I'm working on this paper (with another academic blogger, more on this as appropriate) about Judith Butler and her anti-anthropocentrism. And it caused me to try and remember when I got interested in thinking Butler's work alongside the question of the animal. Because, her explicit comments about animals seems to have occurred mostly after I started looking toward her work. And I remember it started because of mourning. Butler has long insisted that questions over who gets to mourn whom is at the heart of the political, at the heart of social intelligibility. This makes a lot of sense, historically, because of issues of mourning were very much at the heart of queer identity and the AIDS crisis. I still remember a playwright that I knew in high school, who had a moving one man show about the death of his partner. The show centered around less the death itself, but all the problems of mourning his lover. From institutional problems of not being family and being unrecognized to stay after visiting hours, to a family that refused to recognize his relationship. He therefore was constantly grieving, but denied all the socially recognizable paths and protocols to mourn. And at the funeral, his relationship to his partner was completely whitewashed over, as if it never existed. Mourning is a way of making connections, of establishing kinship, and of recognizing the vulnerability and finitude of the other. The protocols that refuse to recognize our mourning refuse all sorts of tangible, social intelligibility. This brings me to animals.
Sometimes we are allowed to mourn animals. Particularly (perhaps even only) pets. Sometimes we are allowed to mourn species that go extinct. But to mourn particular nameless animals, to mourn the animals who cut flesh is on display, to mourn the lobster with the cracked and bound claws in the tank, to mourn the dead animals on the side of the road. To mourn, in other words, the pain and death we dish out, is something that profoundly refused. It is one thing, controversial enough, to become a vegetarian or vegan for ethical reasons, to fight for animal welfare and rights. People don't like it, but to some degree it is understood. But to be in the grocery store and to suddenly be overcome by the reality that exists behind the animal flesh on display, to be able to see their muscles and fat and bones for what they are: the cut up pieces of a being, and to mourn. To tear up, or have trouble functioning, to feel that moment of utter suffocation of being in a hall of death is completely unintelligible. Most people's response is that you need therapy, or you can't be sincere. And so most of us work hard to not mourn. We do it to function, to get by. But that means for most of us, even those of us who are absolutely committed to fighting for animals, have to also and regularly engage in disavowal. Butler's insistence that mourning is political, and it is bound up in a matrix of norms, subjectivity, and relationships is important. I am glad that her work has moved to an increasingly anti-anthropocentric place, and that she understands that at the heart of grief is also the question of what gets to count as a life, or an intelligible life.
The agony of the rat or the slaughter of a calf remains present in thought not through pity but as the zone of exchange between man and animal in which something of one passes into the other. - Deleuze and Guattari, What Is Philosophy?
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
A Post of Links
It seems my post of links is having competition, in the form of the same rundown over at Prodigies & Monsters. Check it out (ps, tell them they need to add music to theirs).
Speculations is up with a CFP for their next issue. I think I am going to try to have something for them this time.
Just in case you missed it, Nina Power has an article in Comment Is Free on the 20th anniversary of Carol Adams' The Sexual Politics of Meat. (original h/t Craig, but thanks to everyone who pointed it out to me). The comments there are, predictably, absurd and go fairly far into proving Adams' points. Nina interacts with everyone there for a while, and I almost wish she hadn't so I would have given up reading the comments earlier. Meanwhile, Nina also has some meta-comments on comments.
Antonio Negri's video conference at the Commonalities conference has been posted. I'll have to take the time to watch it later on.
Kwame Anthony Appiah has an op-ed at the Washington Post on what practices we are engaging in now that future generations will be shocked by. After establishing some criteria of how to determine that, he lists four: our prison system, factory farming, the warehousing of the elderly, and our destruction of the environment.
Tim Morton has a link to a video of Karmapa talking about vegetarianism and ecology. (plus, check out his new blog layout, damn).
William Gibson, for whom my love knows no bounds, has a new book out that I need to read. Here is a pretty good interview with him, conducted after this most recent novel.
I've been pretty busy as my lack of real posts attests to. What attests to it even more is I finally watched the last episode of True Blood yesterday. In honor of that, here is The Eels, "Fresh Blood".
Speculations is up with a CFP for their next issue. I think I am going to try to have something for them this time.
Just in case you missed it, Nina Power has an article in Comment Is Free on the 20th anniversary of Carol Adams' The Sexual Politics of Meat. (original h/t Craig, but thanks to everyone who pointed it out to me). The comments there are, predictably, absurd and go fairly far into proving Adams' points. Nina interacts with everyone there for a while, and I almost wish she hadn't so I would have given up reading the comments earlier. Meanwhile, Nina also has some meta-comments on comments.
Antonio Negri's video conference at the Commonalities conference has been posted. I'll have to take the time to watch it later on.
Kwame Anthony Appiah has an op-ed at the Washington Post on what practices we are engaging in now that future generations will be shocked by. After establishing some criteria of how to determine that, he lists four: our prison system, factory farming, the warehousing of the elderly, and our destruction of the environment.
Tim Morton has a link to a video of Karmapa talking about vegetarianism and ecology. (plus, check out his new blog layout, damn).
William Gibson, for whom my love knows no bounds, has a new book out that I need to read. Here is a pretty good interview with him, conducted after this most recent novel.
I've been pretty busy as my lack of real posts attests to. What attests to it even more is I finally watched the last episode of True Blood yesterday. In honor of that, here is The Eels, "Fresh Blood".
Monday, September 27, 2010
On using plagiarism detection services
Recently Dr. J and Joshua Miller had a insightful and vigorous conversation on the use of plagiarism detection services (the most famous being turnitin). Please see the conversations here, here, here, and here (and make sure you read comments).
I use to hold almost identically the same views of Dr. J (and I should add I've never used turnitin or any of its variants). However, I found Miller's arguments surprisingly convincing (and generally fit in with my current views of plagiarism). But before I go any further, let me say for the present conversation that I am bracketing the question of honor, and if honor codes exist in tension with services like turnitin (I think Dr. J may be right on this last point). Now, I am not bracketing this conversation because I don't think it is unimportant, but rather that not all of us work at institutions with honor codes or the same honor codes (for example, when I was at Oglethorpe, I had no proactive obligation to turn in other people). So, I think the question of honor codes might require a separate conversation, and one that can be held to the specific nature of those codes.
I have had two basic objections to services like turnitin: (1) The first is that I feel it violates the student's control over her own intellectual work product. In other words, it allows a corporation to extract surplus value from the student's work, without her being able to control that at all. And, (2) that is makes me into a cop, and one of those people who come to view all students with suspicion, etc. On the first point, I am still wary. This is not a fear that my students are legally having their intellectual property taken advantage of, but rather one of extracting surplus value to support a corporation rather they want to or not. On the other hand, there are any number of assignments that I think would be fine that would still force students into these issues. Any assignment that required them to post videos on youtube, or maintain a blog, or any number of other assignments about interacting with websites that use advertising and participation to extract value from the students' work. In other words, I think this is still a problem from turnitin, and I think we need to broadly be more concerned about the ways certain assignments force students to support corporations, but as long as we all agree assignments on youtube are legit, I think there is no reason to uniquely condemn turnitin. This brings us to the second point, which is the major one from Dr. J.
I'm not a cop, and I am never a fan of the way there seems a desire to turn educators into police. For a while I thought I would teach high school, but I have seen increasingly the pressure put on high school teachers to spend more time exercising disciplinary power than educating. Or, indeed, that education seems utterly interchangeable with disciplinary power. Foucault got it right, "Is it surprising that prisons resemble factories, schools, barracks, hospitals, which all resemble prisons?"(D&P, p. 228). Now, what is so compelling from Miller's account is that plagiarism disappeared. Not, that plagiarists (whatever that being is) got caught, punished, given their just desserts. Rather, he stopped having to deal with plagiarism. If we agree that plagiarism is a problem, that is makes our jobs harder and hurts the student education. In other words, if we agree that plagiarism is something that we would have to confront if we discovered it (and I think we all agree with this), turnitin means I have to be less of a cop. I have to wield less juridical power. In this sense, turnitin becomes something like spell check, something that fixes a problem and comes to be an aid to students. I think this turns back Dr. J's arguments about universal belief in everyone cheating. I don't think everyone is cheating, but I always believe that there is a chance that a student could accidentally not cite something correctly through error, laziness, or ignorance. I no longer have to figure out if I am dealing with cheating or mistakes. It is a service that helps the students know what they need to cite, and it helps me not to have to punish students.
Now, Dr. J admits in comments of some of the posts that she thinks that the service that allows students to make changes before submitting reports to the professors are not as problematic. But, she feels that this isn't the primary function of turnitin and other services. I can't speak to that. I can say that professors looking to catch students and punish them, are obviously people who enjoy their position of power. I think that is clearly problematic, and pretty anti-educational. However, I don't see how using the plagiarism detection services in the way Miller describes is anything but a net gain (again, except for times with an explicit honor code, where I am less clear on the situation).
Is there some flaw in my thoughts here? As I said, this is a recent change in my outlook. And moreover, I have never used these services so there might be something obvious I am overlooking here.
I use to hold almost identically the same views of Dr. J (and I should add I've never used turnitin or any of its variants). However, I found Miller's arguments surprisingly convincing (and generally fit in with my current views of plagiarism). But before I go any further, let me say for the present conversation that I am bracketing the question of honor, and if honor codes exist in tension with services like turnitin (I think Dr. J may be right on this last point). Now, I am not bracketing this conversation because I don't think it is unimportant, but rather that not all of us work at institutions with honor codes or the same honor codes (for example, when I was at Oglethorpe, I had no proactive obligation to turn in other people). So, I think the question of honor codes might require a separate conversation, and one that can be held to the specific nature of those codes.
I have had two basic objections to services like turnitin: (1) The first is that I feel it violates the student's control over her own intellectual work product. In other words, it allows a corporation to extract surplus value from the student's work, without her being able to control that at all. And, (2) that is makes me into a cop, and one of those people who come to view all students with suspicion, etc. On the first point, I am still wary. This is not a fear that my students are legally having their intellectual property taken advantage of, but rather one of extracting surplus value to support a corporation rather they want to or not. On the other hand, there are any number of assignments that I think would be fine that would still force students into these issues. Any assignment that required them to post videos on youtube, or maintain a blog, or any number of other assignments about interacting with websites that use advertising and participation to extract value from the students' work. In other words, I think this is still a problem from turnitin, and I think we need to broadly be more concerned about the ways certain assignments force students to support corporations, but as long as we all agree assignments on youtube are legit, I think there is no reason to uniquely condemn turnitin. This brings us to the second point, which is the major one from Dr. J.
I'm not a cop, and I am never a fan of the way there seems a desire to turn educators into police. For a while I thought I would teach high school, but I have seen increasingly the pressure put on high school teachers to spend more time exercising disciplinary power than educating. Or, indeed, that education seems utterly interchangeable with disciplinary power. Foucault got it right, "Is it surprising that prisons resemble factories, schools, barracks, hospitals, which all resemble prisons?"(D&P, p. 228). Now, what is so compelling from Miller's account is that plagiarism disappeared. Not, that plagiarists (whatever that being is) got caught, punished, given their just desserts. Rather, he stopped having to deal with plagiarism. If we agree that plagiarism is a problem, that is makes our jobs harder and hurts the student education. In other words, if we agree that plagiarism is something that we would have to confront if we discovered it (and I think we all agree with this), turnitin means I have to be less of a cop. I have to wield less juridical power. In this sense, turnitin becomes something like spell check, something that fixes a problem and comes to be an aid to students. I think this turns back Dr. J's arguments about universal belief in everyone cheating. I don't think everyone is cheating, but I always believe that there is a chance that a student could accidentally not cite something correctly through error, laziness, or ignorance. I no longer have to figure out if I am dealing with cheating or mistakes. It is a service that helps the students know what they need to cite, and it helps me not to have to punish students.
Now, Dr. J admits in comments of some of the posts that she thinks that the service that allows students to make changes before submitting reports to the professors are not as problematic. But, she feels that this isn't the primary function of turnitin and other services. I can't speak to that. I can say that professors looking to catch students and punish them, are obviously people who enjoy their position of power. I think that is clearly problematic, and pretty anti-educational. However, I don't see how using the plagiarism detection services in the way Miller describes is anything but a net gain (again, except for times with an explicit honor code, where I am less clear on the situation).
Is there some flaw in my thoughts here? As I said, this is a recent change in my outlook. And moreover, I have never used these services so there might be something obvious I am overlooking here.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
A Post of Links
I've been pretty busy trying to get everything together for our first debate tournament of the year. Anyway, here is a (rather long) post of links. Hopefully more original content will start again on the blog next week.
As you might have heard, Jeff McMahan has post up at the NY Times' The Stone about how we should allow (encourage?) predatory species to go extinct to reduce violence in nature. I don't have time to comment, but let me link you to some people who have. Jean Kazez did, EJ at Deconstruction Inc did, and Erik Marcus did (but the idea that philosophers shouldn't talk about philosophy because people are too dumb to follow seems counterproductive to all sorts of things). Jeff McMahan is the author of The Ethics of Killing, which is something I've been meaning to read for a while. Anyone else already did and want to tell me if it should to go to the head of the line for reading?
Here is an interesting article about how we are human because of other animals, which is a bit more interesting and serious than this article about how liking hot peppers make us human. On the second article, we really need to think of a good term for the fallacy of saying something that only belong to certain humans define us as humans.
I'm not sure if you have heard about the French targeting and deporting the Roma, but it is disgusting and obviously racist. Here is Ranciere on these actions. Make sure to read Devin Shaw and Peter Gratton's additions. Of course.
If you are in the Milwaukee area, check out this anarchist critical animal studies reading group. It looks totally awesome. (h/t MLA).
Adam has a post up on his personal citations system. It is the same as the one I use. Except for I don't have a story about how people associate me with citations. Except I use ibid, but I think that is because I first started thinking about footnotes and citations by reading law journal articles. Well, one law professor in particular, Pierre Schlag. And one of his articles in particular, "Normative and Nowhere To Go" (.pdf) which I read my junior year of high school. Here is the first footnote from that law article, "[Editor's Note: The Stanford Law Review has been unable to confirm the author's assertion here. The evidence we have suggests that in 1979, the author was employed as an associate with a large law firm in Washington, D.C. The author assures us, however, that the taxi driver/associate distinction is vastly overstated, and in some senses, is actually much more tenuous than might first appear. Cf. Elisabeth Hyde, Her Native Colors 20-37 (1986) (depicting the associate as human resource and information dissemination vehicle).] "
Dr. J has an interesting post on why she won't use turnitin. Joshua Miller has a response about why he does use plagiarism detection software. I have to admit, I started off on Dr. J's side, but have found myself greatly convinced by Joshua Miller's post. I'll have to think on this some more. UPDATE: Dr. J responds here.
Ginny Messina has a devastating post on the nutritional information contained in The Vegetarian Myth.
Graham Harman and Peter talk about the higher education's increasing costs here and here. This is the comment I end up making at Peter's place, "It seems that costs growing faster than inflation is not sustainable. I am not entirely sure what the future will bring. You are completely right that currently the system we have seems semi-secure without an alternative. Though I can easily see some sort of top down regulative legislation shifting things a lot. For example, if the entire system is being propped up by government subsidies in the form of loans, that gives the government a lot of incentive and power over the way academia runs itself. If we look at what is going on with the for-profit schools, it is hard not to see that as the possibility of our own future. At that could be in our near future (the President seems down for expanding it, and as much as Republicans hate regulation, they may just hate universities more). Also, on a rather technical note: is it a bubble? Doesn’t a bubble require some level of speculative investment?" None of that should be construed as supporting Taylor, who as far as I can tell, doesn't really deal with these issues in any way that seems helpful.
A new site dedicated to Veterinary Technicians has up a list of articles on transgenic animals. Worth exploring if you want to find out more on that topic.
This post's song is chosen for two reasons. The first is this interesting article about Afghan girls that take on the gender roles of afghan boys. But the other reason is that Dar Williams is my fiance's favorite musician, and I drove down and saw her over the weekend. I've never been particularly good at performing my normative gender roles, and I was apologizing for being bad at being a boy, and she said, "Don't worry, I love bad boys." So, Dar Williams, When I Was a Boy.
Her voice is a little boring, but I loved this song so much for the lyrics for so many years. Seems a bit cheesy now, but I can't help but wonder if that has to do with becoming a better boy.
As you might have heard, Jeff McMahan has post up at the NY Times' The Stone about how we should allow (encourage?) predatory species to go extinct to reduce violence in nature. I don't have time to comment, but let me link you to some people who have. Jean Kazez did, EJ at Deconstruction Inc did, and Erik Marcus did (but the idea that philosophers shouldn't talk about philosophy because people are too dumb to follow seems counterproductive to all sorts of things). Jeff McMahan is the author of The Ethics of Killing, which is something I've been meaning to read for a while. Anyone else already did and want to tell me if it should to go to the head of the line for reading?
Here is an interesting article about how we are human because of other animals, which is a bit more interesting and serious than this article about how liking hot peppers make us human. On the second article, we really need to think of a good term for the fallacy of saying something that only belong to certain humans define us as humans.
I'm not sure if you have heard about the French targeting and deporting the Roma, but it is disgusting and obviously racist. Here is Ranciere on these actions. Make sure to read Devin Shaw and Peter Gratton's additions. Of course.
If you are in the Milwaukee area, check out this anarchist critical animal studies reading group. It looks totally awesome. (h/t MLA).
Adam has a post up on his personal citations system. It is the same as the one I use. Except for I don't have a story about how people associate me with citations. Except I use ibid, but I think that is because I first started thinking about footnotes and citations by reading law journal articles. Well, one law professor in particular, Pierre Schlag. And one of his articles in particular, "Normative and Nowhere To Go" (.pdf) which I read my junior year of high school. Here is the first footnote from that law article, "[Editor's Note: The Stanford Law Review has been unable to confirm the author's assertion here. The evidence we have suggests that in 1979, the author was employed as an associate with a large law firm in Washington, D.C. The author assures us, however, that the taxi driver/associate distinction is vastly overstated, and in some senses, is actually much more tenuous than might first appear. Cf. Elisabeth Hyde, Her Native Colors 20-37 (1986) (depicting the associate as human resource and information dissemination vehicle).] "
Dr. J has an interesting post on why she won't use turnitin. Joshua Miller has a response about why he does use plagiarism detection software. I have to admit, I started off on Dr. J's side, but have found myself greatly convinced by Joshua Miller's post. I'll have to think on this some more. UPDATE: Dr. J responds here.
Ginny Messina has a devastating post on the nutritional information contained in The Vegetarian Myth.
Graham Harman and Peter talk about the higher education's increasing costs here and here. This is the comment I end up making at Peter's place, "It seems that costs growing faster than inflation is not sustainable. I am not entirely sure what the future will bring. You are completely right that currently the system we have seems semi-secure without an alternative. Though I can easily see some sort of top down regulative legislation shifting things a lot. For example, if the entire system is being propped up by government subsidies in the form of loans, that gives the government a lot of incentive and power over the way academia runs itself. If we look at what is going on with the for-profit schools, it is hard not to see that as the possibility of our own future. At that could be in our near future (the President seems down for expanding it, and as much as Republicans hate regulation, they may just hate universities more). Also, on a rather technical note: is it a bubble? Doesn’t a bubble require some level of speculative investment?" None of that should be construed as supporting Taylor, who as far as I can tell, doesn't really deal with these issues in any way that seems helpful.
A new site dedicated to Veterinary Technicians has up a list of articles on transgenic animals. Worth exploring if you want to find out more on that topic.
This post's song is chosen for two reasons. The first is this interesting article about Afghan girls that take on the gender roles of afghan boys. But the other reason is that Dar Williams is my fiance's favorite musician, and I drove down and saw her over the weekend. I've never been particularly good at performing my normative gender roles, and I was apologizing for being bad at being a boy, and she said, "Don't worry, I love bad boys." So, Dar Williams, When I Was a Boy.
Her voice is a little boring, but I loved this song so much for the lyrics for so many years. Seems a bit cheesy now, but I can't help but wonder if that has to do with becoming a better boy.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Top Five Vegan Cookbooks
I'm going to give what I think are the top five sort of essential cookbooks for vegans. If you disagree, please let me know, always looking for another good cookbook.
(1) Moskowitz and Romero's Veganomicon. This is the one, folks. It single-handily rendered half a dozen otherwise wonderful vegan cookbooks obsolete. Basically, all the other books on this list are optional, this one is a requirement. It is the Joy of Cooking or Mastering the Art of French Cooking, but for vegans. It is a teaching tool, you learn how to make things, and from there you can make your own recipes.
Sarah says, "What I am saying is that Moskowitz &Romero are the faces of vegan cookbooks for our current times. They make recipes that are interesting and unique that don't rely heavily on processed goods."
(2) Tucker and Enloe's The Artful Vegan. This is the high class, gourmet, time consuming but it is worth it, vegan cookbook.
Sarah says, "You have to make the ginger cookies. You *have* too."
(3) Dieterly's Sinfully Vegan. This is the best multipurpose dessert cookbook. The cheesecake is particularly good. However, Moskowitz's Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World is a lot like Veganomicon. It teaches you a lot about what it means to cook vegan cupcakes. So, while Sinfully Vegan has a better spread of desserts, Vegan Cupcakes has a better teaching and training.
Sarah says: "Sinfully Vegan, while yummy, is one of the better health conscious vegan dessert books. It doesn't merely tell you to add more sugar to everything."
(4) Stepaniak's The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook. One of the things I missed most as a vegan was cheese. Basically, everything is fairly easily replaceable by non-animal sources. The Uncheese Cookbook really is wonderful for replacing animal cheese, and a lot not just based on nutritional yeast.
Sarah says: "When you are getting a hankering for the meltyness of cheese, and you don't live in a major metropolitan area, this book is the cure."
(5) Okay, so I don't have a good answer for five. What you really need to do now is get books that reflect the subset of food you particularly like. Romero's Viva Vegan is great for Latin food (and like the Veganomicon, teaches what it means to cook Latin food). Noyes' American Vegan Kitchen is great for that vegan diner food (though, a lot of the stuff her recipes call for are hard to find in your grocery store). Klein's The Mediterranean Vegan Kitchen and Vegan Italino are book solid, with lots and lots of recipes (but doesn't do a lot to teach you how to go about thinking and cooking mediterranean and italian food).
Sarah says: "After a while, what you need is to have several books to get ideas from, and play around with, but not make direct recipes from them all. Get a sense of how you like to make food, and mix and match and change to your own delight."
(1) Moskowitz and Romero's Veganomicon. This is the one, folks. It single-handily rendered half a dozen otherwise wonderful vegan cookbooks obsolete. Basically, all the other books on this list are optional, this one is a requirement. It is the Joy of Cooking or Mastering the Art of French Cooking, but for vegans. It is a teaching tool, you learn how to make things, and from there you can make your own recipes.
Sarah says, "What I am saying is that Moskowitz &Romero are the faces of vegan cookbooks for our current times. They make recipes that are interesting and unique that don't rely heavily on processed goods."
(2) Tucker and Enloe's The Artful Vegan. This is the high class, gourmet, time consuming but it is worth it, vegan cookbook.
Sarah says, "You have to make the ginger cookies. You *have* too."
(3) Dieterly's Sinfully Vegan. This is the best multipurpose dessert cookbook. The cheesecake is particularly good. However, Moskowitz's Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World is a lot like Veganomicon. It teaches you a lot about what it means to cook vegan cupcakes. So, while Sinfully Vegan has a better spread of desserts, Vegan Cupcakes has a better teaching and training.
Sarah says: "Sinfully Vegan, while yummy, is one of the better health conscious vegan dessert books. It doesn't merely tell you to add more sugar to everything."
(4) Stepaniak's The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook. One of the things I missed most as a vegan was cheese. Basically, everything is fairly easily replaceable by non-animal sources. The Uncheese Cookbook really is wonderful for replacing animal cheese, and a lot not just based on nutritional yeast.
Sarah says: "When you are getting a hankering for the meltyness of cheese, and you don't live in a major metropolitan area, this book is the cure."
(5) Okay, so I don't have a good answer for five. What you really need to do now is get books that reflect the subset of food you particularly like. Romero's Viva Vegan is great for Latin food (and like the Veganomicon, teaches what it means to cook Latin food). Noyes' American Vegan Kitchen is great for that vegan diner food (though, a lot of the stuff her recipes call for are hard to find in your grocery store). Klein's The Mediterranean Vegan Kitchen and Vegan Italino are book solid, with lots and lots of recipes (but doesn't do a lot to teach you how to go about thinking and cooking mediterranean and italian food).
Sarah says: "After a while, what you need is to have several books to get ideas from, and play around with, but not make direct recipes from them all. Get a sense of how you like to make food, and mix and match and change to your own delight."
Saturday, September 18, 2010
A Post of Links
Out of town, so this will be quick.
The new issue of Foucault Studies is out, and boy is it worthwhile.
Chloë Taylor has an article out on late Foucault and the issues of self vis-a-vis eating animals. Most of you know I've done a lot of work on this area. Here is a link to the essay (.pdf).
Stephen Thierman has an article that is also in an area I've done a lot of work on, using Foucault's notion of apparatuses to think through the slaughterhouse. Here is a link to the essay (.pdf).
Also, friend of the blog Elliot A. Jarbe has a review of Ed Cohen's A Body Worth Defending. I liked Cohen's book more than Elliot did, but worth reading both. Link (.pdf).
JCAS is having a special issue on Animals and Prisons. Here is the cfp. I have a great deal of interest in this topic, but I don't think I will have time to write something up for it.
There are more posts on the DeLanda reading group, I'm linking to Levi because he has a shout out to me in that post. Agriculture is certainly an interesting topic in general. There is often a push to make my work more directly about agricultural, but while highly bound up with what I do, there is a certain level of discreteness between what I am talking about and what Levi is talking about. Nevertheless, I certainly indict the monoculturalism that occurs alongside Chicago's packing industry (and the work of Vandava Shiva is pretty important here). Also, I suggest Ellen Meiksins Wood's The Origins of Capitalism, and Wallerstein's book on agriculture and the world-market.
Well, I drove down to Boca Raton to see my fiance and help her move. So, here is Murder by Death with I'm Comin' Home.
The new issue of Foucault Studies is out, and boy is it worthwhile.
Chloë Taylor has an article out on late Foucault and the issues of self vis-a-vis eating animals. Most of you know I've done a lot of work on this area. Here is a link to the essay (.pdf).
Stephen Thierman has an article that is also in an area I've done a lot of work on, using Foucault's notion of apparatuses to think through the slaughterhouse. Here is a link to the essay (.pdf).
Also, friend of the blog Elliot A. Jarbe has a review of Ed Cohen's A Body Worth Defending. I liked Cohen's book more than Elliot did, but worth reading both. Link (.pdf).
JCAS is having a special issue on Animals and Prisons. Here is the cfp. I have a great deal of interest in this topic, but I don't think I will have time to write something up for it.
There are more posts on the DeLanda reading group, I'm linking to Levi because he has a shout out to me in that post. Agriculture is certainly an interesting topic in general. There is often a push to make my work more directly about agricultural, but while highly bound up with what I do, there is a certain level of discreteness between what I am talking about and what Levi is talking about. Nevertheless, I certainly indict the monoculturalism that occurs alongside Chicago's packing industry (and the work of Vandava Shiva is pretty important here). Also, I suggest Ellen Meiksins Wood's The Origins of Capitalism, and Wallerstein's book on agriculture and the world-market.
Well, I drove down to Boca Raton to see my fiance and help her move. So, here is Murder by Death with I'm Comin' Home.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Too much to read
I've been gone without internet access for the last three and a half days. My blog reader (which is just devoted to AR blogs and academic blogs) has over 200 new posts for me to read. No way I will read them all. So, if something important happened, let me know. As always, self-promotion encouraged. Also, let me thank everyone who has commented about programs friendly to CAS, I will get to responding to those threads later today.
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