ben at autonomedia writes:

Two Autonomedia Nominees for Firecracker Alternative Book Awards

Please Help Them Out with Your On-Line Vote!

Greetings --

Please pardon the alarmist tone of the subject line, but: imagine a game of three-sided football in which the Critical Art Ensemble (our good-natured critical theorists of tech and the body) take on the heavyweight Arundhati "Book'er" Roy and the even-heavierweight Noam "is to lovam" Chomsky, with Christopher Hitchens in the bullpen as a quickchange fill-in! We'd get creamed!

dr woooo, forwarding for paul, writes:

The Virtual People Smuggler [http://www.noborder.org/peoplesmuggler/] -- as is the case with 'people smuggling' generally -- arose out of the need and desire to cross borders. In the first instance, to cross the borders of various noborder events and protests themselves, to create a space which was an adequate expression of the movements for the freedom of movement.

Confined neither by geopolitical limits nor the standard aesthetics of protests, the Virtual People Smuggler pays tribute to the chatrooms, spoof sites, weblogs, online gaming, independent media as virtual, vital and, therefore, actual moments in the crossing of borders. In other words, as the
experience encountered by people as they log in to virtual communities which are unrestrained by national borders, and also, thereby, as one of the forms in which protests (especially noborder protests and events) can and do occur.

Anonymous Comrade writes "ABC No Rio's InterActivist Network is beginning another course of training in new media technology.

The proliferation of web-based media has resulted in a need to provide artists and community and media activists with new skills and knowledge. The InterActivist Network, initiated in 1999, is a training program that seeks to provide education in new digital technologies through the development of a web-site addressing local issues that have national and even international implications.

The journal Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East seeks critical essays for a special issue entitled “Comparative (Post)colonialisms: The Literary Issue.” We are interested in papers that explore comparative perspectives on postcolonial literature and theory, that critically examine the hegemony of colonial languages within postcolonial studies, and that investigate how postcolonial theory might be enriched, critiqued, nuanced, or exposed through the perspectives of non-colonial (indigenous or “lesser taught”) languages, comparative literature, or area studies. How does the field of postcolonial studies as currently constituted in the academy contribute to the linguistic, cultural, or institutional dominance of English? What kinds of texts, discourses, or practices elude, or are repressed by, this framework? What “blind spots” are revealed in postcolonial theory from the perspective of texts or traditions not in a colonizer's language? What ideological or strategic roles do specific languages play in texts, institutional contexts, politics, or history?

Please submit essays of between 5,000 and 12,000 words (note and reference inclusive), by September 15, 2002. Essays should be formatted in Chicago style and use the Library of Congress transliteration system for romanization, without diacritical marks. We prefer electronic submissions to Waïl Hassan (whassan) and Rebecca Saunders (rasaund), though essays may also be submitted in hardcopy to Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, Department of English, Box 4240, Illinois State University, Normal, IL 61790-4240. Relevant books for review are also welcome.