Politically correct
‘…although cultural studies may perhaps tout as radical its preoccupations with such subjects as democracy, emancipation, egalitarianism, identity-formation, multiculturalism, postmodernism, feminism, queer studies, anti-racism, postcolonialism, marginality, hybridity and so on, in actual fact these are simply struggles at the cutting edge of the ‘politically correct’ ideology of capitalist expansion. For Zizek, cultural studies is thus [...]
Fidelity
‘… cultural studies’ primary deficiency is in providing a satisfactory theory of the event. Cultural studies has been remarkably tight-lipped about the various reasons why so many people have made history by rejecting their cultures in favour of something that happens to render them null and void: the rapture of listening to a prophet who [...]
Cultural Studies: Generations
So aside from all the important things like wishing my Dad Happy Birthday and getting my haircut today I’m currently arranging hotels and train transfers while working on the lecture I’m giving at the University of Tampere next week. It’s on generationalism and cultural studies, and I’ll base it on arguments I make in my [...]
The frustration of foreboding
The class that can express its desires, rather than represent them, is the class that escapes the violence of the law. That which cannot be named, cannot be identified, cannot be charged, cannot be convicted.
Reading Ken Wark’s Hacker Manifesto this week (an online version is here), I’ve been reminded of some of the arguments [...]
Online intimacy: On crushes and stalkers
From Daniel Miller and Don Slater, The Internet: An Ethnographic Approach
As in the transient family, one finds with Internet relationships that larger appeal to sentiment or obligation on the basis of nearness or proximity often have little authority. Rather, there is a large pool of potential contacts that can be realized for either or both [...]
Burnout babies
There was some great feedback from the last post - thanks. I’m still interested in pursuing some of the bigger questions in it, especially since I think they got a bit sidelined in the Brisbanalia. I particularly want to hear more thoughts on the structures of support available for those many people in Australia who [...]
Unbecoming
“I really am getting bored in a way I think Brisbane either causes, or at least cannot resolve.”
Eric Michaels‘ AIDS Diary is - scarily - the only accurate representation of Brisbane I’ve come across in print, so it shouldn’t be surprising that I found it for $1 in the half price bin at the Maroochydore [...]
Forster on love and friendship
‘It is so easy to talk of “passing emotion,” and how to forget how vivid the emotion ere it passed. Our impulse to sneer, to forget, is at root a good one. We recognize that emotion is not enough, and that men and women are personalities capable of sustained relations, not mere opportunities for an [...]
Imaginary solutions
By far my favourite quote from Resistance Through Rituals:
“Every mod was existing in a ghost world of gangsterism, luxurious clubs, and beautiful women even if reality only amounted to a draughty Parker anorak, a beaten up Vespa, and fish and chips out of a greasy bag.” (p 90)
- Dick Hebdige, ‘The Meaning of Mod’
Reading group online
For the past few months the reading group I wanted to set up has been running, gradually building a sense of momentum and confidence as we find out what we know and might like to learn from each other. I am really enjoying the opportunity to read and talk with people I don’t have the [...]
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