‘The Essential Verso Undergraduate Reading List’

Posted on September 28, 2012 by stuartelden

Verso have posted another one their lists – this time ‘The Essential Verso Undergraduate Reading List’. Twenty books here including Marx, Paul Mason, Peter Dews, Jameson, Anderson (Perry & Benedict), Stephen Lukes, Žižek, Eagleton, David Harvey, Therborn, Balibar, Vinayak Chaturvedi, Berman, Finkelstein, Wallerstein, Badious, Balakrishnan, Soja and Chris Harman. This looks pretty forbidding for undergraduates. And did nobody at Verso notice that this entire list was male authors?

I’ve read 14 of these – I’m missing a couple of the ‘Mapping’ ones; Harman, Finkelstein, Mason. The Wallerstein looks like it’s almost a summary of the multi-volume The Modern World System and I have read that, but not this one.

Posted in Alain Badiou, Books, David Harvey, Edward Soja, Etienne Balibar, Fredric Jameson, Karl Marx, Politics, Publishing, Slavoj Zizek, teaching | Leave a comment

Gaston Gordillo, The Afterlife of Places: Ruins and the Destruction of Space

Posted on September 28, 2012 by stuartelden

At Space and Politics, Gaston Gordillo has a detailed discussion of his forthcoming book The Afterlife of Places: Ruins and the Destruction of Space. It looks to be both theoretically innovative and based on detailed fieldwork. He promises some more theoretical excerpts over the next few weeks. This initial post outlines the main structure and argument and discusses places in some detail. Some important indications here – Adorno, Žižek, Benjamin, Nietzsche; the idea of the destruction of space (alongside the production); dialectics and ruins; and the notion of an object-orientated negativity. With these he cautions that “While conceptual, these are explorations that do not see theory as a transcendental abstraction and, on the contrary, draw from anthropology’s strength: its everyday immersion in actual places and its engagement with ordinary men and women in their historical and cultural circumstances”. Looks fascinating.

Posted in Gaston Gordillo, Politics, Slavoj Zizek, Walter Benjamin | 2 Comments

The Pepper-Spray outcomes

Posted on September 28, 2012 by stuartelden

The New APPS blog has a useful post summarising and discussing the outcomes following the pepper-spraying of students at UC Davis last year. Here’s some of it, but the whole post is worth a read.

The fallout from these events includes:

  • Chancellor Linda Katehi is still the Chancellor of UC Davis.  UC Davis faculty voted 697 to 312 to defeat a no-confidence measure that censured Katehi’s handling of the controversial police action.  The President of the University of California, Mark Yudof, praised her “integrity as a leader and her personal empathy for all members of the UC Davis community” in responding to the incident.
  • UCD Police Chief Spicuzza resigned in April 2012.
  • The two pepper-sprayers, Lt. John Pike and Officer Alex Lee, were fired in July 2012, having been on paid leave since November 2011.
  •  The Yolo County DA’s office declined to bring charges against anyone involved in the pepper spraying, stating that “there is insufficient evidence to establish proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the use of force involved in the November 18, 2011, pepper spraying was unlawful and therefore warrants the filing of criminal charges.”
  • The protesters settled their suit with the University.  There was no admission of guilt, although each protester will receive an apology from Chancellor Katehi and $30,000.

It is hard to feel good about these outcomes.  Although the officers surely bear significant personal responsibility for what happened, it seems as though yet again it is the lowest-level employees who bear the brunt of the consequences for a troubling incident.  Since there will be no criminal trial and no civil trial, many of the details of what happened will remain unknown. 

Previous posts on this site – on the report; on the Scoville scale of chili heat; and a post of links on UC campus violence; and the original videos.

Posted in Politics, Universities | Leave a comment

Ben Fraser – Toward an Urban Cultural Studies: Henri Lefebvre, Space and the Culture(s) of Cities

Posted on September 27, 2012 by stuartelden

Ben Fraser – “Toward an Urban Cultural Studies: Henri Lefebvre, Space and the Culture(s) of Cities” from UK College of Arts & Sciences on Vimeo.

For the Prezi, and more details see the Urban Cultural Studies blog Ben runs. And his book on Lefebvre is out too.

Posted in Henri Lefebvre | Leave a comment

The Wire: Race, Class, and Genre

Posted on September 27, 2012 by stuartelden

Interesting looking edited book – The Wire: Race, Class, and Genre, edited by Liam Kennedy and Stephen Shapiro, published by University of Michigan Press. Here’s one of the publicity blurbs:

“This bravura collection of essays ratifies the opinion of millions of worldwide fans: The Wire is the urban Grapes of Wrath, with characters as vivid and enduring, and truths as radical and plain-spoken, as those in
Steinbeck’s masterpiece.”

Mike Davis, University of California, Riverside

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged | 1 Comment

Foucault Studies 14 – including an unpublished Foucault interview

Posted on September 26, 2012 by stuartelden

Foucault Studies 14 is now out. The bulk of the issue is a theme section on Foucault and Queer Theory, but the highlight is a 1978 interview with Foucault conducted by Colin Gordon and Paul Patton, and introduced by Alain Beaulieu and Colin Gordon. A version has been available in the archive for years, but it’s good to see this interesting discussion – entitled here “Considerations on Marxism, Phenomenology and Power” – made more widely accessible. The French version will be out later this year in Cités No. 52. It was conducted on April 3rd 1978, shortly before he completed the Security, Territory, Population lectures. Colin’s introduction situates the piece very well, so take a look – highly recommended.

Posted in Michel Foucault | 1 Comment

Social and Cultural Geography – new editor applications

Posted on September 26, 2012 by stuartelden
Social & Cultural Geography, published by Taylor and Francis, is a leading journal in its field, publishing original, high calibre, scholarly articles on the spatialities of society and culture.  After several years as an editor, Lily Kong has decided to step down from the role. The journal is therefore seeking a new associate editor to start in January 2013 for an initial five year term.

Strong preference will be given to colleagues outside of the US and the UK in order to maintain the wide reach of the journal.  Social & Cultural Geography strives for international authorship and readership, as well as in the peer-review process.   Candidates should appreciate that the journal publishes theoretically consequential empirical research that makes a strong intellectual contribution to critical human geography and its allied fields.  They should have a broad knowledge of the fields of social and cultural geography, and be able to work promptly and collaboratively.  Social & Cultural Geography receives approximately 200 manuscripts per year handled by three editors.  The current annual acceptance rate is 26%. 

Applications should consist of a letter detailing the candidate’s relevant experience, and their vision and ambitions for the journal, plus a short CV.

Please send a single PDF to Michael Brown at scgjrnl@uw.edu or Phil Hubbard at P.Hubbard@kent.ac.uk by 20 October 2012.

Posted in Publishing | Leave a comment

Society and Space virtual theme issue on Literary Geographies

Posted on September 26, 2012 by stuartelden

10 papers from the archive, open access, on the theme of Literary Geographies. Brief introduction and links to all the papers on the Society and Space open site.

Posted in Society and Space | 1 Comment

Heterotopian Studies – now with blog

Posted on September 25, 2012 by stuartelden

The Heterotopian Studies site I mentioned a few months back has a blog attached to it – http://www.heterotopiastudies.com/blog/ It is extraordinary how this short piece by Foucault, which was not published for almost twenty years, has generated so much interest and led to so many applications.

Posted in Michel Foucault | 2 Comments

Posted on September 25, 2012 by stuartelden

urbanculturalstudies's avatarurbanculturalstudies

CFP-edited book on Marxism and Urban Culture

Submissions are invited for an edited book on Marxism and Urban Culture that has received initial interest from an international publisher known for their strength in Marxian-themed series and titles.

While all abstracts using a Marxian framework to approach culture in urban contexts are welcome, it is anticipated that submissions will conform to one of two subtypes reflecting the division of the book into

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