Peter Gratton, who helped write that SPEP resolution (you know which one I mean) posts the full resolution and his thoughts on it. The really short version: He believes the proposal was carefully written, and is meant mostly as a push back against people who attacked SPEP and SPEP-'style' philosophy. Other interpretations requires ignoring carefully crafted and purposeful language.
Leon at After Nature has a post up on animals grieving, de-anthropocentrism, and OOO (and a follow up post here). From the first post:
I think that being decentered means that realizing that animals, too, are objects of importance - albeit a unique but in no way superior importance. [...] It seems to me that an animal's own non-human form of aesthetic communication (and for me this is both semiotic and phenomenological, to be prehended fundamentally as *feeling*) should count just as much as any other persistent semiotic communicative object in withdrawal. In other words, in matters of context, animals, then, would count equally to humans. Their manners of communication could (and perhaps should) be taken into consideration when caring for the network - that is, for objects-felt-as-subjects, unique and distinctive center points of feeling with an infinite worth and value of their own. As I've stated, empathy is crucial in feeling out a "Jamesian speculative exploration of a non-human consciousness" (HT Steven Shaviro).
Good stuff, more there. I have occasionally been accused of doing OOO and critical animal studies. And despite my interests in dialogue on such subjects, it has never been true. But Leon seems to be trying to develop some interesting stuff with ethics, animals, OOO, and communication systems theory.
Speaking of OOO, I am sure you have heard there is now a Object-Oriented Studies journal? The announcement and first cfp is here. (An awesome editorial board) Does this mean the correct term is OOS? Because that will ruin my Adventure Time jokes. First they take away my OOPs jokes, and now my Adventure Time jokes. What will be next? Oh yeah, go look at the cfp.
Here is a recent issue of Foucault Studies on the topic of Race.
Speaking of Foucault, Clare (on her other blog) has a great post up on blogging in terms of promotion. The Scientific American blog post she links to is very interesting, as well. The proper place for blogging in the academy is something I often wonder about. For example, how many of you put your blog links in author bios or CVs?
Here is an abstract for an upcoming Geology conference arguing that a Triassic Kraken arranged bones as self-portrait. I have no clue if this is serious or a joke. (h/t TCiW)
John Protevi has an interesting post on the human microphone of The Occupation and political affect. It also begins with Judith Butler's talk at OWS. So, you know, even more reason to go check it out. This reminds me of something I don't really know about for sure, but have been thinking about in terms of the idea of the infrapolitical within The Occupation (the idea of the infrapolitical comes from the work of James C. Scott, but is also heavily developed in Robin D. G. Kelley's Race Rebels). It seems that this is less about any sort of habermasian counter-public, and more about a way of radicalizing each other outside of normal overt political channels. I mean, sure, The Occupation is clearly overtly political, but a lot of the power of the various Occupied places is there developing methods of radicalizing each other through infra-political scripts and dialogues.
Ike Sharpless has an worthwhile post on labels and food politics. When you hear me talk about the need for animal advocates to move away from the economies of the pure and the polluted, the sacred and the profane, the saved and the damned, etc., this is partially the sort of thing I am talking about.
I'm putting this at the bottom because it is old, not because it isn't important. Here is an article about a year old by Richard Twine that I am just now coming across on the animal industrial complex. I don't think I need to say more, but if do, go read it.
I've been enjoying listening to The Head and the Heart. The whole album is great, but here they are performing "Down in the Valley" live.
