Anonymous Comrade writes:

“Spaces of Dissent:
The Borders of Transnational Dreams”
8th Annual Conference of the Marxist Reading Group

Tallahassee, Florida, Mar. 30–Apr. 1, 2006

Keynote Speakers: Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Peter Hitchcock

March 30-April 1, 2006 at the University of Florida

As the networks of global capital become increasingly complex, we are compelled to rethink the idea of borders. The obsolescence of national borders may lead to the transnational-corporate dream of the end of history, but identities historically determined and likewise freed by disappearing borders have reemerged in figures like the refugee. Following Marx’s distinction in The German Ideology, the “refugee serfs,” rather than requiring an abolition of capitalism’s system of labor like the proletariat, assert their rights to production and arrive at free labor. Much like the “refugee serf,” the global capital refugee realizes an impossible (Real) structural dimension through which capital itself is called into question—the refugee is the paradox or contradiction of capitalism’s driving force: the very opposition capitalism tries to integrate into itself again. In light of these conceptions, does the refugee represent a missed opportunity to re-establish a resistance to the coordinates of global capital's structure?

NOT BORED! writes:

"Guy Debord's Letters, 1957–1972"

Not Bored!

"I believe that all of the people who prefer personal letters to the [situationists'] journal lack the ability to elevate themselves to the generality of the same problems. Thus, they don't see that it is the same position, the same thing, but more utilizable by more people. Of course, if it is a question of saying, "we are all better than that" (than all writing), this is obvious. It is one of our basic themes. But an epistolary correspondence, even with a friend, even if one is understood, seems to me further away from the importance of living than the most profoundly calculated texts. It is even less satisying." — Guy Debord, letter of 2 September 1964 to Ivan Chtcheglov

Despite Guy Debord's reservations about epistolary correspondences, he engaged in a great many of them — so many, in fact, that it's going to take six full-sized volumes for Editions Fayard to publish them all. To date, four of them have come out: Volume 1, 1957–1960 (published in 1999); Volume 2, 1961–1964 (2001); Volume 3, 1965–1968 (2003); and Volume 4, 1969–1972 (2005). It isn't known what will be contained in Volume 5 (1973–1976? 1973–1994?). But it is known that Volume 6 will include the pre-1957 period, plus letters that have been received between 1999 and the conclusion of this immense work.

In her introduction to Volume 1, Alice Becker-Ho (a.k.a. Alice Debord) writes:

This global correspondence, which is rich in lessons on the personality and active role that he had during these forty years, thus take their place in the complete works of Guy Debord. It will perhaps orient differently the always growing number of biographers who are pressed to draw premature conclusions from all sorts of legends that have surrounded someone who was especially pleased to have a well-known bad reputation.

el Journal de Aesthetics and Protests writes:

Journal of Aesthetics and Protest

Issue 4 Available Online

With a creaky call, issue #4 of the LA based Journal of Aesthetics and Protest is now available.

http://www.journalofaestheticsandprotest.org/4/iss ue4.php

We are dancing in the dark. Tough luck kids. In January 2005, we held a dark mass and wailed. We are now dark energy. Darkness has shifted with this ever-expanding fucked-up system. Our dearly held agendas and assumptions- once truisms- are now suspect. How can we work in this glue gloom?

On May 13, 2004 cultural production in 5 cities in the Center of the United States just stopped. The towns themselves didn’t seem to notice, their TV’s still brought in moving images, their radios still played the programmed music. It was unclear if the disappearance was a coordinated act of refusal, or if the producers were taken away. It is unclear whether similar events have occurred elsewhere. Are they dead? Have they disappeared, are they dead or are they in hiding?

This fourth issue of the Journal of Aesthetics and Protest has been most difficult to put together. We conceived the Journal when all things felt possible: just a few years back the Bush Administration was impotent, everyone was high on Hardt and Negri and activists of grassroots globalization were infecting everything with “possibility.” Insurgent action was metastasizing into a holy universal of Zapatista inspired world dance revolution party. Locally, nationally, and internationally, activism was beginning to affect policy. Journal issue number two came together as we were touching on concepts of the grassroots as “Second Superpower…

But now we are unable to hide behind dreams of possibility – there simply is no sublime to buoy our relationship with the current US regime. Some of our previous forwards seem now funny. We, and the movement have changed. What recently seemed achievable now feels impossible: currently the strongest freak-culture is not an anarchist collective but the Bush cabinet.

In piecing this issue together we looked at several contemporary models of resistance from the United States and abroad. From the States, it was difficult to find something not developed in relationship to the recent presidential elections – replaying themes of carnival, intervention, pop-culture dissent. These models are inspiring and locally effective, but few of them leave hints of how to work broadly in the current political context.

Institute for Anarchist Studies (IAS)
Speakers Bureau

The Institute for Anarchist Studies (IAS) is pleased to announce our new
Speakers Bureau. The Speakers Bureau is a project that arranges speaking
engagements for many diverse and dynamic thinkers drawn from our network
of scholars and activists.