Revolutionaries and Underdogs (original) (raw)
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Rebel Pathologies: From Politics to Psychologisation...and Back
2010
is somewhat timid, and, more troublingly, it is marked by a problematic tendency towards trivialising the word ‗revolutionary', reducing it to any kind of progressive, leftist personal engagement with politics. It is my contention, then, that in times in which products ranging from washing powders to electronic gadgets are advertised as ‗revolutionary' or as ‗bringing a revolution' (in cleaning, in entertainment and so on), and in which charity oriented humanitarian subjectivities and eco-friendly lifestyles are characterised as progressive, or even radical, we must stress that if such a thing as ‗revolutionary psychology' exists, it can never be simply a marketing label for interesting life-stories, unconventional ways of life, and humanitarian attitudes, no matter how progressive these are. Whilst, admittedly, interesting lives and certain kinds of positioning towards social and political issues can, of course, contain progressive, and even radical elements, this in itself does not qualify them as examples of revolutionary psychology.
What is a Dissident? My Correspondence with Lutz Rathenow
GDR Bulletin, 1995
Sax are preparing a longer publication based on their correspondence across the Berlin Wall during the seventies and eighties. This is document of an era which, though barely over, is already slipping from memory, even as it becomes an object of misplaced nostalgia. The following essay is conceived as a partial introduction. *** If being a social "outsider" were as romantic as our books and movies have always made it seem, there probably wouldn't be any outsiders at all. Our culture is saturated with a mystique of revolution to a point where just about everyone marketed as a celebrity is presented as an outsider, from Elvis to H. Ross Perot, from Allen Ginsburg to Ronald Reagan. In individual cases, such claims range from distortions and partial truths to complete nonsense. Collectively, such claims are one tremendous lie, which runs through our whole society.
Die Welt des Islams, 2011
… the past is all we know, the future is always obscured by cloud, we hack our way through it towards nowhere we know, and whenever we tire of the endless exploration, as well we might, whenever life seems absurdly short and the horizon no closer than when we set out all those years ago, it is the past that is always lying in wait for us, tempting us with the infallible promise of the trusted, the explored, the warm and the safe, the only real home we shall ever have. Waiting to tuck us up tight.
Writing the history of the victors: discourse, social change and (radical) democracy.
Journal of Language and Politics, 2014
Recently, interest in radical democracy and communism has increased dramatically among cultural theorists. This paper draws attention to two other fields in which a similar shift is visible. First, popular scholarly writing on communism, anarchism and socialism. Second, curricular materials for history teaching. Drawing on ethnographic field work at an educational publishing house in Germany, the paper analyses the production of a history textbook. Analysis identifies ambiguities and tensions in the way forms of political organisation and practice are discussed and changes made. One change involves the subtle revalorization of the 1918 revolution and the early days of the Weimar Republic, which could be considered an attempt at shaping a ‘radical democracy’. The study contributes to emerging work on discourse and social change which aims to not only critique dominant discourse but also explore fissures in hegemonic formations. By analysing the production of these history materials, we explore competing discursive possibilities – ways of understanding and enacting democracy – circulating today.
Life in the Undercommons: Sustaining Justice-Work Post Disillusionment
OUR SHARED EFFORTS TO ENGAGE IN JUSTICE WORK from within our various positions at the university are entangled in the institution's and the broader education system's complicity in (neo)colonialism, capitalism, and white supremacy. We, and many others like us, attempt to dismantle this complicity even though our activities within the institution are disciplined through precarious funding situations, competitive grants processes, the devalorization of collaborative scholarship, and disciplining metrics that alienate us from our labor as educators and students. "In the face of these conditions one can only sneak into the university and steal what one can. To abuse its hospitality, to spite its mission, to join its refugee colony, its gypsy encampment, to be in but not ofthis is the path of the subversive intellectual in the modern university" (Moten & Harney, 2004, p. 101). This essay is the product of our stolen time (away from grading, meetings, assistantships, etc.) to collectively better understand the tensions between our motivations for being at the university and our experiences while here. We share our desires for the university to be a free space to think creatively and engage in social change and our lived experiences of the university as an institution that rewards and maintains the status quo of the education system.