Piled Higher and Deeper

Speech is power. Whats wrong with current identity politics is its parochialism in presenting a singular picture of oppression that at some level is false and overblown in order to gain the right to speak. The key really is the right to speak. How much sufferering have you undergone?  How much gives you the right to speak? How can we be legitimated?

Hmm...debate in my head. Should I actually contact prospective grad school admission people before heading to ASA? I don't quite have the research to back it up and to tell you the truth, 4 of my current top 6 are Canadian. I think i'll at least attempt to email some of the more promising American universities....

I can't help myself...
How the Irish Invented Slang (Irish Nationalism at its best)
The Socialist Feminist Project
For all of your Vegan needs...
Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation (Connect with Certeau's Tactics)
More 3rd Wave Writing
Whore Carnival
PolySexuality
The Responsible Guide for Open Relationships (rec to Minx at Polyweekly, how does it compare to Poly practice?)
Resisting State Violence
The Quotable Rebel (isn't there something wrong with this?)
Everything You know about Sex is Wrong
50 American Revolutions
Homocore
Tactical Cyberfeminism
Ursula K LeGuin's politics and other miscellany
Anarchist Strategy and Culture
Foucaultian Body Analysis
Listening to the Land
So what is this Empire stuff anyway?
The Native American Sacred
The Female Experience of Growing up Working Class
Possible Guide for Activists
On Marriage (rec to Minx?)
Insurgent Black Intellectual Life (!!!)
Pro-Sex Feminists
Stories that Care Forgot: Zines of New Orleans
The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Instituitionalization
Katrina Lit: What lies Beneath
Unnatural Disaster, Or why I tend not to feel American
The Survival of Shamanism in Western Civ (!!!)
Social Ecology and Communialism
Art against Authority (connection with Hebdige's Subculture...)
A communications guide for Racial Justice
The Pirate Journals of an irish Exile
Serpents in the Garden
Obsolete Communism
The Philosophy of Punk

I'm at the library attempting to find a book to review for my 3rd wave feminism. Looked into Spivak's Death of a discipline. Unfortunately I don't speak Comparative Lit and so....yeah. My exploring lead me to this delightful book on Southern Manhood in the Old South. Lots of directions to run with that one....
a) connecting it with modern day white working class masculinity such as found in this book
b) Further historical and social work on this thing we call the South:
Race and Memory, Southern identity, Regional Identity (which could perhaps connect to a prediction on the cultural effects of the New Orleanian diaspora), Old Line musings from the Elite, Sociology the south and pop culture, and it all comes back to subculture doesn't it?
c) Honor as a relevant category or comparing Roman Honor with Southern Honor to perhaps examine the differential emotional processes: see Carlin Barton's Roman Honor, Southern Honor, the obligatory honor and slavery, the obligatory Honor and Violence analysis
Also since I'm talking about it, By Invitation Only is an awesome documentary exploring the old line white Carnival. Rebecca is an awesome documentarian.

anti-racism= marking assumed whiteness (i.e. the use of word people to mean white folk) and the calling of the neutral subject what it is...the white male. It also equals the uncovering of white privilige.

Given this then anti-racism is the removing of privileges die to race and bringing diversity of racial voices to the fore (not the move away from hooks' Margin to Center style of thinking which only reproduces the inequality). So how does the dismantling of privilige work? How do you dismantle ingrained thought patterns? Are you aiming for a 'color-blindness' or simply an acknowledgement of race and how it affects ones thinking and when that thinking is unjust which leads to unjust actions?

Another question is:  what is white privilege and how does it operate? The answer leads to your specific strategies and tactics for constructing your brand of anti-racism.

After talking to a colleague I ghave these musings....
Race is just on category of an overall pattern of hierarchical power relationships. Removing race as a hierarchical category simply removes a symptom and doesn't remove the whole hierarchical way of doing power.

So as far as social structure is concerned we have a number of options....
1) no power (not very feasible but has been done. See Burawoy's Ethnography Unbound.

2) shifting, interpersonal power to where there is only a temporary hierarchy

3) power without hierarchy
-possibly based on different ways of being and ways of thinking e.g. Tom's recounting of decision making in no. 2 Freedom

What that overall structure needs is a definition of power. That could be fun territory...Weber has and interesting if not quite useful definition last time I checked...

Philosophers as writer-scientists....Interesting implications for the revolutionary intelligentsia article

I've been reading tcgtrf's blog The Urban Agora and recently came across this post referencing an article on the future of biotechnology by Freeman Dyson. Originally I wrote a few moderate letters to him detailing my responses to both his blog and the Dyson article.

Credit goes out to inki for inspiring this musing. Its written mainly as notes for me to turn into an article. So, if something is unclear, its not you its me.

A quiet revolution is sweeping our streets, ridiculed (troped?) in the media, and yet lived by so many people. But what is the truly revolutionary potential of this pan-sexual revolution? How can it not repeat the mistakes of its forebearers? How can it move towards a truly progressive society?

Some points:

-Non-monogamy is subject to the same oppressions as within the macro level society

-In my admittly limited involvement in the non-monogamy movement race and class are not overtly addressed

-Power playing from the kinky folk muddies things in terms of good/bad power

-Kinky folk practicing non-monogamy also have

-How can we make non-monogamy more in line with changing society to a more justice society

-Perceived tensions between non-monogamous sexual radicalism and the traditional racism, etc movements

-Non-monogamy as a “whites-only” movement

-Non-monogamy as part of a larger pansexual movement that includes kink, leather, glbt (~), queer, other radicals (furs, sploshing)

 

A quiet revolution is sweeping our streets, ridiculed (troped?) in the media, and yet lived by so many people. But what is the truly revolutionary potential of this pan-sexual revolution? How can it not repeat the mistakes of its forebearers? How can it move towards a truly progressive society?

Thought I would share this slightly technical discussion about Macros, Internet subculture and lingo. Also, a step by step guide to creating the LOL-kitteh macro text.

Heard this guy inki talk Queer Theory in episode 107 of Polyamory weekly.
So, I looked up his essays and manuscripts. Essentially he is theorizing monogamy as a structural power. His blog is also awesome as well! So anyhoo, time to study some theory before my final...

Working on my 15 page paper for qualitative methodology. i get to delve in Identity theory as well as Queer theory! :-)

Awesome Podcast listing!

Anyhow, figured I'd post a little something here since I hadn't posted in a while.

How about Intersectionality?

Sleepy today...I spent too much time out in the quarter last night with some awesome people I met via couchsurfing.com. I had a fun time, much destressing. Now its back to work. I've got a lot to do. Its stuff that I can accomplish, its just that I have to sit down and do it. Making that happen has been somewhat of a struggle. My desk at home is not particularly comfortable for the long hours required. I need a new chair or my old one form CO. Thats why I am really damn happy that I have a nice quiet cave office. It even has a window! ;) So anyhoo, what I have includes:
taxes
transcription- ugh!
15 page Qual Methods paper
12 page Thesis proposal
Theory reading
Preparing Presentation for Qual Methods

I've picked my classes this summer. i get to take:
3rd wave feminism and
 An independent study on subcultures for my thesis

In the fall I'm taking:
3 Thesis hours
Seminar on Social Psychology- one that I'm helping to design!
Research Applications
My thesis is going to be awesome, more on that later...

Lately, I've had problems with sleep. I'm going to bed almost with too active a mind which leads me to lying awake in this half-asleep half-awake state. It doesn't give me enough rest often times even though I've "slept" 12 hours. At this juncture, sleep is very important. So we'll see...

Funny how 'shut up' can often = 'listen to me.' Just a thought...

Ahh Academia...Its a monk's life.
Confused? See this entry
In other news, class started yesterday and I'm excited. Qualitative Methodology is gonna be so much fun!
Not too much else...

I think I know what I'm going to study for my thesis! Homo in Extremis or humanity in extreme situations....Ask me for more details if you want to know.