March 29, 2007
Incidents in the Gare du Nord, Paris
For those of you who may be interested:
Battle of Gare du Nord rocks Paris
By Henry Samuel in Paris
France’s presidential candidates have been exchanging fire over why the simple arrest of a fare-dodger turned into a full scale riot, with the Left claiming that Nicolas Sarkozy’s repressive policies have brought anti-police sentiment to an all-time high.
Police used tear-gas and batons charges on Tuesday night to quell scores of rioters at the Gare du Nord - the Eurostar terminus in Paris used by hundreds of thousands of Britons each year.
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Thirteen people were arrested during several hours of clashes, which began during the evening rush hour and did not end until midnight.
Commuters and tourists were caught in the crossfire as groups of youths, some hooded, threw projectiles at police, smashed windows and drink distributors with iron bars and ransacked shops.
March 20, 2007
Syllabus Project — Steps 1 and 2
Further to my earlier post: a group of us met yesterday (those who could make the very short-notice meeting). Because we could decide only so much with a minority of us there and with limited time, it was decided that we would begin with readings and try to work then toward a structure, rather than begin with a structure and work toward the readings. Mattias has begun a wiki page on the ARC wiki, to which each of us need add two readings, with an explanation of why you think it should be included. Please include bibliographical information, and page numbers for your selections. Comments should be added through the “discussion” function of the wiki. You all might want to click “watch this page” on the syllabus project page so that you know when someone has added something. We already have three or four people’s suggestions (thanks to those folks).
Given this development, I’d like to suggest a new plan from the one above:
1. Everyone post his or her suggestions within the next few days.
2. Second face-to-face meeting will be the week after spring break (not the week of April 15). During this meeting, we will discuss structure again and then decide on our next step. For this meeting everyone should review everyone else’s suggestions and comment on them. We need to find a time when as many of us can come as possible. To that end, I’m proposing that we meet at my house for an “anthropological salon,” Friday, April 6, at 5:30. I live straight down College Avenue in Rockridge.
3. But, if that isn’t convenient, I’ve also made a “shared calendar” page on the wiki, which is no calendar but just a list of days of the week next to which I ask that everyone write the times they are always unavailable. From that we can determine in fact if there is any time when we are all free. I’m not sure there is!
Onward.
March 19, 2007
Mattias Viktorin Today — ROOM CHANGE
Mattias’s brown bag will not be in the Gifford Room but in Hearst Gym, Room 21. Same time: Noon.
March 18, 2007
We’re On Tomorrow 1:30 But We Need a Room
OK, so enough people have responded that tomorrow is a good day, so let’s meet at 1:30. The Gifford Room has it turns out is not available, so we need to find another room. Any suggestions?
March 17, 2007
Syllabus Project
I think we need a project that will get us working together this term in a more formal way, since little energy is being generated on the blog (no blame intended). I propose that we begin to work on a syllabus for an upper-level undergraduate class on the anthropology of the contemporary—as has been discussed before. Paul intends to teach such a class in the spring of 2008. I see us proceeding as follows:
1. Have a face-to-face brainstorming meeting—preferably, before spring break—to discuss how we want to proceed, setting up a schedule, proposing (perhaps) an early structure, and (perhaps) assigning particular parts to particular people.
2. Proceed from there using the wiki both to work on the document, using the discussion function to go back and forth.
3. Have another face-to-face meeting during the week of April 15 in which we review our work.
4. Make a final draft by April 24.
5. Have a final meeting where we present the product of our labor to Paul and have a full meeting discussing it. Paul won’t participate until the final meeting.
A few things to keep in mind:
1. This isn’t Paul’s project, it’s ours. It’s an experiment in collaboration around something that we all have in common: thinking about what an anthropology of the contemporary might look like. We all have something unique to contribute based on our own projects conceived as anthropology of the contemporary, and we all have something to gain from it. Whether Paul uses the syllabus or not is not the point. It’s for us all to work together to confront an “anthropology of the contemporary.” How are we doing it? How would we teach it?–as if we were just told by Rosemary Joyce that there were a departmental crisis and we’d been called upon to put a class together, quick. Simply posting the syllabus on the ARC website could be another foreseeable final purpose of the project.
2. It will be very hard for anyone who doesn’t attend the initial face-to-face meeting to participate on the subsequent work, so we need to find a time when everyone can come. I know this is hard. I propose the following dates/times: tomorrow after Mattias’s brown bag (1:30); or Thursday at 4 p.m. If these times don’t work, suggest others. We may have to wait until after spring break, but let’s see what might be possible this week.
3. Finally, I know everyone’s busy but I also know that everyone’s busy with things that are directly relevant to this very subject. To that end, I think we could use Amelia’s field statement (which she posted last week) as a starting point. It contains a section on “the anthropology of the contemporary.” Let’s have it be our “starter.”
Please reply with comments, confirmations, time suggestions, etc. I’ll take silence to mean you’re not interested in being involved.
March 14, 2007
Mattias to Present on His Dissertation Monday @ Noon
Mattias will be discussing his dissertation, “Technologies of Peace,” on Monday at Noon as part of the AGORA brown bag series.
Place: Gifford Room, Kroeber
Time: 12 to 1:30
Hope to see you all there.
March 12, 2007
Pieces by Valverde and Rose
Here and here are the two pieces on Foucault by Valverde and Rose.
Security, Territory, Population
The blogs are already buzzing about the translation of the 1977-1978 College de France lectures, which still can only be pre-ordered from amazon. One blog entry from theoria – if you ignore the asinine homophobe (apparently an asinine Marxist homophobe, which, when you think about it, might not be much of a contradiction) who makes the first comment — makes the following observation, of utmost interest: “Among those who have had the opportunity to see STP in French, the general consensus appears to be that the whole Anglo-Foucauldian ‘governmentality’ and ‘history of the present’ project will have to be rethought in many of its essentials. If you read the entirety of Mariana’s article, I think you can see her trying to resist that rethinking in significant ways.”
Also note the extraordinary resistance in the comments to the idea that Foucault embraced any part of liberalism. Truly, the politics are those of the 19th century.
In any case, we should be thinking and tracking the reaction to these lectures as they come out. Volunteers? Collaborators?
March 11, 2007
Glossaries
I pasted the SynBERC glossary of terms that has just got off the ground into the ARC wiki as a start to our endeavor.
http://www.anthropos-lab.net/arcwiki/index.php/Glossary
And here is the link to SynBERC glossary in case people can think of more effetcive ways to promote inter-literacy! link
March 8, 2007
Reproblematizing the Social- 2
The following is my draft statement on social assessment. It is a draft, and has some typos I am sure. Please give me some feedback and comments if you care to. It contains a discussion on the notion of the social, the post social, and remediations of the social, as well as some discussion of the science and society literature and evolving fields of social assessment.
On Social Assessment in the Natural Sciences: Analyzing a Domain of Reproblematization