOLIBERALISM * LISTEN TO VENEZUELA SCREENING AND DISCUSSION * MARXISM AND LATIN AMERICAN HISTORY * MARXISM AND NATIONALISM TODAY * MARXISM AND POLITICAL VIOLENCE * MARXISM AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS * MARXISM AND TIME * MARXISM BETWEEN ETHICS AND UTOPIA * MARXISM, DEMOCRACY AND CLASSICAL POLITICAL THEORY * MIGRATION * MONEY * MORBID SYMPTOMS: HEALTH UNDER CAPITALISM * NEOLIBERALISM, AESTHETICS AND THE RECUPERATION OF DISSENT * ON THE OBJECTS OF COMMUNISM: A HACKING PANEL * PHILOSOPHY AND COMMUNISM IN THE EARLY MARX * PLANNING, LOCALISM AND THE LEFT * POSTNEOLIBERALISM * PRESENTATION OF THE JOURNAL CHTO DELAT/WHAT IS TO BE DONE? * RACE, NATION AND ORIENTALISM * RED PLANETS: MARXISM AND SCIENCE FICTION * RE-EMBEDDING MARXISM: COERCION AND POLITICAL ECONOMY * REGISTERING THE CRISIS: A SOCIALIST REGISTER ROUNDTABLE * RESEARCH ON MARX * RESTRUCTURING, OUTSOURCING, DISTRIBUTION: DIMENSIONS OF THE GLOBAL CRISIS * REVOLUTIONARY THEORY, AUTONOMIST MARXISM AND THE CRITIQUE OF POLITICAL ECONOMY * SLAVERY AND CAPITALISM IN THE US SOUTH * SOCIAL MOVEMENTS IN LATIN AMERICA: THE CURRENT CONJUNCTURE * STUDENT MOVEMENTS AND YOUTH REVOLTS * THE ARTS AND CAPITALIST CRISIS: THE NEW DEAL EXPERIENCE * THE CRITIQUE OF RELIGION AND THE CRITIQUE OF CAPITALISM * THE POLITICAL AESTHETICS OF REALISM * THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF WORK * THE POLITICS OF FINANCE * THE POLITICS OF THE WILL * THE POLITICS OF VALUE * THE RIGHT: RACE, NATION, IDENTITY * THE TURN TO ETHICS AND THE CRITIQUE OF CAPITALISM * 'TURBULENCE: IDEAS FOR MOVEMENT', NEW ISSUE LAUNCH * UNION STRUGGLES * UNOISM, ECOLOGY AND CRISIS * UTOPIAS, DYSTOPIAS AND SOCIALIST BIOPOLITICS * WEBLOGS AND THE OPPOSITIONAL PUBLIC SPHERE: A DISCUSSION * WHAT IS ABSTRACTION? * WORKERS AND STRUGGLE TODAY * ZIONISM, ANTISEMITISM AND THE LEFT - A DEBATE</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">SPEAKERS INCLUDE:</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Gilbert Achcar * Ozgun Akduran * Gregory Albo * Robert Albritton * Peter Alexander * Noaman Ali * Kevin B. Anderson * Ricardo Antunes * Caroline Arscott * Sam Ashman * John Ashworth * Ilker Atac * Jairus Banaji * Fletcher Baragar * Banu Bargu * Colin Barker * Tom Barnes * Luca Basso * Matthew Beaumont * Pinar Bedirhanoglu * Dimitris Belantis * John Bell * Aaron Benanav * Halil Berktay * Alain Bihr * Robin Blackburn * Paul Blackledge * Max Blechman * Derek Boothman * Giacomo Borbone * Mark Bould * Stephen Bouquin * Bill Bowring * Ulrich Brand * Craig Brandist * Michael Brie * Simon Bromley * Wendy Brown * Dick Bryan * Adrian Budd * Verity Burgmann * Damien Cahill * Alex Callinicos * Ricardo Camargo * Mauro Farnesi Camellone * Bob Cannon * Thomas Carmichael * Warren Carter * Giorgio Cesarale * Maria Elisa Cevasco * Dae-op Chang * François Chesnais * Vivek Chibber * Andrew Chitty * Christopher Chitty * Joseph Choonara * Sheila Cohen * Alex Colas * Tim Cooper * Stipe Curkovic * Steve Cushion * Gareth Dale * Neil Davidson * Gail Day * Tim Dayton * Kathryn Dean * Alex Demirovic * Angela Dimitrakaki * Demet Dinler * Kevin Doogan * Elizabeth Dore * Nick Dyer-Witheford * Juliane Edler * Aram Eisenschitz * Hester Eisenstein * Fuat Ercan * Adam Fabry * Daniel Fairfax * Mariano Feliz * Ben Fine * Robert Fine * Peter Fleming * Gregory C. Flemming * Keith Flett * John Foran * Vassillis Fouskas * Carl Freedman * James Furner * Alexander Gallas * Andreia Galvao * Ferruccio Gambino * Earl Gammon * Lindsey German * Frantz Gheller * Lesley Gill * John Glenn * Jesse Goldstein * Maya Gonzalez * Jeff Goodwin * Jamie Gough * Nick Gray * Juan Grigera * Laam Hae * Peter Hallward * Ayeesha Hameed * Carrie Hamilton * Bue Hansen * Jane Hardy * Chris Harman * David Harvie * Owen Hatherley * Mike Haynes * Andrew Hemingway * Lesley Henderson * Christoph Henning * Rob Heynen * Andy Higginbottom * Sarah Hines * John Holloway * Patricia Howard * Peter Hudis * Liz Humphries * Robert Jackson * Dhruv Jain * Fredric Jameson * Elinor Jean * Seongjin Jeong * Bob Jessop * Bonn Juego * Anush Kapadia * Brian Kelly * Sami Khatib * Jeff Kinkle * Kelvin Knight * Meri Koivusalo * Ahmet Hasim Kose * Conor Kostick * Primoz Krasovec * Maria Kyriakidou * Xavier Lafrance * Mikko Lahtinen * Alex Levant * Les Levidow * Iren Levina * William Lewis * Nicola Livingstone * Jean-Guy Loranger * Monica Clua Losada * David Mabb * Andreas Malm * Gonzo Poso Martin * Randy Martin * Jonathan Martineau * Meade McCloughan * David McNally * Andrew Milner * Simon Mohun * Peter P. Mollinga * Kim Moody * Colin Mooers * Jason W. Moore * Adam Morton * Sara Motta * Tadzio Müller * Munoz-Martinez * Ozgur Narin * Jonathan Neale * Mike Newman * Susan Newman * Benjamin Noys * Blair Ogden * Koichi Ohara * Ozlem Onaran * Deidre O'Neill * Ebru Deniz Ozan * Melda Ozturk * Leo Panitch * Giorgos Papafragkou * David Parker * Jaime Pastor * Jody Patterson * Knox Peden * Alexei Penzin * Nicole Pepperell * Simon Pirani * Iain Pirie * Amedeo Policante * Nicolas Pons-Vignon * Charles Post * Moishe Postone * Nina Power * Lucia Pradella * Toni Prug * Ozren Pupovac * Thomas Purcell * Hugo Radice * Ravi Raman * Akbar Rasulov * Gene Ray * John Rees * Tobias Reichardt * Paul Reynolds * Sébastien Rioux * John Roberts * Ed Rooksby * Ellen Rosen * Christina Rousseau * Sheila Rowbotham * Sally Ruane * Frank Ruda * Alfredo Saad-Filho * Spyros Sakellaropoulos * Birgit Sauer * Johannes Dragsbaek Schmidt * Alan Sears * Thomas Sekine * Ben Selwyn * Greg Sharzer * Stuart Shields * Subir Sinha * Gary Slater * John Smith * Johan Soderberg * Clare Solomon * Panagiotis Sotiris * Dimitris Sotiropoulos * Susan Spronk * Kerstin Stakemeier * Julian Stallbrass * Engelbert Stockhammer * Erik Swyngedouw * Lotta Takala-Greenish * Daniel Tanuro * Jean Baptiste Thomas * Peter Thomas * Vidar Thorsteinsson * Hillel Ticktin * Bruno Tinel * Massimiliano Tomba * Jonathon Tomlinson * Alberto Toscano * Enzo Traverso * Ben Trott * Julian Tudor-Hart * Mehmet Ufuk Tutan * Nilay Tutan Tutan * Emily van der Meulen * Marco Vanzulli * Leandro Vergara-Camus * Zaira Rodrigues Vieira * Dmitry Vilensky * Marina Vishmidt * Andriana Vlachou * Hilary Wainright * Mike Wayne * Xiaoping Wei * Duncan Wigan * Evan Williams * Michaek Wood * Phil Woodhouse * Galip Yalman * Karel Yon * Christian Zeller * Alexander Zevin * Mislav Žitko</span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6112293212743134790.post-53178559722084933022009-11-14T01:00:00.000-08:002009-11-14T01:10:32.506-08:00<div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8pCdu96mR4jO9bFppagtKJeG2Ns2eNxcaehXjpbkkS6NdaLMmgFDMYe5kGpxiWylrKnw9yElHtUVM3H9EU1oLoWPjl-ltJrLuUg5LGBpO0xet3IidNn1RYbhGHaXdY9bCzwSBkh_XxHw/s1600-h/peter's+book.jpg"></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Times;font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><b><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CC0000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Peter's book is out!!! </span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, serif; ">The Gramscian Moment. Philosophy, Hegemony and Marxism</span></div></span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">Peter D. Thomas</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></span></span></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=227&pid=29354"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=227&pid=29354</span></span></a></div></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Times;font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=227&pid=29354"></a></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8pCdu96mR4jO9bFppagtKJeG2Ns2eNxcaehXjpbkkS6NdaLMmgFDMYe5kGpxiWylrKnw9yElHtUVM3H9EU1oLoWPjl-ltJrLuUg5LGBpO0xet3IidNn1RYbhGHaXdY9bCzwSBkh_XxHw/s400/peter's+book.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5403883460318516066" style="text-align: justify;display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; cursor: pointer; width: 271px; height: 360px; " /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Publication year: 2009</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Series: Historical Materialism Book Series, 24</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">ISBN-13 (i): 978 90 04 16771 1</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">ISBN-10: 90 04 16771 4</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Cover: Hardback</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Number of pages: xxv, 477 pp.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">List price: € 115.00 / US$ 170.00</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Antonio Gramsci's Prison Notebooks are today acknowledged as a classic</div><div style="text-align: justify;">of the human and social sciences in the twentieth century. The</div><div style="text-align: justify;">influence of his thought in numerous fields of scholarship is only</div><div style="text-align: justify;">exceeded by the diverse interpretations and readings to which it has</div><div style="text-align: justify;">been subjected, resulting in often contradictory 'images of Gramsci'.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">This book draws on the rich recent season of Gramscian philological</div><div style="text-align: justify;">studies in order to argue that the true significance of Gramsci's</div><div style="text-align: justify;">thought consists in its distinctive position in the development of the</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Marxist tradition. Providing a detailed reconsideration of Gramsci's</div><div style="text-align: justify;">theory of the state and concept of philosophy, The Gramscian Moment</div><div style="text-align: justify;">argues for the urgent necessity of taking up the challenge of</div><div style="text-align: justify;">developing a 'philosophy of praxis' as a vital element in the</div><div style="text-align: justify;">contemporary revitalisation of Marxism.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Peter D. Thomas (Ph.D, 2008) studied at the University of Queensland,</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Freie Universität Berlin, L’Università “Federico II”, Naples, and the</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Universiteit van Amsterdam. He has published widely on Marxist</div><div style="text-align: justify;">political theory and philosophy. He is a member of the editorial board</div><div style="text-align: justify;">of the journal Historical Materialism: research in critical Marxist</div><div style="text-align: justify;">theory.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></span></span><b><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, serif; font-size: small; ">REVIEWS</span></div></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><div style="text-align: justify;">Peter Thomas' book should become the standard text in English on</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Gramsci's thought. Acquainted as he is with the latest wrinkle in the</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Italian debate on Gramsci, Thomas combines an unmatched philological</div><div style="text-align: justify;">research into the sources and a mastery of the ongoing debates about</div><div style="text-align: justify;">the sense we should make of key ideas like hegemony. He deftly</div><div style="text-align: justify;">overturns the received orthodoxy and the various abuses of the ideas</div><div style="text-align: justify;">of the marxist militant by theorists of cultural studies, both</div><div style="text-align: justify;">restoring Gramsci's work to its true status and opening up fruitful</div><div style="text-align: justify;">possibilities for understanding his contribution to political theory</div><div style="text-align: justify;">more generally. The best book on Gramsci's political theory for three</div><div style="text-align: justify;">decades.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Alastair Davidson, Author of Antonio Gramsci. the Man, his Ideas and</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Antonio Gramsci: Towards an Intellectual Biography</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Peter Thomas's Gramsci is the one we need in an era of economic and</div><div style="text-align: justify;">geopolitical crises that bears some resemblances to Gramsci's own</div><div style="text-align: justify;">time. This Gramsci is no embarrassed culturalist, confused strategist,</div><div style="text-align: justify;">or incipient post-Marxist. Thomas's Gramsci, developed from rigorous</div><div style="text-align: justify;">critical study of the Prison Notebooks and of the now extensive</div><div style="text-align: justify;">scholarly literature, is a deeply consequent thinker intent on</div><div style="text-align: justify;">reconstructing revolutionary Marxism in opposition to the most</div><div style="text-align: justify;">advanced bourgeois thought of his day. This is also a Gramsci for whom</div><div style="text-align: justify;">political economy is of central methodological and substantive</div><div style="text-align: justify;">significance. Not content with scholarly interpretation, Thomas draws</div><div style="text-align: justify;">his Gramsci into dialogue with contemporary radical thought,</div><div style="text-align: justify;">illuminating both sides of the conversation. This is a book that will</div><div style="text-align: justify;">recast the understanding of Gramsci, especially but not exclusively in</div><div style="text-align: justify;">the Anglophone world.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Alex Callinicos, Professor of European Studies, Social Theory and</div><div style="text-align: justify;">International Political Economy, King's College, London</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">What superlatives can I use to describe this book? Terms like</div><div style="text-align: justify;">‘outstanding,’ ‘superb’ and ‘tour-de-force’ suggest themselves, but</div><div style="text-align: justify;">even these do not fully capture the extraordinary power of The</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Gramscian Moment. Peter Thomas’s erudite, wide-ranging, and</div><div style="text-align: justify;">staggeringly sophisticated reading of Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks</div><div style="text-align: justify;">completely overturns the dominant interpretations including those of</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Louis Althusser and Perry Anderson. Never again will we be able to</div><div style="text-align: justify;">read Gramsci solely through their lenses. Henceforth, Thomas’s</div><div style="text-align: justify;">magisterial exploration of Gramsci’s thought will become the critical</div><div style="text-align: justify;">point of reference for all serious work in the field. But Thomas does</div><div style="text-align: justify;">more than meticulous exegesis. He also insists on the actuality of</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Gramsci’s work, urging that we approach it in the spirit of “both</div><div style="text-align: justify;">continuation and transformation, fidelity and renewal.” He succeeds</div><div style="text-align: justify;">brilliantly on all counts.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">David McNally, Professor of Political Science, York University, Toronto</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Peter Thomas's The Gramscian Moment demonstrates the extent to which</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Gramsci’s thought represents a singular synthesis of virtually the</div><div style="text-align: justify;">entire tradition of Western political thought. The richness of his</div><div style="text-align: justify;">interpretative frameworks allows him both to integrate partial</div><div style="text-align: justify;">approaches and contributions and to throw new light on the central</div><div style="text-align: justify;">questions inherited by this tradition. This work succeeds in</div><div style="text-align: justify;">presenting Gramsci as a "living classic", an author absolutely central</div><div style="text-align: justify;">to our understanding of modernity. Given its scope, richness and</div><div style="text-align: justify;">originality, I have no doubt that this work will represent a milestone</div><div style="text-align: justify;">in Gramscian scholarship and an important contribution to contemporary</div><div style="text-align: justify;">debates in political theory and philosophy.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Stathis Kouvelakis, Author of Philosophy and Revolution and Co-editor</div><div style="text-align: justify;">of a Critical Companion to Contemporary Marxism</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Gramscian Moment is the most thorough and illuminating</div><div style="text-align: justify;">philosophical study of Gramsci yet to appear in English. It sets a new</div><div style="text-align: justify;">standard for work not only on Gramsci himself but on the whole complex</div><div style="text-align: justify;">of issues associated with his legacy – on the mechanics and dimensions</div><div style="text-align: justify;">of hegemony, on the role and nature of the subject of political</div><div style="text-align: justify;">action, on the relation between theory and practice, and between civil</div><div style="text-align: justify;">society and the state. Thomas does more than any previous reader of</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Gramsci to demonstrate how his philosophy can fairly claim to meet</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Marx's famous prescription – not merely "to interpret the world but to</div><div style="text-align: justify;">change it".</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Peter Hallward, Professor of Modern European Philosophy, Middlesex</div><div style="text-align: justify;">University, London</div></span></span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6112293212743134790.post-87817435659020314392009-11-10T10:58:00.000-08:002009-11-10T11:07:10.414-08:00<div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CC0000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-large;">E' uscito il secondo numero dei Quaderni Viola!</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">C. Bonfiglioli, L. Cirillo, L. Corradi, B.D. Vivo, S. R. Farris, V. Perilli (a c. di),</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> La Straniera: informazioni, sito-bibliografie e ragionamenti su razzismo e sessismo</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">, Alegre, 2009</span></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><br /></span></div><div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8sSWHwfI3Dt2Xcaw-wEcVEpoFJTQtWiIVW5kCEdpQESA-UxpWt7rrNrnzsOidKKKCEXG7jkkUC7PGokCSAijsWaEZWoswPcQb8aqZDR4B6JsD-llNH-_ibFAIRh_R6_cG-pbCKhh7kqM/s400/la+straniera.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5402552581408055362" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 195px; height: 269px; " /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Habemus QV!!</span></div><div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6112293212743134790.post-22095716168314347582009-09-17T09:00:00.000-07:002009-09-17T09:03:13.886-07:00<div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, serif; line-height: 15px; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CC0000;">Conference: Encountering Althusser</span></span></b></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 15px; "><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, serif;color:#CC0000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span></b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; ">Jan van Eyck Academy, Maastricht, 9-11 October 2009</span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">International Conference organised by Katja Diefenbach, Sara Farris, Gal Kirn and Peter Thomas</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></span></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.after1968.org/encounteringalthusser" style="line-height: 1.22em; color: rgb(30, 102, 174); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">www.after1968.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><wbr style="line-height: 1.22em; ">org/encountering</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><wbr style="line-height: 1.22em; ">althusser</span></span></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The work of Louis Althusser and his associates constituted an important attempt to rethink the political and philosophical potential of Marx’s thought, in tension with its ‘orthodox’ reading in Stalinism. In his work in the 1960s and 1970s, Althusser proposed to negate the metaphysical categories of subject, substance, telos, and end. He further explored these themes in the late 1970s and 1980s in terms of the event, the encounter and contingency. The late Althusser’s “materialism of the encounter” both provides many points of contact for a productive dialogue with thinkers associated with post-structuralism, while at the same time seeming to maintain a stronger connection to the Marxist tradition, particularly in terms of his continuing affirmation of the dictatorship of the proletariat. One of the purposes of this conference will be to attempt to gain an overview of the development of Althusser’s thought and to pose the question of its legacy for contemporary debates in radical political thought.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It is not only the legacy of Louis Althusser that will be of our interest here, however, but rather how to encounter and deal with the more unrecognised or suppressed points in his thought that remain enigmatic, and at the same time productive for further research in politics, economy, philosophy (and ideology). Many contemporary discussions ranging from Badiou and Zizek to Balibar, Laclau and Butler revolve around some topics that were traced or started by Louis Althusser, mainly on ideology, linking Althusser to Lacan or politics. In this conference, we would like to focus on some points that have not yet been discussed or have not yet been given the attention they deserve.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In the Althusserian spirit of philosophy working by attacking established positions on an occupied Kampfplatz, we outline four different fields of investigation to which panels will be dedicated: ruptures in philosophy, politics, political economy and politics and philosophy in the late Althusser. In each field, we intend to subject established interpretations of Althusser’s thought to critique and to attempt to determine productive areas for future research. Beyond such scholarly and philological debates, however, our guiding concern will be to pose the question of the extent to which an encounter with Althusser today has the potential to promote critical energies and perspectives that are capable of intervening effectively in the contemporary conjuncture.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Friday 9|10 Ruptures in philosophy: dis/continuities in Althusser's thought – Chair: Peter Thomas</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">16:00 – 16:15 Introduction</div><div style="text-align: justify;">16:15 – 17:15 G. Michael Goshgarian | The early "late Althusser"</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Break</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">17:30 – 18:30 Caroline Williams | Althusser and Spinoza</div><div style="text-align: justify;">18:30 – 19.30 Giorgos Fourtounis | The "absolute beginning" and its duration: the continuity of rupture in Althusser</div><div style="text-align: justify;">19:30 Discussion</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Saturday 10|10 The primacy of politics: singularity, dictatorship of proletariat, class struggle – Chair: Gal Kirn</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">10:00 – 10:15 Introduction</div><div style="text-align: justify;">10:15 – 11:15 Rastko Močnik</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Break</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">11:30 – 12:30 Ozren Pupovac | At this side of interpellation: Althusser’s critique of the subject</div><div style="text-align: justify;">12:30 – 13:30 Slobodan Karamanić | Three uses of topography: theory, politics, state</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lunch</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">14:30 – 15:30 Mikko Lahtinen | Althusser, Machiavelli and us: from Marxist philosophy to materialist politics</div><div style="text-align: justify;">15:30 – 16:00 Discussion</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Break</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The critique of political economy and the legacy of Louis Althusser – Chair: Sara Farris</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">16:30 - 16:45 Introduction</div><div style="text-align: justify;">16:45 – 17:45 Maria Turchetto</div><div style="text-align: justify;">17:45 – 18:45 Marko Kržan | Should there be a Marxian perspective on contemporary capitalism</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Break</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">19:00 – 20:00 Frieder Otto Wolf | Dialectic and contingency in thinking reproduction: looking back at a line of Althusser’s theoretical initiatives</div><div style="text-align: justify;">20:00 Discussion</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Sunday 11|10 Politics and philosophy in the late Althusser: the philosophy of the encounter and aleatory materialism – Chair: Katja Diefenbach</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">10:00 – 10:15 Introduction</div><div style="text-align: justify;">10:15 – 11.15 Vittorio Morfino | History as the "permanent revocation of the accomplished fact": on Machiavelli in the late Althusser.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">11:15 – 12.15 Katja Kolšek | Some reflections on the conception of reading of Althusser's aleatory materialism</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Break</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">12:45 – 13:45 Panagiotis Sotiris | Rethinking aleatory materialism</div><div style="text-align: justify;">13:45 - 14:45 Jason Read | Primitive accumulation: between contingency and constitution</div><div style="text-align: justify;">14.45 - 15:15 Discussion</div></span></span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6112293212743134790.post-72700854530247202162009-08-24T23:44:00.000-07:002009-08-24T23:51:04.647-07:00<div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" color: rgb(204, 0, 0); font-weight: bold; font-family:verdana, -webkit-fantasy;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I VERI COLPEVOLI</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="grey" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; text-decoration: none; "></span></span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CC0000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">di Annamaria Rivera</span></span></span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#666666;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></b></span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, fantasy;color:#666666;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><b><br /></b></span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, fantasy;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Abbiamo provato a gridarlo in ogni modo che il mostruoso reato d'immigrazione clandestina avrebbe generato crimini «umanitari». Così è stato, purtroppo. L'abbandono e poi la morte dei settantatre profughi eritrei è la prima strage prodotta dal «pacchetto-sicurezza». È, certo, il frutto maturo del trattato con la Libia, siglato dal ministro Amato, rafforzato e reso operativo, cioè criminale, dall'attuale governo. È il frutto, più largamente, dell'Europa-fortezza e dell'adeguamento alla sua politica anche da parte del governo maltese. </span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Ma inedito è il cinismo di Stato per cui una tale strage non trovi come risposta né l'indignazione corale, né l'incriminazione per strage, appunto, bensì per favoreggiamento dell'immigrazione clandestina. «Senza escludere un'eventuale ipotesi di omissione di soccorso», dicono gli inquirenti. Immigrazione clandestina di cui potrebbero essere imputati i cinque poveri spettri che il fato - lui solo compassionevole - ha voluto sottrarre alla morte. Questo «dettaglio», con l'annuncio della parata che Berlusconi sta per fare il 30 agosto con Gheddafi per festeggiare a Tripoli l'anniversario del trattato, restituisce in modo perfetto il senso del crollo dell'elementarmente umano consumato con le politiche di questo governo. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:Georgia, fantasy;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6idzSSv5ve2dWndUF0QWWmKfVULSlcEGYO6kYyWcgUfQX9JiSIst_78Q8MlXVHqdNc8SjuzS-Rl98z_ESGP53gaEpKPZ6JRkHGrlKmkeuH6-n2KAhA_KOvd6bgGeuGGVg9TGhW_WsYoQ/s1600-h/clandestini_2.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6idzSSv5ve2dWndUF0QWWmKfVULSlcEGYO6kYyWcgUfQX9JiSIst_78Q8MlXVHqdNc8SjuzS-Rl98z_ESGP53gaEpKPZ6JRkHGrlKmkeuH6-n2KAhA_KOvd6bgGeuGGVg9TGhW_WsYoQ/s400/clandestini_2.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5373789327819456370" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 270px; " /></a></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Politiche disumane generano comportamenti disumani: se nessuno ha sentito il dovere morale di soccorrerli è anche perché leggi criminali producono condotte sociali criminali. Ma non tutto è inedito in questo dramma. Non è vero che con esso «abbiamo toccato il fondo», come si è scritto. Se così fosse, si potrebbe coltivare la fragile speranza che un futuro governo non reazionario e non razzista potrebbe ripristinare forme di rispetto per l'elementarmente umano. Purtroppo non è così. Ce lo dice la strage di 108 profughi albanesi della Kater I Rades, provocata nel 1997 dalla pretesa di un governo di centrosinistra di bloccare manu militari l'esodo albanese. Ce lo ricorda un'altra strage del proibizionismo, quella del 25 dicembre 1996, in cui annegarono 233 migranti: a lungo ignorata dai media - il manifesto fu l'unico giornale ad aprire subito con la tragedia -, sempre negata dal governo di centrosinistra e occultata da una parte dei pescatori di Portopalo. Alla fine fu grazie all'ostinazione di qualche giornalista e di antirazzisti come Dino Frisullo, che il silenzio fu spezzato. Non vogliamo sostenere che il trattamento crudele riservato ai de-umanizzati - coloro che anche da cadaveri sono detti clandestini - sia una lunga notte oscura in cui tutte le vacche sono nere. Ma che per produrre i frutti marci che coltiva il governo in carica, di fatto guidato dall'ideologia post-nazionalsocialista della Lega nord, altri hanno provveduto a spargere i semi avvelenati: quelli del proibizionismo crudele e ad ogni costo. La condizione per tornare a coltivare la speranza sta nella costruzione di una volontà collettiva di superamento del paradigma proibizionista.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">da Il Manifesto, </span><a href="http://www.ilmanifesto.it/il-manifesto/in-edicola/numero/20090823/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">23 Agosto 2009</span></a></div></span></span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6112293212743134790.post-70863749894632497052009-07-30T23:49:00.000-07:002009-07-31T00:10:56.568-07:00<div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CC0000;">On Italian Marxisms by Peter Thomas in the last number of 'New Left Review'</span></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">As this blog happens to be particularly sensitive to the Anglo-Italian dialogue and to Marxist and leftist issues more in general, I recommend the reading of the first review essay on Italian Marxisms in the last number of New Left Review. The entire number is worth reading by the way!</span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ9YhEWXOgaRBfO9dZpwTBrFqZBOBQIfo9JwLkfJ7f1ohCv_L-7HsQRBpx1IHzcRD2rSsxB1zjXLVLo0J99i8UjTFLuiMpkYED_804ZbVah53G4TOIK6iXzfDDOtsH8Bs4BkegJT-T2aU/s1600-h/la+lutte+continue.jpg"></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 19px; font-family:Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;font-size:small;"><h1 style="text-align: left;display: block; line-height: 1.5em; font-weight: bold; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; text-transform: uppercase; font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;font-size:26px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, -webkit-fantasy;font-size:7;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 26px; line-height: 39px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;font-size:7;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 32px; line-height: 48px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px; text-transform: none; "><h1 style="text-align: center;display: block; line-height: 1.5em; font-weight: bold; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; text-transform: uppercase; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px; text-transform: none; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; "><a href="http://www.newleftreview.org/?issue=292">New Left Review 58, July-August 2009</a></span></span></span></h1><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, fantasy; line-height: normal; "><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ9YhEWXOgaRBfO9dZpwTBrFqZBOBQIfo9JwLkfJ7f1ohCv_L-7HsQRBpx1IHzcRD2rSsxB1zjXLVLo0J99i8UjTFLuiMpkYED_804ZbVah53G4TOIK6iXzfDDOtsH8Bs4BkegJT-T2aU/s1600-h/la+lutte+continue.jpg" style="text-decoration: none;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ9YhEWXOgaRBfO9dZpwTBrFqZBOBQIfo9JwLkfJ7f1ohCv_L-7HsQRBpx1IHzcRD2rSsxB1zjXLVLo0J99i8UjTFLuiMpkYED_804ZbVah53G4TOIK6iXzfDDOtsH8Bs4BkegJT-T2aU/s400/la+lutte+continue.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5364513867239613394" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 318px; height: 400px; " /></a></span></div></span></span></span></span></span></h1><h4 class="center" style="text-align: justify;display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-weight: bold; "><a href="http://www.newleftreview.org/?page=article&view=2788" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Kenneth Pomeranz: The Great Himalayan Watershed</span></span></a></h4><p style="text-align: justify; display: block; margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">From Asia’s mountainous heart flow rivers on which half the world’s population depends. Pomeranz examines the complex interaction between human water needs, fragile ecology and vast infrastructural projects—and the far-reaching consequences of their conjugation.</span></span></p><h4 class="center" style="text-align: justify;display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-weight: bold; "><a href="http://www.newleftreview.org/?page=article&view=2789" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Miroslav Hroch: Learning from Small Nations</span></span></a></h4><p style="text-align: justify; display: block; margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Leading scholar of national questions discusses his personal trajectory and theoretical development, against the backdrop of the Czech experience. Sociological and historical roots of national feeling, and comparative perspectives on their European destinies.</span></span></p><h4 class="center" style="text-align: justify;display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-weight: bold; "><a href="http://www.newleftreview.org/?page=article&view=2790" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">R. W. Johnson: False Start in South Africa</span></span></a></h4><p style="text-align: justify; display: block; margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Disappointments of post-apartheid rule, marred by mass unemployment and corruption, amid the enrichment of a new black elite. Does the arrival of Zuma, and new salience of the SACP within the ruling alliance, portend a lurch to ethnic conflict and capital flight?</span></span></p><h4 class="center" style="text-align: justify;display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-weight: bold; "><a href="http://www.newleftreview.org/?page=article&view=2791" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Patrick Bond: In Power in Pretoria?</span></span></a></h4><p style="text-align: justify; display: block; margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Responding to Johnson, Patrick Bond locates the origins of the ANC’s neoliberal record since 1994 in the compromises of the transition era. Rhetoric versus reality, and the subordination of trade unions and SACP alike to capital’s prerogatives.</span></span></p><h4 class="center" style="text-align: justify;display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-weight: bold; "><a href="http://www.newleftreview.org/?page=article&view=2792" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Etienne Balibar: Althusser and the Rue d'Ulm</span></span></a></h4><p style="text-align: justify; display: block; margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Retrospective look at the life and work of Althusser, seen within the structures—personal, political, institutional—of the École Normale Supérieure. Teaching, thinking and writing at the intersection of private and public realms.</span></span></p><h4 class="center" style="text-align: justify;display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-weight: bold; "><a href="http://www.newleftreview.org/?page=article&view=2793" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Fredric Jameson: Marx and Montage</span></span></a></h4><p style="text-align: justify; display: block; margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The author of Archaeologies of the Future unearths fragments from ‘ideological antiquity’ in Alexander Kluge’s recent film on </span></span><i style="font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Capital</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">. Encounters with Eisenstein’s unrealized equivalent, seeking a cinematic transposition of the commodity fetish.</span></span></p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div></span><h4 class="center" style="text-align: justify;display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-weight: bold; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">BOOK REVIEWS</span></span></h4><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div></span><p style="text-align: justify; display: block; margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; "><a href="http://www.newleftreview.org/?page=article&view=2794" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Peter Thomas on Cristina Corradi, </span></span><i style="font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Storia dei marxismi in Italia</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">. </span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Multiple inheritances of Labriola, Gramsci, operaismo and other currents. Can a pluralized theoretical tradition aspire to outrun reverses in praxis?.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify; display: block; margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; "><a href="http://www.newleftreview.org/?page=article&view=2795" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Tony Wood on Michael Reid, </span></span><i style="font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Forgotten Continent: The Battle for Latin America’s Soul</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">. </span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">A revised neoliberal gospel for the region, courtesy of the </span></span><i style="font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Economist</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify; display: block; margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; "><a href="http://www.newleftreview.org/?page=article&view=2796" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(153, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Max Gasner on Robert Kagan, </span></span><i style="font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The Return of History and the End of Dreams</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">. </span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The 21st century as re-run of the 19th, shaped by the ambitions of ascendant autocratic powers.</span></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6112293212743134790.post-47051856662387018462009-07-17T15:40:00.000-07:002009-07-17T15:55:01.788-07:00<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 18px; "><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CC0000;">For f...'s sake. Leave us alone! Part II</span></b></span></span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(81, 59, 20); font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 17px; "><img src="http://www.viaemilianet.it/imgup/fantastiche4almamater.jpg" style="border-top-style: solid; border-right-style: solid; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: solid; border-width: initial; border-color: initial; border-top-width: 5px; border-right-width: 5px; border-bottom-width: 5px; border-left-width: 5px; border-top-color: rgb(255, 184, 6); border-right-color: rgb(255, 184, 6); border-bottom-color: rgb(255, 184, 6); border-left-color: rgb(255, 184, 6); " /></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Georgia, fantasy; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; "><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'Lucida Sans Unicode', Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;font-size:100%;color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; ">This is one example of the new marketing strategy that the University Alma Mater of Bologna (Italy) has chosen in order to attract more students. I am still collecting some materials. More soon!</span></span></div></span></div><div><br /></div><img src="http://femminismo-a-sud.noblogs.org/gallery/77/sexandthecities.jpg" style="border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; " /></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'Lucida Sans Unicode', Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;font-size:100%;color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'Lucida Sans Unicode', Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;font-size:100%;color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'Lucida Sans Unicode', Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;font-size:100%;color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6112293212743134790.post-50095796824410472752009-07-14T06:10:00.000-07:002009-07-14T06:19:30.251-07:00<div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd2cjWnL8dcI70DdBh6RwHz3AlRFSwbhFPUXLGA4IFDIRaeLjo3MGk6rDZrW-uUjkUQ7iIN61ntNraJ5mZe4P2qvbgpifjf5gap5jC0ppRWjGMrX2ZTsBwvYrWOKLxc1FDCnjqFi58aW4/s1600-h/marx_Engels_lego.jpg"></a><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CC0000;">Rethinking Marxism Conference</span></span></b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, fantasy;color:#CC0000;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">University of Massachusetts Amherst</span></b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, -webkit-fantasy;color:#CC0000;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, -webkit-fantasy;color:#CC0000;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, -webkit-fantasy;color:#CC0000;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); font-family: Georgia, fantasy; font-weight: normal; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd2cjWnL8dcI70DdBh6RwHz3AlRFSwbhFPUXLGA4IFDIRaeLjo3MGk6rDZrW-uUjkUQ7iIN61ntNraJ5mZe4P2qvbgpifjf5gap5jC0ppRWjGMrX2ZTsBwvYrWOKLxc1FDCnjqFi58aW4/s400/marx_Engels_lego.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5358304754207880914" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px; " /></span></b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 15px; font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:11px;"><h2 style="text-align: justify;margin-top: 0em; margin-right: 1em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0em; padding-top: 0.5em; font-weight: bold; line-height: 24px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Call for Papers</span></span></span></h2><div id="content" style="line-height: 15px; text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 0.7em; border-top-width: 0px; border-top-style: dotted; border-top-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); "><div style="line-height: 15px; text-align: left; "><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;">New Marxian Times will be held over four days, beginning on Thursday evening, 5 November 2009 and ending on Sunday afternoon, 8 November 2009. In addition to two plenary sessions and an art exhibition, there will be concurrent panels, workshops, and art/cultural events. We invite the submission of organized sessions that follow traditional or non-traditional formats (such as workshops, roundtables, and dialogue among and between presenters and audience) as well as individual presentations. Since Marxism covers a wide variety of fields, from literature to public health and forms of political practice, from environmental organizing to opposing global inequality and envisioning new economic and social practice, anyone engaging with Marxism in any discipline or form of activism is encouraged to submit paper and panel proposals. We encourage those working in areas that intersect with Marxism, such as critical race theory, feminism, political economy, anarchist studies, cultural and literary studies, queer theory, working-class and labor studies, postcolonial studies, geography and urban studies, psychoanalysis, social and natural sciences, philosophy, and around issues of class, race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexuality, and disability, to submit proposals. We also welcome video, poetry, performance, and all other modes of presentation and cultural expression.</span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">SUBMISSION OF PROPOSALS</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Proposals for papers, films, or other formats should include:</div></span></span></span><p></p><ul style="margin-top: 0.25em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.75em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 2.5em; "><li style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Paper title</span></span></span></li><li style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Presenter's name and contact information (mail, email, phone, affiliations)</span></span></span></li><li style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Brief abstract (no more than 200 words)</span></span></span></li><li style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Technology needs for presentation</span></span></span></li></ul><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;">Proposals for panels should include:</span></div></span><p></p><ul style="margin-top: 0.25em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.75em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 2.5em; "><li style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Panel title</span></span></span></li><li style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Name, contact information, and paper title for each presenter</span></span></span></li><li style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Brief abstract (no more than 200 words) explaining the panel's focus</span></span></span></li><li style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Brief abstract for each paper (no more than 200 words)</span></span></span></li><li style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Names and contact information for any discussant(s) or respondent(s)</span></span></span></li><li style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Technology needs of presenters</span></span></span></li><li style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Title, contact, and address for any sponsoring organization or journal</span></span></span></li></ul><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;">The appropriate preregistration fee must accompany all proposal submissions. Unfortunately, any proposal not accompanied by the appropriate preregistration fee cannot be considered. Proposals that are not accepted will have their preregistration fees returned in full. If you are submitting a proposal for an entire panel, please make sure you include the preregistration fee for all members of the panel.</span></div></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><a href="http://rethinkingmarxism.org/conf/index.php/gala/NewMarxianTimes/schedConf/cfp"><b>The deadline for proposal submission is 1 August 2009</b></a><b>.</b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The deadline for proposal submission is 1 August 2009.</div><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div></div></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6112293212743134790.post-64766781168427130812009-07-13T12:00:00.000-07:002009-07-13T15:15:27.597-07:00<div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, -webkit-fantasy; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CC0000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Subversive sideburns!</span></span></b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">We know how Italians are concerned with appearance, to the extent that 'fare una bella figura' marks the sharpest distinction between a gentleman and a lout, a refined and an uncouth lady. On the occasion of the G8 in Abruzzo, therefore, the authorities of L'Aquila encouraged the earth-quacked population of the region - still living in tents and caravans - to show the Vips of the world that a 'bella figura' is a precious concern for the descendants of Dante and the countrymates of Dolce&Gabbana.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnT4NMJXtX425BiRLkcwVaoJSBJcwwaFj3JJvTkyJm7e6-O0Mu5_lAnsAigQ7-Wbxtb9nNTuYccDT_V6Eo10Z8XJAEyQE4JSa0N3G7z5OBl4UY27kn249AveXQ_v3UK6vLEoPBPdEbTAE/s400/L'Aquila+-regole.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5358047513239046098" style="text-align: justify;display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 225px; " /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Thus they enacted a special ordinance for which "the population (...) must respect precise behavioral and hygienic norms" (see the image above - unfortunately it is not a joke...).</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The third 'article' states: <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, fantasy; font-size: 16px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; ">"Female citizens must avoid wearing mini-skirts, flip-flops and scanty clothes". Now, the prohibition of flip-flops<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, -webkit-fantasy; font-size: 16px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; "> might appear bizarre. In reality, upon careful consideration, it is perfectly consistent with the ban of mini-skirts and scanty clothes as flip-flops expose the feet to unnecessary male sight and might inelegantly recall a G-string, a thong, and the like. But now <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, -webkit-fantasy; font-size: 16px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; ">I am just wondering why they are not banning dental floss</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">...</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The second 'article' urges men <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, -webkit-fantasy; ">"to avoid wearing undershirts, short pants and overalls". Well, at first sight it is not clear why wearing overalls is not decorous. But again, with a surplus of reflection and without losing faith in the <i>rationale</i> governing the intentions of the authors of the ordinance it is possible to find the answer. I think that the ban of overalls in front of Obama, Sarkozy and so on had been dictated by the fear that showing Italian men in working clothes in a country with 30% rate of unemployment and one of the highest rates of workplace deaths would have looked a bit ironical; and the authorities (who happen to have a clown as a commander in chief) want to avoid irony above all things. Well done then! Stop overalls!</span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">However, the third article (listed as first in the ordinance in the picture) is particularly amusing. Here "male citizens" are required "to shave the beard with accuracy on the days of the 8th, 9th and 10th July, as well as <i>sideburns and other decorations</i>". </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">In front of this, I must admit I am speachless. Are sideburns forbidden because hair is regarded as anti-hygienic? So why did Berlusconi want a hair transplant? Or perhaps they are forbidden because body hair is not sexy? And ok, the malevolent gnome - as my friend Savonarola suggests calling him - prefers women who have not yet developed too much body hair...So, I can get it again. Nonetheless, the matter needs more investigation (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sideburns"><b>try here</b></a>). </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">In the meantime, I like thinking of 'subversive sideburns' as a new fashion to be promoted again. Here are some examples:</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, fantasy;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, -webkit-fantasy;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, -webkit-fantasy;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, fantasy; color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiwh9GVe0ne8028TqxT3vzWf2q3B8y8XHFRpwK_u1ztM7TnJ6AqAZEF1xSn9x6vz2YmrSipvpA8vA0tvdRhFYt65KYbUqhO7VDTSLLNRFxelvxiBzdJNkIG-Q5E7S5gWJonT3w6niFAk0/s400/grow+sideburns.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5358061274272279378" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 398px; " /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, fantasy;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, -webkit-fantasy;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The example above is very minimalist but immediately usable by the anti-G8 movement on the leaf-lets.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, -webkit-fantasy;color:#0000EE;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, -webkit-fantasy;color:#0000EE;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, -webkit-fantasy;color:#0000EE;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, -webkit-fantasy;color:#0000EE;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, fantasy; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUM5bZ_Y6-w_VTWw8Z0e2qg1plRrTgPVgOrLWMrQrWik_SnEnKeqcS_429wGNfckPYoOOjtRIXyxvIMUWHZWY0HcuiP7BGwEyd8RZNXj7Zikmog0zldNycMfwT4sR1XWtYbXxXjq1qv7k/s400/six+sidebunrs.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5358060874574468002" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 286px; height: 400px; " /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, -webkit-fantasy;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">This is also very nice. Perhaps more appropriate for a pluralist movement where each current would like to express its own position on the best way to grow subversive sideburns.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, -webkit-fantasy;color:#0000EE;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, -webkit-fantasy;color:#0000EE;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, -webkit-fantasy;color:#0000EE;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, fantasy; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyLU5aqbpkH6XCTmbSjpfUF7iYVUn1wZW9lMjXqVU280rfrrgUY-JPsgxWTQji2IXKeYIwjcaDgj4rcAHfQwgktbUqHnxUCdLzVY9yhZWBvvL-quFfUCLkX622-m1WIn5WhyphenhyphensH47_UpG4/s400/many+sideburns.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5358060773764597906" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 257px; height: 400px; " /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, -webkit-fantasy;color:#0000EE;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, -webkit-fantasy;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">But this is my favourite one. Not only does it give more room for expression of political differences, but it also combines a subversive project with a scientific presentation of the different options available. Terrific!</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, -webkit-fantasy;color:#0000EE;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, -webkit-fantasy;color:#0000EE;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, -webkit-fantasy;color:#0000EE;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, fantasy; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><br /></span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6112293212743134790.post-90978974261543721562009-07-07T02:21:00.000-07:002009-07-07T02:27:47.382-07:00<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CC0000;">The essence of Caesarism!</span></b><br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Really worth watching from the beginning to the end. Hysterically funny!<br /></span></span></span><br /><object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/X2onx6eOBps&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/X2onx6eOBps&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6112293212743134790.post-90890234591637666022009-07-05T06:47:00.000-07:002009-07-05T10:41:15.659-07:00<div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CC0000;">For f...'s sake, leave us alone!!</span></b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Advertising of any kind, of any commodity is always addressed to those who should get it. In the 1950s and 1960s, male bread-winner families were the target; long-time consumption commodities kept industries going and helped the post-war economic boom to grow undisturbed for a while. Men, mostly, were those being exploited outside the household and earning the income, while women inside were the ones busy working for the daily reproduction of their men's labour power; commodity-marketing thus accomodated the division of labour by asking men to make their women happy but running ... in the end, it was not that difficult to do it ... a blender, a new dishwasher and everything was fine.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEwjPMBq86f3J_ce-eHECh7Go1wq-wCRNLPegO32CHzmydBhz7wS0itzIS-5n8Srj44vFFDq4ks9mP4mFAb1ZLxD71MGVdF1SThqTO5wY39Vz0xM6xdGtQ9UXccrVU5OEY6zpIJqjQ04o/s400/31-I'm-giving-my-wife-a-Kenwood-Chef-1961.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5354979180125836290" style="text-align: justify;display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 317px; " /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#0000EE;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Despite its obvious gender bias, an advertisement like the one above looks almost cute and innocent compared to the level of sexism that has been reached nowadays. The latter is true especially in <i>Dwarf-land</i>, brought recently to renewed international attention thanks to its prime minister's regular use of public money to visit prostitutes, to host lolita-like private parties in his villas with promises of short TV appearances and, especially, to spend<span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Verdana, -webkit-fantasy;"> a one-night-stand with <span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Verdana, fantasy;">young women looking <a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6572283.ece"><b>to start up their own enterprises</b></a><b>.</b></span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">T</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">h</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">us,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> more than anything, the </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><i>Dwarf Era</i></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> in Italy has amounted to a dramatic increase of sexism and disrespect for women, which is not only testified by an incredibly widespread </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">soubrette-culture, </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">for which young women's primary aspiration is to become a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Striscia_la_notizia"><i><b>velina</b></i></a> in one of the Dwarf's TV. More than this, the <i>Dwarf's sexist era</i> is progressively marked by a widespread wave of extreme violence, sexual abuses and rapes against women, the nature and role of which are publicly depicted as sexual satisfaction of men appetites. The increasing sexism of the advertising campaigns that can be seen on the walls of the streets are a very eloquent sign of this anti-feminist surge.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRPqtLrdKNKKV2h6jc-88OGe9SWuGKNF7wdKSuTIVEFQjmNNigl_Irn-0ItS4IWbnIkldCFkDFllZGDpjAm0JRnW3pTkx5bvo44L5k8jmH3NeTEV1lBUgP55UGtmm7DjaXbTp-ycRGD8I/s320/poppefamose.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5354984943460990546" style="text-align: justify;float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 237px; " /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">"We have the most famous sterns of Italy", is stated in the image on the left, where stern (poppa) in Italian also has the meaning of boob. Thus we see a regiment of young female bums entering the new ferry that promises to sweeten the holidays of all those going from Naples to Catania with a nice stock of young pretty girls.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Female <i>sterns-boobs</i> are used by the same company in the image below, and the advertising strategy does not fail to reassert how sexy it could be to go from Campania to Sicily, which are personified by their respective boobs-volcanos. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMeNTA3tugutEXhTDCvrFWL97mFV1x0xMl_Ez__ruz6cRdOc1HDj_sV_tw90rCK2mg7DdWj8pyDf7hIDcMaU2I7QNsfK2OaC7ceL5p5Nz5-vcO2ZWmKOZRH3u81KeKPQMz8JzwBA9QorY/s320/TTTlines.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5354986165757473922" style="text-align: justify;float: right; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 313px; " /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, -webkit-fantasy;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Verdana, -webkit-fantasy;font-size:small;">Travelling around the country, it is completely normal to run into huge posters - hung up on the most crowded streets of the cities - in which not only women's bodies are used to sell all sorts of commodities, but in which the sexual message becomes <span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Verdana, -webkit-fantasy;">increasingly <span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Verdana, fantasy;">starker.</span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">"Trust me! I will give it to you for free" comes out of the voluptuous woman's mouth in block capitals in the image below ... yet, it is not her sexual services, but the glasses' frame (la montatura) that will be given gratis to the lucky customers - as the undertitle clarifies - though 'montatura', in Italian language, is both the glasses' frame and the sexual position of riding. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikxCCRR3j3TpRzeF_WA0zs0-Qxn2WkoPWFR9eYkihqcPUBNR5C_8w11CwronTVvPj9QotbNsXSVDxiqMi-PpBH9p9KWmEDOORykLZ0v36mjdNabtunjbdsnRL1zmzSK_TZOs62QKYThkY/s320/te+la+do+gratis.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5354990049217589394" style="text-align: justify;float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 234px; height: 320px; " /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, fantasy;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, fantasy;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">It could be thought that what all these double-meaning, schlock-taste advertisements produce is just a smarmy smile on people's face, a bit of arousal to keep up the daily routine. However, </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">i</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">n</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">s</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">t</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">e</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">a</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">d</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">o</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">f</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">i</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">n</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">n</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">o</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">c</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">e</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">n</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">t</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">e</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">x</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">c</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">i</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">t</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">e</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">m</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">e</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">n</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">t</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">,</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;"> today in Italy there is a daily count of </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">violence and rapes against women. A dramatic growth of male brutality that is certainly not discouraged by an every day platitude that women are nothing but sexual objects waiting for their consumption</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">e</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">v</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">e</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">n</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">w</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">i</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">t</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">h</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">t</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">h</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">e</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">b</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">r</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">u</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">t</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">e</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">f</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">o</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">r</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">c</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">e</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">. In the image below, for example, a quasi-rape scene is used to promote a new clothes-</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">b</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">r</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">a</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">n</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">d</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">Y</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">e</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">t</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;">,</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;"> the company does not seem to be happy merely to use the image of brutally taking off woman's clothes for this commercial purpose. It aims to do it by also employing the evergreen stereotype of the black raper. The potential rapers, in fact, are blackmen, seemingly police, just to add a fashionable flavour of harsh racism to extreme sexism.</span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, fantasy;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: -webkit-xxx-large;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, fantasy;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:-webkit-xxx-large;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#0000EE;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdLXdLx_-1Km60eEfSfcH8rAz4KrfY-1zIkgpz079Df-Pe3zf9MJRk3i8g0V9O-27fXFjnnnhzJCMkyZWYV_WoYHRocRggFIIFo0UBztpCyJcmLX1JAsUEfxxnV9-fpCE7UuxOqny9SHA/s400/relish1.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5354995814394245282" style="text-align: center;display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 283px; " /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">The list of sexist-advertising could go on indefinitely, perhaps even risking to fetishise this miserable southern-European culture as a red-blooded paradise.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Instead of always self-portraying themselves as latin lovers, super-machos and virile horses, Italian men would be better off realising that what the sexy advertising speaks of is their sexual impotence, pathetic insecurity and clumsy incapability of getting laid without a bit of brutality. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">It is not by chance that instead of the blender for devoted house-wives, today's marketing strategists sell Italian repressed mummy-boys what they think they cannot easily get for free: thus companies sell them a quick glimpse into the décolleté of a perfect-fake breast, the sexual fantasy of a naked-female-army willing to excite them during terrible trips on rotten non-functioning ferries, the forbidden dream of playing the stereotype of the well-endowed black man trying to abuse a pretty white women.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Fortunately enough, it seems to me that more and more often Italian women (but also many men) are denouncing such barbarism and making it visible in all its shame. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Here is a short list of my Italian girl-friends who fight everyday against sexism and violence. Go, girls, go!</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://femminismo-a-sud.noblogs.org/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><b>la fikasicula</b></span></span></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://antifascismo-viola.noblogs.org/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><b>la fatina viola</b></span></span></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://marginaliavincenzaperilli.blogspot.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><b>la vince</b></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, fantasy;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6112293212743134790.post-9436099772104032892009-07-01T04:21:00.000-07:002009-07-01T04:58:11.253-07:00<span style="font-weight:bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CC0000;">Marx in Amsterdam...this Friday!</span></span></span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CC0000;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></b></span></div><div><span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, fantasy;color:#CC0000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: normal; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Friday, 3 July 2009<br />20.00 hrs. (Doors open at 19.30)<br />Venue: IIRE, Timorplein, Lombokstraat 40, Amsterdam</span></span></b></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, -webkit-fantasy;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, fantasy;color:#CC0000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" font-weight: normal;font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana, fantasy;">Directed by Michael Fox Kennedy with Jerry Levy as Karl Marx</span></span></span></b></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, -webkit-fantasy;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, fantasy;color:#CC0000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" font-weight: normal;font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana, fantasy;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" font-weight: bold; font-family:Georgia, fantasy;"><a href="http://www.iire.org/content/view/168/1/lang,en/">Read more</a>!</span><br /></span></span></b></span></span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNd0FHgeeZCl4UfBZZitjBiXDAUorNHrB1Xp6ta2Xh4M5Th16Y-P-NcQthSDRrDsw0BVjjfVPyGyoX8zbA9LcL3LdslQngh2NKlNluSmnXFDtLGPi2ePvgs93Bq3HDhZ-V8MDYgLNj4jc/s1600-h/marxinsoho.gif"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNd0FHgeeZCl4UfBZZitjBiXDAUorNHrB1Xp6ta2Xh4M5Th16Y-P-NcQthSDRrDsw0BVjjfVPyGyoX8zbA9LcL3LdslQngh2NKlNluSmnXFDtLGPi2ePvgs93Bq3HDhZ-V8MDYgLNj4jc/s400/marxinsoho.gif" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5353457373628803202" /></a><br /><b><br /></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6112293212743134790.post-11725997849580209942009-06-27T14:47:00.000-07:002009-06-29T03:33:06.841-07:00<div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana, -webkit-fantasy;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CC0000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Spinoza </span></span></b><i><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CC0000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">mon amour</span></span></b></i></span></div><div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:verdana, fantasy;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Some time ago on this blog I wrote I wanted to develop some notes on what I feel are Amsterdam's most intriguing aspects. Among them I listed Spinoza - as this happens to be the city where Spinoza was born in 1632. Quite fortunately a 'spinozian festival' was held until very recently, thus providing the possibility to go back to the previous inspiration and to collect some materials that I share here. First of all, the <i>Spinoza Car</i> (see below):</span></span></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><img style="text-align: justify;display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 225px; " src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq9kGs6tTXKIzeV6o6JFevkKXPSVgmvXtpbtj_MYRWbhrIfzvDJQLyfKAwgjrFBnCdNTE5q_fEs7VkOWf3OMLR71MHuvNJx_gaikKanaOEh53VeTqQK2CSqgz6lZ5ZTGawV64GauTA7GI/s400/DSC00870.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5352131058671132866" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">This is truly a piece of work! The car is completely covered in glasses with the stamp of Spinoza's face, different editions of Spinoza's work and, above all, tributes of love and passionate messages addressed to Spinoza's images.</span></span></div></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, fantasy;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFqT_mgNeHNsiTirC7qtYMpj9TUwQawLmYhShC5OvVgmMMjBF5618CGdxRd_PFhz2EosnJr_A5r-6jaC2F7ybPhPf_IA5KivWbm3UKXJOMN30G5zTFvSSn3E4sggRSPS4mdZgoJgS3GcE/s1600-h/DSC00857.JPG"><img style="text-align: justify;display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 225px; " src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFqT_mgNeHNsiTirC7qtYMpj9TUwQawLmYhShC5OvVgmMMjBF5618CGdxRd_PFhz2EosnJr_A5r-6jaC2F7ybPhPf_IA5KivWbm3UKXJOMN30G5zTFvSSn3E4sggRSPS4mdZgoJgS3GcE/s400/DSC00857.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5352133278343202578" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></div></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih2-EZSY6eccxVN1T9v6M1ZRsFcoZ1FQxWPoBlvyjudxb83WWG24f_YAy8kT9EktMnkW4shILXS8jLEtZZnJJWua1dxpLz2AlHHQW7iWT6-JYy_x9b2pX6JoBnDnlf5Ewm4yLky5LqB9Q/s1600-h/DSC00848.JPG"><img style="text-align: justify;display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 225px; " src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih2-EZSY6eccxVN1T9v6M1ZRsFcoZ1FQxWPoBlvyjudxb83WWG24f_YAy8kT9EktMnkW4shILXS8jLEtZZnJJWua1dxpLz2AlHHQW7iWT6-JYy_x9b2pX6JoBnDnlf5Ewm4yLky5LqB9Q/s400/DSC00848.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5352133050397788674" /></a><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">The kitsch-effect is consciously and tenaciously pursued so the viewer sees the ironic and almost surreal intent. But more than this, I think the excessive-love messages that frame the smiley-sweety face of Spinoza especially infuse a feeling of mirth, which Old Spinoza, defender of the virtue of happiness, not as a reward, would certainly like. In one of the most insightful passages I have ever read, Spinoza defined "true happiness" as "</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">the enjoyment of what is good, not in the pride that" somebody "alone is enjoying it, to the exclusion of others." </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">He who thinks himself the more blessed because he is enjoying benefits which others are not, or because he is more blessed or more fortunate than his fellows, is ignorant of true happiness and blessedness, and the joy which he feels is either childish or envious and malicious. For instance, a man's true happiness consists only in wisdom, and the knowledge of the truth, not at all in the fact that he is wiser than others, or that others lack such knowledge: such considerations do not increase his wisdom or true happiness. Whoever, therefore, rejoices for such reasons, rejoices in another's misfortune, and is, so far, malicious and bad, knowing neither true happiness nor the peace of the true life. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" font-style: normal; font-family:Georgia, fantasy;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">(from the </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Theologico-Political Treatise</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">).</span></span></span></span></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, -webkit-fantasy;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, -webkit-fantasy;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, -webkit-fantasy;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Georgia, fantasy;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxueNE8nFDSjsfbGwtDDTsJBZgLTAmm_vbjun8mqpgiaJv_Q29Ol7ruiKwqTMFSIYlLyR5RZv6bJYUP4rf0h_fWV7HpokcYparmMd5QQwMetOhuBZT6X5HP8pC57G0HwsxKpD6n-ZegwI/s1600-h/DSC00861.JPG"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxueNE8nFDSjsfbGwtDDTsJBZgLTAmm_vbjun8mqpgiaJv_Q29Ol7ruiKwqTMFSIYlLyR5RZv6bJYUP4rf0h_fWV7HpokcYparmMd5QQwMetOhuBZT6X5HP8pC57G0HwsxKpD6n-ZegwI/s400/DSC00861.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5352159499601288610" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 225px; " /></a></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, -webkit-fantasy;"><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, fantasy;"><br /></span></div></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Spinozian spirit is also fulfilled in one of the funniest installations presented in the Spinoza Exhibition. Here artist Thomas Hirschhorn explains how to dance <i>Spinoza</i>. Like </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">lambada</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">, or </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">tango</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> or </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">salsa</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">, </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">spinoza</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> is a love couple-dance, fully faithful to Spinoza's idea that "</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">l</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">ove is pleasure" that "may be excessive"... (<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Book IV, Prop XLIV, <i>Ethics</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Times, -webkit-fantasy;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><i>)</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">.</span></span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, fantasy;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, -webkit-fantasy;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, -webkit-fantasy;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; font-family:Georgia, fantasy;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI3GyaQZ6DyUil2xkQDHWKGcVHeM-bsg7wA5s4WhO_NsnAT5_fYoDQXVeXLVLceTNTonTdU4u7FL4hg6l_h9yc1AYFTZs4WUt2Yyo-KpiHUWJh3NyCzehg_9vW8MgJXdJCKEAQw_6FJnQ/s400/DSC00879.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5352151774017823186" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 225px; " /></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, fantasy;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, -webkit-fantasy;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">One of the greatest moments of the Spinoza Festival, however, was the participation of Toni Negri, the author - among other things - of a book that is considered to be one of the most insightful ever written on Spinoza, i.e. </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">The Savage Anomaly</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">. With his renowned passionate style, Negri presents the "revolutionary force of Spinozian utopia" as follows:</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/bNL1OTwnYs4&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/bNL1OTwnYs4&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, fantasy;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:small;">The festival was organised in South-east Amsterdam, finally outside the white-glacé fakely peaceful centre of the city ... I think Spinoza would have felt at home.</span></div></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">The festival ends today but the website with all materials and contacts will be available till mid july (</span></span><a href="http://www.thebijlmerspinozafestival.nl/_home/home.html"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">here</span></span></b></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">). Enjoy!</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /><div><br /></div></div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6112293212743134790.post-7147060523828637722009-06-27T03:02:00.001-07:002009-06-29T12:35:17.200-07:00<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CC0000;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Michael Jackson R.I.P.</span></span></b></span><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">This is probably my favourite video, both musically and content-wise (<a href="http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/michaeljackson/theydontcareaboutus.html"><b>Lyrics here</b></a>) (info on this controversial clip </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Don't_Care_About_Us"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><b>here</b></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">). I like remembering him this way.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, -webkit-fantasy;"><br /></span></div><br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/nvWMLAWrEjU&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/nvWMLAWrEjU&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6112293212743134790.post-35246861463809967642009-06-24T08:36:00.000-07:002009-06-24T08:44:17.304-07:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPIIIdpgC7Ca6ZwrfX3nxOGJnOGQWYNR-ULtCsWyAu2l5Rr_U2QeaDy3jNkA6ODhVtviCIYOmix8kqgtXGwZVdn4UA_2xkljEeIE2VVLqk2lgEcb1JU_v1sto9tGG9GUUBiAFv-WmR5sc/s1600-h/iran+protests.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 297px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPIIIdpgC7Ca6ZwrfX3nxOGJnOGQWYNR-ULtCsWyAu2l5Rr_U2QeaDy3jNkA6ODhVtviCIYOmix8kqgtXGwZVdn4UA_2xkljEeIE2VVLqk2lgEcb1JU_v1sto9tGG9GUUBiAFv-WmR5sc/s400/iran+protests.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5350920172959429042" /></a><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CC0000;"><br /></span></b><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CC0000;">WILL THE CAT ABOVE THE PRECIPICE FALL DOWN?</span></b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Slavoj Zizek</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">I have just received this article apparently written by Zizek. Rumors say that it was turned down by the NY Times.</span></span></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">When an authoritarian regime approaches its final crisis, its dissolution as a rule follows two steps. Before its actual collapse, a mysterious rupture takes place: all of a sudden people know that the game is over, they are simply no longer afraid. It is not only that the regime loses its legitimacy, its exercise of power itself is perceived as an impotent panic reaction. We all know the classic scene from cartoons: the cat reaches a precipice, but it goes on walking, ignoring the fact that there is no ground under its feet; it starts to fall only when it looks down and notices the abyss. When it loses its authority, the regime is like a cat above the precipice: in order to fall, it only has to be reminded to look down… In Shah of Shahs, a classic account of the Khomeini revolution, Ryszard Kapuscinski located the precise moment of this rupture: at a Tehran crossroad, a single demonstrator refused to budge when a policeman shouted at him to move, and the embarrassed policeman simply withdrew; in a couple of hours, all Tehran knew about this incident, and although there were street fights going on for weeks, everyone somehow knew the game is over. Is something similar going on now? There are many versions of the events in Tehran. Some see in the protests the culmination of the pro-Western “reform movement” along the lines of the “orange” revolutions in Ukraine, Georgia, etc. – a secular reaction to the Khomeini revolution. They support the protests as the first step towards a new liberal-democratic secular Iran freed of Muslim fundamentalism. They are counteracted by skeptics who think that Ahmadinejad really won: he is the voice of the majority, while the support of Mousavi comes from the middle classes and their gilded youth. In short: let’s drop the illusions and face the fact that, in Ahmadinejad, Iran has a president it deserves. Then there are those who dismiss Mousavi as a member of the cleric establishment with merely cosmetic differences from Ahmadinejad: Mousavi also wants to continue the atomic energy program, he is against recognizing Israel, plus he enjoyed the full support of Khomeini as a prime minister in the years of the war with Iraq. Finally, the saddest of them all are the Leftist supporters of Ahmadinejad: what is really at stake for them is Iranian independence. Ahmadinejad won because he stood up for the country’s independence, exposed elite corruption and used oil wealth to boost the incomes of the poor majority – this is, so we are told, the true Ahmadinejad beneath the Western-media image of a holocaust-denying fanatic. According to this view, what is effectively going on now in Iran is a repetition of the 1953 overthrow of Mossadegh – a West-financed coup against the legitimate president. This view not only ignores facts: the high electoral participation – up from the usual 55% to 85% - can only be explained as a protest vote. It also displays its blindness for a genuine demonstration of popular will, patronizingly assuming that, for the backward Iranians, Ahmadinejad is good enough - they are not yet sufficiently mature to be ruled by a secular Left. Opposed as they are, all these versions read the Iranian protests along the axis of Islamic hardliners versus pro-Western liberal reformists, which is why they find it so difficult to locate Mousavi: is he a Western-backed reformer who wants more personal freedom and market economy, or a member of the cleric establishment whose eventual victory would not affect in any serious way the nature of the regime? Such extreme oscillations demonstrate that they all miss the true nature of the protests. The green color adopted by the Mousavi supporters, the cries of “Allah akbar!” that resonate from the roofs of Tehran in the evening darkness, clearly indicate that they see their activity as the repetition of the 1979 Khomeini revolution, as the return to its roots, the undoing of the revolution’s later corruption. This return to the roots is not only programmatic; it concerns even more the mode of activity of the crowds: the emphatic unity of the people, their all-encompassing solidarity, creative self-organization, improvising of the ways to articulate protest, the unique mixture of spontaneity and discipline, like the ominous march of thousands in complete silence. We are dealing with a genuine popular uprising of the deceived partisans of the Khomeini revolution.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">There are a couple of crucial consequences to be drawn from this insight. First, Ahmadinejad is not the hero of the Islamist poor, but a genuine corrupted Islamo-Fascist populist, a kind of Iranian Berlusconi whose mixture of clownish posturing and ruthless power politics is causing unease even among the majority of ayatollahs. His demagogic distributing of crumbs to the poor should not deceive us: behind him are not only organs of police repression and a very Westernized PR apparatus, but also a strong new rich class, the result of the regime’s corruption (Iran’s Revolutionary Guard is not a working class militia, but a mega-corporation, the strongest center of wealth in the country).</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Second, one should draw a clear difference between the two main candidates opposed to Ahmadinejad, Mehdi Karroubi and Mousavi. Karroubi effectively is a reformist, basically proposing the Iranian version of identity politics, promising favors to all particular groups. Mousavi is something entirely different: his name stands for the genuine resuscitation of the popular dream which sustained the Khomeini revolution. Even if this dream was a utopia, one should recognize in it the genuine utopia of the revolution itself. What this means is that the 1979 Khomeini revolution cannot be reduced to a hard line Islamist takeover – it was much more. Now is the time to remember the incredible effervescence of the first year after the revolution, with the breath-taking explosion of political and social creativity, organizational experiments and debates among students and ordinary people. The very fact that this explosion had to be stifled demonstrates that the Khomeini revolution was an authentic political event, a momentary opening that unleashed unheard-of forces of social transformation, a moment in which “everything seemed possible.” What followed was a gradual closing through the take-over of political control by the Islam establishment. To put it in Freudian terms, today’s protest movement is the “return of the repressed” of the Khomeini revolution.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">And, last but not least, what this means is that there is a genuine liberating potential in Islam – to find a “good” Islam, one doesn’t have to go back to the 10th century, we have it right here, in front of our eyes.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">The future is uncertain – in all probability, those in power will contain the popular explosion, and the cat will not fall into the precipice, but regain ground. However, it will no longer be the same regime, but just one corrupted authoritarian rule among others. Whatever the outcome, it is vitally important to keep in mind that we are witnessing a great emancipatory event which doesn’t fit the frame of the struggle between pro-Western liberals and anti-Western fundamentalists. If our cynical pragmatism will make us lose the capacity to recognize this emancipatory dimension, then we in the West are effectively entering a post-democratic era, getting ready for our own Ahmadinejads. Italians already know his name: Berlusconi. Others are waiting in line. </span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6112293212743134790.post-76656954742635190382009-06-23T02:38:00.000-07:002009-06-23T14:50:33.827-07:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyaJJQbQa-q6WMYKOk9GNRGRTtGBr7yt0x5TEqS6piOxJik87URLZ9RiTd4AQAPE-9gjgrJaIU7U0nRlZ2j6RYAsncSGmwgFzlOfcMlM-Me0S6MP_5HDqmUi30fKoeG9lK2d6PLukd-G0/s1600-h/spinoza1.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 279px; height: 349px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyaJJQbQa-q6WMYKOk9GNRGRTtGBr7yt0x5TEqS6piOxJik87URLZ9RiTd4AQAPE-9gjgrJaIU7U0nRlZ2j6RYAsncSGmwgFzlOfcMlM-Me0S6MP_5HDqmUi30fKoeG9lK2d6PLukd-G0/s400/spinoza1.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5350456623820564914" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CC0000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Spinozists united: </span></span></span></b></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CC0000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Toni Negri in Amsterdam on Friday</span></span></span></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CC0000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:12px;"><br /></span></span></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:12px;">Great festival in Amsterdam (</span></span></span><span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://www.thebijlmerspinozafestival.nl/_home/home.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:12px;">programme here</span></span></span></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:12px;">) until the 28th of June as part of the project "Open Source Amsterdam". In the next days: </span></span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:12px;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:12px;">- Wednesday 24th June - 15h</span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:12px;">Sebastian Egenhofer / "Hercules Segers: A Spinozian view"</span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:12px;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:12px;">- Friday 26th June - 15h</span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:12px;">Toni Negri / "Politiques de l'immanence, politiques de la transcendence: l'enseignement de Spinoza"</span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:12px;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:12px;">- And every day at 17h30:</span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:12px;">Lecture by Marcus Steinweg</span></span></span></div></span></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6112293212743134790.post-69853064383861105722009-06-22T04:56:00.001-07:002009-06-23T08:00:16.432-07:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0Pjo6jO-JY8Vly3rLPdty19TRX6F25O-nLIxdZ_erEPPmUBA2iKJlf5C0hertzn5SKOJiijZ2xWlUgWLn9qVjG3UfXmj8nnJOpYFsh__i49fVmsX40isacbG4NnY4qWD11KVJgw3T-o0/s1600-h/verso-9781844671045-adam-smith-in-beijing-small1.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 188px; height: 283px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0Pjo6jO-JY8Vly3rLPdty19TRX6F25O-nLIxdZ_erEPPmUBA2iKJlf5C0hertzn5SKOJiijZ2xWlUgWLn9qVjG3UfXmj8nnJOpYFsh__i49fVmsX40isacbG4NnY4qWD11KVJgw3T-o0/s400/verso-9781844671045-adam-smith-in-beijing-small1.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5350119752636108962" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; white-space: pre; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CC0000;">R.I.P. Giovanni Arrighi</span></b></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CC0000;"><br /></span></b></span><br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:13px;">Symposium on Giovanni Arrighi's Adam Smith in Beijing (2008) - </span></span><a href="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2718530085458752500&ei=yWs_SvzcJJb8-Aa5z52WBQ&q=arrighi+harvey&client=firefox-a"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:13px;">Here</span></span></b></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:13px;">!</span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6112293212743134790.post-79237562246883736632009-06-03T15:38:00.000-07:002009-06-23T08:01:36.190-07:00<span style="font-weight:bold;"></span><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" white-space: pre; font-family:'Lucida Grande';"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CC0000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Invertebrate left... but with a nice bum!</span></span></b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikOA6inyNI7S9bBBsTwPHUnAQLuy8IMn966SxGIYFhqDyKxUq87yhZZ9Hf8l2p29yeFT0PmwVx7CPtFUsCbQsjzJVFLwinvp8WmJWAqndPPNvkmJqJ_X9Yxz4mwxovOKM-wnTysntM-TI/s1600-h/concitadegregorio.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 279px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikOA6inyNI7S9bBBsTwPHUnAQLuy8IMn966SxGIYFhqDyKxUq87yhZZ9Hf8l2p29yeFT0PmwVx7CPtFUsCbQsjzJVFLwinvp8WmJWAqndPPNvkmJqJ_X9Yxz4mwxovOKM-wnTysntM-TI/s400/concitadegregorio.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5349902968094151650" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">New! Free! Mini! Generous! Essential! Surprising! These and other adjectives surround the young female bum portrayed in the image above, but they are not referring to it, no no, do not fall into the trap! The trick is bold and refined, it uses the noble art of rhetorical allegory to alert the reader that the referent is not in the foreground but in the pocket, not on the surface of immediate, uncouth mental connections but in the depth of the audacious association between sensuous femininity and ... an old, communist newspaper. The epithets, indeed, are referring to "L'Unità" (see the pocket), the journal founded by Antonio Gramsci in 1924 and, from then onwards, official mouthpiece of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) and, after its end, of its inheritors.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">In its incomparable synthesis, the Unità-bum tells us of two major historical defeats: 1) the defeat of the feminist movement (unable to become 'senso-comune') reduced to a bum, as if there was the need to sell even the ex-communist newspaper by means of women's bodies (is there anybody in Italy who does not use boobs and bums to sell a commodity?) 2) and the defeat of the left, swept away from the parliament and, more importantly and despairingly, from the streets and the civil society. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">In his article (</span><a href="http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n05/ande01_.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">here</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">), Anderson claims that the snobbish intellectual posturing of the PCI apparatus and intelligentsia towards popular culture, increasingly saturated "with a tidal wave of the crassest idiocies and fantasies" diffused by Berlusconi's mediatic counter-revolution, had been one of the reasons for the left's progressive defeats ... Is the Unità retreating to Berlusconi's bum-marketing style in order to obtain the lost connection? Well, if this is the opinion l'Unità has of popular culture and if Berlusconi's consent is 'threatened' using the same schlock-lobomotising tools, we cannot really hope for a change anytime soon...</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6112293212743134790.post-29674844660807831642009-03-22T14:33:00.000-07:002009-06-23T11:12:08.608-07:00<div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" white-space: pre; font-family:'Lucida Grande';"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CC0000;">La retorica dell’integrazione</span></span></b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Di seguito, la prima parte di un testo che ho scritto per il secondo numero dei </span><a href="http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigKgiDVvwiQShxFJb1t3UGC7Ch3J6PrUy-cX5f6P8wgdRPShGpuLLjqK4xPFB5h7TP1bxpq-aCEyoH7aYhudmv8jZ46RGCG0EI8-dK72XKf6ut41vhlyfqitJl0_3A0bIm2eDqXJebkpSf/s400/cop_Lavorare.jpg&imgrefurl=http://marginaliavincenzaperilli.blogspot.com/2008/09/lavorare-stanca.html&usg=__JD57HK7IOcduqx3tkhbri_5y7V0=&h=400&w=286&sz=29&hl=en&start=9&sig2=A3Yiw9VaFni8CqaJHAzzqg&um=1&tbnid=Co8QCRgYMhkxhM:&tbnh=124&tbnw=89&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dquaderni%2Bviola%2Blidia%2Bcirillo%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26rls%3Den%26sa%3DG%26um%3D1&ei=NYU_StOPApWD-AbOw4HSDA"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Quaderni Viola</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">, Alegre, 2009. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">È dall’epoca dell’approvazione della legge Turco/Napolitano (Legge n. 40, 1998) – primo testo organico in Italia in materia di immigrazione – che il termine “integrazione” ha iniziato ad essere impiegato estesamente, sia nel senso comune, che nel dibattito accademico. Con la legge Turco-Napolitano, infatti, l’Italia dismetteva i panni di paese di emigrazione ed entrava ufficialmente nel novero dei paesi di immigrazione; toccava, pertanto, mostrare una certa apprensione per l’inserimento sociale e culturale degli immigrati (e non solo per la resistenza delle loro braccia nella raccolte stagionali e nell’arte della lavatura dei piatti) ed elaborare delle politiche volte, appunto, alla loro “integrazione”. Ma come fare?</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Nell’era Prodiana l’illuminazione non poteva che venire dall’Europa. Fu così che l’allora Governò Prodi istituì una commissione ad hoc, la imbottì di esperti, la incaricò di spiegarci cosa dovessimo intendere per integrazione e di elaborare delle strategie politiche per la sua implementazione. La commissione fece questo, e ancora di più: non solo produsse (meritoriamente) il primo rapporto approfondito sullo stato dell’arte dell’immigrazione in Italia, ma riuscì anche nell’impresa (meno meritoria) di dimostrare che l’integrazione è donna, o meglio il suo cliché, ossia “retorica dei buoni sentimenti”. A presiedere la commissione, non a caso, fu chiamata una donna, la sociologa Giovanna Zincone, la quale partorì un concetto di integrazione di sesso femminile: essendo il ruolo atteso della donna, in famiglia come in politica, quello di favorire il dialogo e portare la pace, l’integrazione non poteva che essere pacifica, anzi meglio, “ragionevole”. Questa doveva essere promossa dal “buon governo” e andava intesa come “buona vita”, “interazione positiva” e “pacifica convivenza” (cfr. Zincone, 2001).</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">La terminologia era caramellosa e impacciato il suo equilibrismo incerto tra assimilazionismo e pluralismo. Tuttavia, nella sua vita breve e nel suo impatto tutt’altro che limitato (almeno nel dibattito accademico), la nozione di “integrazione ragionevole” schivò la questione dei diritti e delle condizioni materiali di vita della popolazione immigrata e contribuì a mantenere il dibattito sull’integrazione in termini puramente retorici, culturalisti e femminei. In un dibattito siffatto, come vedremo nel prosieguo del testo, le donne immigrate infatti hanno assunto una funzione centrale e il destino dell’integrazione sembra essere letteralmente nelle loro mani.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-weight:bold;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Aggiungi un posto a tavola...che c’è una serva in più.</span></div></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Per comprendere fino in fondo la retorica dell’integrazione risulterà utile condurne la pars destruens attraverso il rivelamento della logica sessista e razzista implicita nella declinazione femminile del concetto di integrazione.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Nella sua accezione di senso comune il termine integrazione designa un inserimento sociale riuscito, in termini sia economici che culturali. Le statistiche sull’immigrazione in Italia mostrano tassi di attività piuttosto elevati nel caso delle donne immigrate e buoni tassi di occupazione. Inoltre, a differenza dell’occupazione che coinvolge gli uomini immigrati, percepita in termini di minaccia economica e di concorrenza sul mercato del lavoro, l’occupazione femminile viene avvertita diversamente. Le immigrate, infatti, non attentano al lavoro delle donne ‘native’, al contrario: lo rendono possibile. Esse risultano, perciò, più integrate dei compagni maschi – almeno in termini socio-economici – e sono le benvenute nell’arena lavorativa. La ragione è presto detta. Come è noto, la stragrande maggioranza delle donne immigrate in Italia lavora come domestica e/o badante. L’aumento dei tassi di attività e di occupazione delle donne italiane, infatti, per quanto contenuto non ha condotto ad un aumento dei servizi pubblici di cura (per bambini e anziani) ma alla rinuncia alla maternità o al ricorso ai servizi offerti dalle donne straniere da parte delle donne italiane.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">In questo modo le donne immigrate non hanno fatto altro che sostituire le italiane nel loro ruolo di cura, a partire dal presupposto che quest’ultimo costituisca una vocazione tipicamente femminile. Il paradosso dell’integrazione declinata secondo il genere, pertanto, consiste nel fatto che il suo successo è una sconfitta per le donne. L’astrazione vuota dell’integrazione come capacità economica e scambio culturale, quando riempita del suo contenuto concreto si rivela essere la realtà della cristallizzazione dei ruoli tra i sessi, della monotonia del lavoro recluso e non qualificato, dello sfruttamento e dello svilimento della donna in quanto serva di un altro colore. La condizione della donna immigrata che si suppone “integrata”, così, riflette la condizione di subalternità della donna in generale.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK4J1KcL3KLHM5sZE-FvVJZjnJRPxzGh_9nWddvDSJyhKdZXIk36VkRAEmbyj8MHM8l4jRr_VDjO4cf0qLd2kO6IxY6TdFgw57BB9gGca4-KAKc3VSVZcrvGQg6EE8MSYT-GlOFggfDjE/s1600-h/mami+via+col+vento.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 276px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK4J1KcL3KLHM5sZE-FvVJZjnJRPxzGh_9nWddvDSJyhKdZXIk36VkRAEmbyj8MHM8l4jRr_VDjO4cf0qLd2kO6IxY6TdFgw57BB9gGca4-KAKc3VSVZcrvGQg6EE8MSYT-GlOFggfDjE/s400/mami+via+col+vento.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5316130319008443074" /></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6112293212743134790.post-13432785154573945442009-02-14T09:40:00.000-08:002009-06-23T11:19:17.027-07:00<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" white-space: pre; font-family:'Lucida Grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CC0000;"><b>Dutch mysteries...</b></span></span></span></div><div><br /></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">Walking around Amsterdam to buy a printer today I realised how little I understand of Dutch culture and people. Coming from an under-developed (according to Western criteria) European country more than an year ago, the first thing that strucked me was the 'apparent' efficiency of the city. Trams are on time, car drivers are disciplined, people are not too loud, banks and public services are not too crowded. Excitement! Moreover, the city is truly beautiful. Its little houses, stuck one to the other to the level of exploding, appear as chocolate cakes decorated with cream on top (my sister described them like this). Parks, green spaces, bikes and ducks.<br /><br /></span></span></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjipDe43UETfwOjiadJ7IqT4G01X0c2msPY-Ji0Qa-vJJ4RHWwTP1AruqMcrlHinwyTNn3dfrB1Ypdo7dBMw1n7jExQV-mEqMFu-YsRaYXB_Pg1PhovakSR_ES5Lwzrcsp6f_oJNS8USjo/s1600-h/amsterdam+house.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjipDe43UETfwOjiadJ7IqT4G01X0c2msPY-Ji0Qa-vJJ4RHWwTP1AruqMcrlHinwyTNn3dfrB1Ypdo7dBMw1n7jExQV-mEqMFu-YsRaYXB_Pg1PhovakSR_ES5Lwzrcsp6f_oJNS8USjo/s400/amsterdam+house.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5302722632182824226" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /><br />The centre of Amsterdam is really gorgeous and I have been lucky enough to live always there.<br />Yet, things start appearing less clear when one goes to the supermarket (Albert Heijn - the only brand in town, a sort of huge omnivorous octopus that has bought really every corner) or to the local 'soaps shop' (Kruidvaat).<br /><br /></span></span></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF1R0FFaUIc2aRbiPoW8JDURNbBeg0Kf4_0AyQPMayAfZtgAhfhDv1fXpo0kcf4txSZgrUsym7W3xSWZwEKA0gBCQgotlnenEfCnP9PuqunQgAQq5ciaEX4x5pWi3YiPXz4etnTBK4wQo/s1600-h/Albert_Heijn_342915b.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 248px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF1R0FFaUIc2aRbiPoW8JDURNbBeg0Kf4_0AyQPMayAfZtgAhfhDv1fXpo0kcf4txSZgrUsym7W3xSWZwEKA0gBCQgotlnenEfCnP9PuqunQgAQq5ciaEX4x5pWi3YiPXz4etnTBK4wQo/s400/Albert_Heijn_342915b.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5302722878527700354" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /><br />Everything appears immediately less 'rational' than one could expect. The criterion that organises the allocation of commodities on the shelves of these places is still unclear to me, so you find biscuits and toilet paper in the same sector; though some biscuits have certainly a laxative effect to justify this choice. The pharmacy (apotheek) is also a mystery to me. Whenever you go there you have the strange experience of waiting at least 45 minutes while watching 20 people working on the back room and only one in the cash desk. I used to think that people get days off when they need an aspirin, but then I realised that most common medicins here can be found in a normal shop, near the vegetables and the kitchen cleaning sponges.<br />After these startling experiences I have decided to track records of them and to investigate further into the main bizarre aspects of Legoland (having lived for years in the monumental Rome, Amsterdam's buildings and monuments appear to me like cute constructions made of Lego).<br /><br /></span></span></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9hzXj84IWMmgtbl4_9TmRYabNcA5s5k01dDYcvJ8NU_2EkoZd5GhysEUdO-h9JdNXhMtBg578dtcNq7_Q2azuql5Lbuh09MvbGHr3UFaQaYPvL623BiNMzR5px1Nk0-yLBCYIcUqZhpU/s1600-h/legoland.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9hzXj84IWMmgtbl4_9TmRYabNcA5s5k01dDYcvJ8NU_2EkoZd5GhysEUdO-h9JdNXhMtBg578dtcNq7_Q2azuql5Lbuh09MvbGHr3UFaQaYPvL623BiNMzR5px1Nk0-yLBCYIcUqZhpU/s400/legoland.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5302723300675817490" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /><br />So, here are the aspects:<br /><br />1) Water (quite a dominant element in the landscape);<br /><br />2) Food (interesting subject: like the English one, Dutch food is not famous for being great but it also seems to play a less important role in life);<br /><br />3) Spinoza (this is the city of Spinoza!!! Yet, I cannot see signs of him left...)<br /><br />4) Calvinism (I started to understand truly Max Weber when I came here)<br /><br />5) Money (more important than food)<br /><br />6) Politics (this is the city where Anton Pannekoek taught!!!! No traces left of him, whatsoever!!)<br /><br />7) Tolerance (have a trip with the metro and you start doubting of it...)<br /><br /><br />And let's see what else develops out of it.</span></span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6112293212743134790.post-89710990517134252592009-02-13T03:06:00.000-08:002009-06-23T14:53:38.370-07:00<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CC0000;">Cornel West and Mos Def - Great and Hilarious!!</span></span></b></span></span></div><div><br /></div><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dzzdWmtZ7JnmOdYNah7a0TrHYbumC5RmyQ_IWb7TC_2mWsBAv-jF-1wq8pee1un24LIqWQFhOiCXaJTwjnrsA' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6112293212743134790.post-69606282281565178392009-02-08T07:03:00.000-08:002009-06-23T11:22:49.923-07:00<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" white-space: pre; font-family:'Lucida Grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CC0000;">The Heimat of bio-power</span></b></span></span></div><div><br /></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">I guess you follow a bit what happens in Italy at the moment. The baleful dwarf (alias Berlusconi) is not satisfied to have finally shown the farcical security of the Rechtsstaat, to have brought into light the smarmy level of decadence of more than a half of the Italian people and the criminal hypocrisy of Vatican land. These are quite important achievements, but he is not happy yet. What the dwarf seems to desire more than anything is the Foucaldian nightmare of bio-power. A law has just been made according to which only the Pope and the State (i.e. Berlusconi-Bonaparte) have the right to decide over the life and death of a young woman, who is in a vegetative state since 1992 (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/08/eluana-englaro-assisted-suicide). Yet, this is not the bottom line. In the same week, the Italian Senate approved a law that obliges doctors to denounce “illegal” migrants if they ask for medical help. In other words, migrants have the choice either to die on the streets or in a jail.<br /><br /></span></span></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3cWxCceKnjkogKuFMqF7pIDcV69LN04C3P3CKQUMzjsTbW1mZG_mYdefTYz-1M15DqX137AYBUsjf4OcFuS0nYaQ6HKqOTtjjP50kwc16IQhXpJ_dG0fHNl32rtLx012VbJtyZtGgzpQ/s1600-h/Tannery1.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 371px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3cWxCceKnjkogKuFMqF7pIDcV69LN04C3P3CKQUMzjsTbW1mZG_mYdefTYz-1M15DqX137AYBUsjf4OcFuS0nYaQ6HKqOTtjjP50kwc16IQhXpJ_dG0fHNl32rtLx012VbJtyZtGgzpQ/s400/Tannery1.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5300445223141154610" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:12px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /><br /><br />The feeling of nausea is reaching unbearable levels. It is hard to comment on these events with a lucid analysis and without a profound distrust in humankind.<br />However, it is important to understand and bear in mind how strongly these epiphenomena are related to the present historical conjuncture, on the one hand, and to the intrinsic violence of capitalism on the other.<br />Foucault grasped well the ‘conjunctural’ level when, in The History of Sexuality, he described Biopower as the power over other bodies, “an explosion of numerous and diverse techniques for achieving the subjugations of bodies and the control of populations”. In Foucault’s account, the level of biopower is a step of sophistication of State power under the dominance of the capitalist mode of production (as I understand it).<br />Now, this level of ‘institutional’ violence over unarmed bodies, the constituent cruelty of capital, reminds me of what Marx writes at the very end of the second part of Capital Volume one. These words have always rumbled in my head as the most lucid portrayal of violence over a body, as the most tragic visual representation of De profundis.<br /><br />“When we leave the sphere of simple circulation or of exchange of commodities, which provides the “Free-trader vulgaris” with his views, his concepts and the standard by which he judges the society of capital and wage-labour, a certain change takes place, or so it appears, in the physiognomy of our dramatis personae. He who was previously the money-owner now strides out in front as a capitalist; the possessor of labour-power follows as his worker. The one smirks self-importantly and is intent on business; the other is timid and holds back, like someone who has brought his own hide to market and now has nothing to expect but — a tanning” (p. 280).<br /><br />Capitalist society, in the end, is a tannery!!<br /></span></span></span><br /></span></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4zEjzxQzttQPnAtpGX5i2BcU4EPoLcgsoENij1xDlkQ_HKHl5V2suvqf323ds04lVYhQRgMl1z8xxBK_0YQW-SQET9SBAmCspcZyu3kGFELZ_aPZhc7dt7OJCUGkszU0uNFkD6tFv34Y/s1600-h/Tannery3.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 224px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4zEjzxQzttQPnAtpGX5i2BcU4EPoLcgsoENij1xDlkQ_HKHl5V2suvqf323ds04lVYhQRgMl1z8xxBK_0YQW-SQET9SBAmCspcZyu3kGFELZ_aPZhc7dt7OJCUGkszU0uNFkD6tFv34Y/s400/Tannery3.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5300445934166674626" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:12px;"><br /><br /></span></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir32Ld-MSfaiPf0CQKcnO1OfPRhp1ni-cMuFhnSPKGIpfGONzwsueEXfaCyGHFZGxDBXfZzJFxp4Sw4EyWaTZ7Jy5CFTIEgxTudBVsHJojGSDJxeg0lLrc3CwtBUIvpePubHRmzdPkwaw/s1600-h/Tannery2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 202px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir32Ld-MSfaiPf0CQKcnO1OfPRhp1ni-cMuFhnSPKGIpfGONzwsueEXfaCyGHFZGxDBXfZzJFxp4Sw4EyWaTZ7Jy5CFTIEgxTudBVsHJojGSDJxeg0lLrc3CwtBUIvpePubHRmzdPkwaw/s400/Tannery2.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5300446279331096274" /></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6112293212743134790.post-89456380753042052882009-01-24T15:23:00.000-08:002009-02-02T10:33:17.731-08:00Neither "ad hoc" nor "post factum"...<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg6rvtpCsmth8ctXKG5qdxwtNFVS4kBUoNej8mAnHLsPHkV-sd0m0Q9T83VYX1e2uMx7PF4nEocHLfAHIjix3BcxtIb-XvExXVUyGF41WL5fVxMJzIagNqTrshAQFJmWgSBhBs6_ajZnA/s1600-h/chemist.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 262px; height: 350px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg6rvtpCsmth8ctXKG5qdxwtNFVS4kBUoNej8mAnHLsPHkV-sd0m0Q9T83VYX1e2uMx7PF4nEocHLfAHIjix3BcxtIb-XvExXVUyGF41WL5fVxMJzIagNqTrshAQFJmWgSBhBs6_ajZnA/s400/chemist.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5298269770984577378" /></a><br />"What opinion should we have of a chemist, who, instead of studying the actual laws of the molecular changes in the composition and decomposition of matter, and on that foundation solving definite problems, claimed to regulate the composition and decomposition of matter by means of the “eternal ideas,” of “naturalité” and “affinité”? Do we really know any more about “usury,” when we say it contradicts “justice éternelle,” équité éternelle “mutualité éternelle,” and other vérités éternelles than the fathers of the church did when they said it was incompatible with “grâce éternelle,” “foi éternelle,” and “la volonté éternelle de Dieu”?" Kar Marx, Capital, Vol. I<br />I find this sentence quite spectacular, given the mainstream propaganda according to which Marx provided ad hoc explanations... sort of way to remind the Amsterdam Capital Reading Group - (sara@iire.org), tchussUnknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6112293212743134790.post-67792448319712957752009-01-23T16:15:00.000-08:002009-01-23T16:20:01.552-08:00http://www.kcloccupation.blogspot.com/<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf-2hI-zza33mKNa3_Jzav5mHf8Jvp7uEdFngPSexbQ0bQYux7QuFW4t5rcqY9scdZ1-b7lmYKjGSiGNGxgjnHYB6m14XJlcNQLsbNNW6lBflTUKyoe3Cl9SNcXsNxY3i2ZNsfQa9g32w/s1600-h/090111gaza_demo400.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 179px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf-2hI-zza33mKNa3_Jzav5mHf8Jvp7uEdFngPSexbQ0bQYux7QuFW4t5rcqY9scdZ1-b7lmYKjGSiGNGxgjnHYB6m14XJlcNQLsbNNW6lBflTUKyoe3Cl9SNcXsNxY3i2ZNsfQa9g32w/s320/090111gaza_demo400.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5294648391615543458" /></a><br /><br />Solidarity with the student occupations pro-Gaza of British universities!!!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0