Nick Mirzoeff’s Blog

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 »

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 »

Curator: Matt McGregor, University at Albany, SUNY.

Email: mm458181[at]albany.edu

On Friday, October 1, 2010, University at Albany President George Philip announced  the discontinuation of French, Italian, Russian, Theater and Classical Studies, as well as the elimination of 160 full-time positions.  Those working in the humanities were faced with an old and difficult question: why do the humanities still exist?  Many responses have assumed that there is no ‘point’ to humanities research; ipso facto, in an age of anarcho-capitalism, the humanities must soon disappear.  Others have celebrated the crisis as a time of ‘creative destruction,’ in which new institutional structures can rise from the ashes of an outdated model.  Most are struggling to mediate their common-sense knowledge of how the university works with the realities of administrative politicking, neoliberal ideology, public perception and consent, local government structures, and the withered public institutions of contemporary capitalism. ... read more »

Having just finished a long book project, The Right to Look: A Counterhistory of Visuality, I’ve started a new blog where I’m going to think about the issues raised by the book and its development for visual culture, cultural studies and the digital humanities. I’d very much welcome your opinions!

Call for Submissions

Distraction Span:
Technologies of engagement and opportunities for productive distraction

Cluster curators:
Alex Juhasz, Pitzer College <alex_juhasz[at]pitzer.edu>
Brian Goldfarb, UCSD <bgoldfarb[at]ucsd.edu>

We invite short, lively, multi-modal work that will kickstart new conversations that sidestep the panic over digital distraction: that is to say, the fear-inducing diagnosis that networked media is rewiring young minds, displacing valuable forms of engagement, and making sustained reflection a thing of the past. There is undeniably something new and challenging about the forms of multitasking and fragmented or interlaced communication that is fostered by the culture of new media. There is also something old about the panic over new forms of media and the perceived wholesale detriment they pose to learning and thinking. ... read more »