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Living in the End Times

barbara — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Reading Slavoj Žižek for the first time is not unlike being stuck on a bar stool next to a slightly inebriated, repentant MBA who just read a Karl Marx biography and thinks he has the world figured out. An aside about the deeper meaning of 3:10 to Yuma, a diatribe against Slovenia’s failure as a communist state, and praise of the five stages of grief seem like disconnected nonsense unless taken as a larger, comprehensive analysis of the failure of global capitalism. After a while, you’re either also drunk or so bewildered by the onslaught of information that you begin to see the reason behind this grizzled young man’s ramblings. Now just imagine that this is one of the most gifted living intellectuals.

Žižek—one of the world’s leading contemporary academic thinkers—is at once obscure and brilliant. In Living in the End Times, he pulls together themes from several smaller works and dozens of speeches and papers from the past several years to illuminate the apocalyptic zero-point for which the world is headed. The four horsemen of the apocalypse are approaching—ecological crisis, explosive social divisions and exclusions, consequences of the biogenetic revolution, and systemic imbalances (struggles over raw materials, food, and water; as well as more abstract battles over issues like intellectual property)—and our textbook-diagnosed reactions show that the end is nigh.

Using Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ model, he categorizes our reactions to modern economic, social, and ecological crises as stages of denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. While many believe Kübler-Ross’ framework to be somewhat flawed, it does provide a handy way of determining one’s own stage of grieving the collapse of society. How else to make sense of our apathy in the face of the simultaneous rise of extreme religious fundamentalism, crumbling banking systems, and expansive, violent political repression? What other way to explain away the near-psychotic binaries in wealth and poverty in places like Kuwait and Dubai, oil-dependent towering desert empires built by thousands of slave-wage immigrants and ruled by a frighteningly wealthy upper class—and the ways with which we turn the other cheek?

If you believe the state of the global economy, social hierarchy, and legal affairs to be as dramatically desperate as Žižek, you’ll not be surprised that he beckons us to prepare for famine, plague, global warfare, and ultimate death. If you have little faith in humanity, you’ll find good company in the bright if troubled theorist. If you believe in our eventual recovery, you’ll also find nuggets of helpful wisdom between his dismal predictions.

You may not be able to keep up the apocalyptic philosopher, but you’d be better off for trying.

Written by: Brittany Shoot, October 23rd 2010

Words and Money

mandy — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 02:00:00 +0000

By André Schiffrin

Verso

The creative culture industries have always been, and will continue to be, an important arena of concern for feminist politics. This is not only because feminism has had to rigorously contest the regressive versions of femininity mass produced by these industries for mainstream audiences but also because feminism has challenged these perceptions by generating alternative media, literature, and film.

In this sense, André Schiffrin’s latest book, Words and Money, is an informative read for those employed in the culture industries who subscribe to feminist ideologies. Schiffrin’s primary concern is how the corporatisation of publishing, films and cinema houses, independent bookstores, and the press is destroying smaller, independent agents of cultural production, and, with them, the culturally and intellectually diverse material they bring into the public domain. Picking up where he left off with The Business of Books, which examines the corporatisation of the publishing industry, Words and Money sketches out the disastrous effects of the pursuit of profit within the creative industries, and makes a passionate and compelling case for their need to receive adequate support in order to continue producing the important analyses, literature, and film with which they enrich the public domain. What’s more, Schiffrin has suggestions for how this can be done, making Words and Money an essential ‘how-to’ manual for industry insiders who want to save the independent creative sectors.

Words and Money covers four different sectors—publishing, cinema, bookstores, and the press—but the message it delivers in each case is the same. For example, Schiffrin recounts how publishing, a profession that was once free of the pressures of profit-making, is being transformed by the demands of global conglomerates to promote what sells, rather than what makes important historical or cultural contributions available to the reading public. He cites how French publisher Les Prairies Ordinaires was given a small government grant to translate a number of academic works by authors such as feminist cultural and literary theorist Judith Butler into French. He points out, however, that such small publishers cannot outlive these grants because systematic financial support is withheld due to the perceived lack of demand or profitability of their books, irrespective of the social value of their content.

So, what is to be done? University presses could house and subsidise small independent publishers. A small local sales tax on cinema tickets could be used to support an independent cinema house. Local libraries could give independent bookstores the space to open their own sales counters. These are samplings of what is perhaps the most useful contribution of Schiffrin’s work—his practical suggestions about how to save the independent creative industries, instead of simply bemoaning their demise.

As the publisher of Pantheon Books for thirty years, Schiffrin’s intimate knowledge of the industries he interrogates makes for a fact-packed read that is probably more appealing to industry insiders than the average reader who, like me, may be more interested in the politics without the macro-economics. By expanding on the few interesting cross-regional examples like Butler, Words and Money could have better driven home the great intellectual and cultural loss that the disappearance of the independent publishing industry or the independent press actually signifies.

Interestingly, Schiffrin is credited with bringing French writer and intellectual Michel Foucault’s work to America. Foucault’s contribution to the analyses of relations of power, the body, and sexuality are widely considered gargantuan contributions to feminist theory and have generated volumes of lively debate within feminist scholarship and academia. To me, a Foucault-less world presents a far more compelling, if chilling, example of what everyone stands to lose without the gems of the independent publishing industry.

Written by: Kaavya Asoka, September 10th 2010

First As Tragedy, Then As Farce

admin — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:07:00 +0000

By Slavoj Žižek

Verso

Slovenian philosopher and cultural critic Slavoj Žižek’s latest work—a call to the Left to reinvent itself in a time of international crisis—begins with a nod to Marx’s correction of Hegel in The Eighteenth Brumaire Of Louis Bonaparte: “Hegel remarks somewhere that all great events and characters of world history occur, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first as tragedy, the second time as farce.” Indeed, when you examine the two speeches that bookend former President Bush’s term in office—the one in the aftermath of 9/11, and the one in which he addressed the global financial meltdown—you begin to notice that the first (the tragedy) sounds remarkably similar to the second (the farce).

Many people have known for years that the global banking system was on the verge of collapse. For more than a decade, police have been summoned to disperse protests around the world in which activists have called for more transparency and accountability. Last year, Naomi Klein wrote about the relationship between ideology and economics—the fact that there is no such thing as a neutral market—in The Shock Doctrine.

When the markets finally did crumble, instead of compulsively tossing billions of dollars at a problem, we would do well to reflect on how it came to be. In First As Tragedy, Then As Farce, Žižek is highly critical of the Right’s shortsighted call to “Save Main Street, not Wall Street!” which fails to recognize that most obvious capitalistic principles: in a capitalist society, Main Street cannot exist without Wall Street. Period.

Žižek explores the idea that the Left should stop apologizing in the face of the Right’s moralistic blackmail. Instead of focusing on supposedly dismal or inappropriate cultural shifts, the Right should be held fully accountable for the devastating economic recession. In general, meltdowns—of economic, cultural, or nationalistic stability—should awaken us instead of being bandaged over to allow the dream to continue. That is, 9/11, much like the banking crisis, should have served as an ideological wake-up call. Asserting additional military force in the Middle East or bailing out failing banks and corporations like General Motors with taxpayer money does nothing but continue a cycle of confusing ignorance for the general public. It promotes a type of populist conservatism in which middle class people literally vote against their own self interest.

Of the many admirable qualities in his work, what I like best about Žižek is his ability to masterfully dissect U.S. policy. One might argue that Slovenia’s problems deserve such a critical eye, but I appreciate that Žižek so eloquently dismantles problematic American foreign policy and class war disguised as culture war from an outsider’s perspective. A European Chomsky of sorts, Žižek’s theory is a must-read for any scholar or layperson interested in twenty-first century capitalism, economics, and contemporary Leftist thought.

Written by: Brittany Shoot, November 3rd 2009

Edward Carpenter: A Life of Liberty and Love

admin — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 22:01:00 +0000

By Sheila Rowbotham

Verso

Writing a biography is tricky terrain, particularly on a subject whose name is generally unknown. The author likely has reams and reams of information gathered from years of research and has the thankless task of deciding what can go into the book and what should be left out. For this reason, many biographies suffer from too much or insufficient information. Luckily, Sheila Rowbotham navigates these waters easily with skilled contextualization and engaging writing.

Edward Carpenter: A Life of Liberty and Love takes us through one of the most intriguing periods in Western history. Born to a wealthy Brighton family in 1844, the young intellectual eventually headed off to Cambridge to study theology. However, he was soon swept up in the counter-culture of emerging socialism and class revolution. Rowbotham mirrors Carpenter's growing social awareness with his own "deviant" sexuality with skill and sensitivity.

Shunning his inborn privilege, Carpenter sets off to live an activist life, educating the working class and living off the land. Of course, problems arise. The many strong personalities involved in the Victorian social reform movement made creating an English utopia an impossible task and the affable Carpenter was often left stuck in the middle.

What is most striking about Carpenter's life, and the lives of those around him, is how unexpectedly progressive these individuals were. Almost a century before Greenpeace and recycling programs, Carpenter espoused the importance of eating locally-made food and even the benefits of vegetarianism. Several of his friends lived openly (to a degree) as homosexuals and Carpenter himself had intimate male relationships his entire adult life, eventually settling down with George Merrill for almost three decades.

Full of a genuine desire to make the world a better place, Carpenter and his colleagues all attempted to enact their beliefs to some degree. There was formidable opposition: George Orwell openly despised Carpenter, and around the time of the the trials of Oscar Wilde, both Carpenter and Merrill were the target of witch-hunting conservative groups out to punish homosexuals. But none of this seemed to hold Carpenter back; he continued to publish texts, give lectures, and travel around the world for all of his long life.

His tale is inspiring but also worrying; a century later we still struggle with the same issues Carpenter tackled. Groups like the Fabian Society and the Social Democratic Federation believed a cultural revolution was imminent, and that sexual, gender, and class liberation would occur within their lifetimes. Sadly, subsequent generations have not done these pioneers justice.

Pessimism aside, this book has much to teach us about what it takes to change a strongly traditional culture. Although names like Carpenter's have been lost in the selective retelling of history, the impact that these people's lives made was evident in the cultural upheavals of the 1960s and, one might argue, in activism of the present. An unwavering commitment to a simple, open-minded life made Carpenter an extraordinary person and an inspiring role model.

Rowbotham's biography is lengthy and thus might turn off some potential readers, but so much of the book is about the context of Carpenter's life and the bizarre (and often entertaining) company he kept, which makes the biography consistently engaging. My only criticism is that, as someone familiar with Rowbotham's work, I was hoping for more of a feminist analysis of Carpenter's ideas, as he was close to several "new women" of the day and also a strong supporter of suffrage and women's rights. All in all this is an amazingly written biography!

Written by: Jennifer Burgess, March 23rd 2009

The Blue Manuscript

admin — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 00:29:00 +0000

By Sabiha Al Khemir

Verso

The Blue Manuscript, featuring an indigo cover laced with gold detail, aesthetically embodies its elusive subject, a legendary medieval copy of the Quran. Al Khemir's novel traces the archaeological expedition in search of the manuscript yearned for by collectors and scholars alike. Led by the enthusiastic Professor O'Brien, the eclectic group of researchers meets in Cairo as they prepare to embark upon a collector funded expedition in the remote village of Wadi Hassoun.

Donatella (an Italian archaeologist), Mark (an American project manager), Kodama San (Japanese site surveyor), Hans (the German conservator playfully nicknamed "Glasses" by a flirtatious Donatella), Alan (the professor's prized British student) and Mustapha (an Egyptian guide) compose the mosaic of expedition participants, which expands throughout the novel as more local figures (including the go-between Rayyed Ahmed and the young boy Mahmoud) become associated with the group. Zohra, the English-Tunisian interpreter, perhaps best echoes the life of the author as she occupies a privileged (albeit at times frustrated) narrative position within the novel.

Upon arriving in Cairo, each of the expedition's members experiences his or her own unique sense of foreignness. None of them, aside from the professor, are intimately familiar with the region yet all are crucial to the project's research, being at once at home and foreign within their new surroundings. Al Khemir delicately captures moments of meeting and simultaneous intimacy so common to the dynamic of international research projects: "Different people, of different races, cultures, and from different social backgrounds, thrown into a primal situation, the only link between them the buried past of a civilization alien to them."

Zohra's role, as interpreter is least related to the research at hand and for this, she feels an outsider among outsiders. She struggles with the notion of belonging in the face of cultural and linguistic hybridity; she describes herself as "being in-between," "Half-half. Rarely did people want to know about both halves, about her other half. The other half was always the other, depending on where she was." Zohra finds the role of intermediary dissatisfying and rejects her "in-betweenness." She longs for a voice of her own and dreams of writing a novel as she patiently waits for the words to emerge from the dictionary that she guards by her bedside.

Upon reading The Blue Manuscript, the reader departs on her own expedition where what is unknown overshadows what has already come to light. Al Khemir's writing is seductive; her mosaic cast of characters develops alongside the expedition itself. Descriptions are at first sparse, even frustrating to the reader, leaving her to excavate her own meaning and anticipate further discovery. Detailed physical descriptions of the characters, for example, are not revealed until well into the work, forcing the reader to partake in her own journey of discovery.

Interspersed within the tale of the expedition in the search of the Blue Manuscript are first-century fictional narratives depicting the writing of the document, creating a rich tapestry of voices that at once embrace and dissolve differences and contribute to a kaleidoscopic rendering of one of the most treasured documents in Islamic history.

Written by: Melissa McCarron, March 6th 2009

Red Velvet Seat: Women’s Writing on the First Fifty Years of Cinema

admin — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 19:59:00 +0000

By Antonio Lant, Ingrid Periz

Verso

This hefty anthology is a valuable resource for anyone who is interested in film, history or women’s studies. Substantial at 872 pages, it covers the years 1895 to 1950. The relationship between women and film is complex and fascinating, which explains the length of Red Velvet Seat, and the relationship has gone mostly unexplored, which suggests the book’s importance. Scholars, in particular, will be excited to see so many insightful texts gathered into one volume. Appropriate for curious readers at home—also appropriate as a college textbook, Red Velvet Seat offers something for every taste.

In addition to the body of texts it provides, numerous illustrations are also presented. The illustrations depict movie-related art as well as photographs of the women discussed within the text. Insightful contextualizing introductions are provided for each of the sections. The text cover all aspects of women and film: women as viewers, women as film-makers, women as actors, women as critics, theory, the movie theater as a social scene. Reccurring themes include power and class. Many of the texts ponder film as an artform and speculate about its future. The scope is comprehensive to say the least.

The text includes essays, excerpts from diaries and journals, and excerpts from longer works. The selections are well-chosen and lucid. Many provide a rich sense of the time period during which they were written. Virginia Wolff, Emily Post, and Colette are among the important figures represented.

With a general index and an index of film titles, with biographies and notes, Red Velvet Seat is well put together and will be remarkably useful to film studies scholars as well as more casual film-loving readers.

Written by: Laura-Marie Taylor, February 22nd 2007