…ment: Journal for Contemporary Culture, Art and Politics, 2: Dénouement (2011)
Filed under magazine | Tags: · art, capitalism, catastrophe, labour, politics
“From the financial crisis to natural and man-made disasters via the wave of political extremisms, our times are patterned with catastrophes of all kinds. While the contemporary meaning of catastrophe is commonly associated to the idea of disaster and collective trauma its origin mostly refers to a sudden turn, or a reversal of what is expected. Catastrophe would therefore be this shift that allows us to explore spaces that could not be accessed, whilst breaking with the existing or the normative. Issue 2 of …ment explores the dis-ordering nature of catastrophe whilst celebrating the potential of its narratives and imageries.
…ment is a journal for contemporary culture, art and politics published in irregular intervals. Through a multi-disciplinary set of editorial forms, the journal aims to reflect on current societal issues and debates.”
With contributions by Tobias Scholz, Jean-Charles Massera, David Riff, Daniel Bürkner, Jens Meinrenken, Walter Benjamin, Bo Christian Larsson, Heather & Ivan Morison, Gustav Metzger, DOXA. Also included in the journal is an excerpt Walter Benjamin’s Theses on Philosophy of History. The printed journal includes a special edition by Bo Christian Larsson.
Editor-in-chief: Federica Bueti
Associate editors: Benoit Loiseau, Clara Meister
98 pages
HTML (updated on 2020-10-19)
PDF (added on 2020-10-19)
Semiotext(e), 3(2): Schizo-Culture (1978)
Filed under journal | Tags: · anti-psychiatry, capitalism, linguistics, literature, philosophy, politics, power, psychoanalysis, schizoanalysis, schizophrenia, semiotics
“Semiotext(e) began in 1974 as a journal started by French philosopher Sylvère Lotringer in an effort to bridge radical French theory and the intellectual and art worlds of New York City. The original editorial board included ten people, mostly graduate students at Columbia University where Lotringer teaches, who chipped in fifty dollars apiece to get the journal started. They held their first conference in 1975: the Schizo-Culture conference on prisons and madness. Speakers included Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Michel Foucault, and Jean-François Lyotard, now all staples of the Semiotext(e) backlist.” (from Wikipedia)
With contributions by Kathy Acker, Lee Breuer, William Burroughs, John Cage, David Cooper, Gilles Deleuze, Douglas Dunn, Richard Foreman, Michel Foucault, John Giorno, Phil Glass, Christopher Knowles, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Ulrike Meinhof, Jack Smith, Robert Wilson, and others.
Edited by Sylvère Lotringer
Publisher Semiotext(e), New York, 1978
ISSN 00939579
221 pages
PDF (8 MB, updated on 2013-12-8)
See also Semiotext(e), 3(1): Nietzsche’s Return (1978).
Comments (2)Jodi Dean: Democracy and Other Neoliberal Fantasies: Communicative Capitalism and Left Politics (2009)
Filed under book | Tags: · capitalism, communicative capitalism, democracy, left, neoliberalism, politics
“Democracy and Other Neoliberal Fantasies is an impassioned call for the realization of a progressive left politics in the United States. Through an assessment of the ideologies underlying contemporary political culture, Jodi Dean takes the left to task for its capitulations to conservatives and its failure to take responsibility for the extensive neoliberalization implemented during the Clinton presidency. She argues that the left’s ability to develop and defend a collective vision of equality and solidarity has been undermined by the ascendance of “communicative capitalism,” a constellation of consumerism, the privileging of the self over group interests, and the embrace of the language of victimization. As Dean explains, communicative capitalism is enabled and exacerbated by the Web and other networked communications media, which reduce political energies to the registration of opinion and the transmission of feelings. The result is a psychotic politics where certainty displaces credibility and the circulation of intense feeling trumps the exchange of reason.
Dean’s critique ranges from her argument that the term democracy has become a meaningless cipher invoked by the left and right alike to an analysis of the fantasy of free trade underlying neoliberalism, and from an examination of new theories of sovereignty advanced by politicians and left academics to a look at the changing meanings of “evil” in the speeches of U.S. presidents since the mid-twentieth century. She emphasizes the futility of a politics enacted by individuals determined not to offend anyone, and she examines questions of truth, knowledge, and power in relation to 9/11 conspiracy theories. Dean insists that any reestablishment of a vital and purposeful left politics will require shedding the mantle of victimization, confronting the marriage of neoliberalism and democracy, and mobilizing different terms to represent political strategies and goals.”
Publisher Duke University Press, 2009
ISBN 0822345056, 9780822345053
217 pages
PDF (updated on 2020-5-31)
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