The purpose of this post is not to provoke or elicit controversy but, finally, not only express my own actual experiences in the world but also place my perspectives in written form.  Given what I’ve seen in the LGBT community (or communities, more accurately) and in the academic communities, I do not expect much good, but attempt to understand anyhow.  It comes to pass that what I express is my actual life, and I am far more in the closet about it than I have ever been about the lesbian/gay closet.  Far more.

The Occupy Movement has renewed one of the long-standing debates among people concerned with making the world more just: What is the proper role of violence in human liberation? Beginning with the post-Enlightenment Age of Revolutions up through today’s so-called “more radical” elements of the anarchist and environmental movements, people have long held that some measure of violence is necessary to destroy the present order and prepare the way for something better. ... read more »

Whenever we are shocked by a new scandal, it often indicates a confrontation with our unconscious knowledge. The revelation of massive pedophilia among priests shocked the public to such an extent because the idea of pedophilic tendencies was already present in our conception of the priesthood. Of course, this is not always the case: there are times when scandals defy our unconscious knowledge, and they nonetheless have the power to shock. ... read more »

According to K. Fitzpatrick:

At some point on New Year’s Eve, round about the moment that Patti Smith was adapting The Who to “Occupy My Generation,” I got an idea. I would undertake a durational writing project that would reflect and engage with Occupy every day in 2012. The New Everyday becomes what’s new every day. So I have a new blog called Occupy 2012. It’s a way of saying among other things: ... read more »

Just to remind people that the cluster “Occupy the Everyday” is now up and to let everyone know that it has today been updated with pieces from:

Caitlin Bruce (Northwestern) “Occupy Philadelphia: Representing Activism”—covers Occupy Philly up to 11/27 and the threatened eviction

and

Keith Miller (NYU): “Power’s Cool Use of Force” on UC Davis

joining

Khujeci Tomai: “Beyond Liberty Plaza”—OWS after the eviction

Fraylie Nord: “Occupy: the Open Body, the Public Signifier” ... read more »

Look at the video. The students sit calmly, surrounded by chanting supporters. The masked perpetrator walks calmly to them and like a house painter would a wall, blasts them with pepper spray. The near serenity in his gait, in his gesture, speaks to an ease with which power asserts itself through violence. The very relaxed air is almost more chilling than the thought of the pepper spray burning the eyes. ... read more »

On October 15, Michael Kimmelman, the architecture critic of The New York Times, published an article with a discursive take on physical structures.  Readers were confronted with a discussion of the politics of space.  (Kimmelman calls it place, though I would contest that the difference between place and space is that the former is purely physical and the latter involves enacted discourse.) ... read more »

CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS: OCCUPY!

“The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of pathological symptoms appear.”

Antonio Gramsci

The old neoliberal order is dying. The new, known so far as occupying, is underway. The pathological is everywhere: Berlusconi, Paterno, Cain… ... read more »

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FEWyLfLAuA

As increased medical research has demonstrated the nature of and dangers related to concussions, sports leagues have moved to protect their players from the long term health risks associated with sustained brain damage. However, as steps are taken to protect athletes from concussions, the greatest obstacle to progress may come from an unlikely source: the athletes themselves. ... read more »