Comments for tabula rasa

Comment on Extimité: On Žižek and Race by Jennifer Cascadia

Jennifer Cascadia — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 06:12:43 +0000

A very interesting topic and discussion. Perhaps the key is to stop catering to our DESIRES, which can be the basis for oneupmanship and associated political divide and rule, as we scramble against each other to feel good by not being at the bottom of the pile. Instead we could make the issue of our lives that of human dignity. For to scramble around in opposition to somebody on the basis of identity, as we saw in the US primaries recently, is deeply undignified (upon close examination). To be dignified is to care that we treat others as human beings, and that we have a system in place that actually allows us to do so in the first place. Otherwise we are undignified (and this is neurological — human mirror cells will also give us an experience of the indignity that we afflict upon another.)

Comment on Racist Enjoyment by Jennifer Cascadia

Jennifer Cascadia — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 06:03:40 +0000

Interesting how anti-racism also needs the structure of racism to enjoy itself

Comment on Update - Extimité: On Žižek and Race by Renegade Eye

Renegade Eye — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 01:11:45 +0000

Greetings:

I dislike the terms Islamophobia and the equally ridiculous Islamofascism. Two sides of the same ignorant coin.

Comment on Sticky Mics by home cooked theory » Blog Archive » Cultural studies then

home cooked theory » Blog Archive » Cultural studies then — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 05:55:28 +0000

[...] I wrote about the conference last year, one of the main organisers Ashwani Sharma claimed I offered ‘a rather comfortable, privileged, bourgeois, apolitical and somewhat [...]

Comment on Materialism Today by ajb

ajb — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 01:56:17 +0000

unless christianity is mathematics Badiou is certainly not presenting anything like a christian ontology -whatever that might be. nor is he presenting marxism anew via ontology and nor is he either a disciple or follower of zizek as your narrative implies -a friend, perhaps.
and alex why be afraid of anti-democratic. that you deem it necessary to defend millbank by such a reflex is telling. your description of his position sounds decidedly feudal-socialist -therefore undemocratic and anti-marxist -everything he seems to want to be.

Comment on ‘No space for teaching’ by Kishore Budha

Kishore Budha — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 09:56:21 +0000

I think this is not unique to UEL. The same approach — first quantifying everything, then putting it into computers, and then atomised access of such central systems by lecturers is leading to an ordered chaos (irony intended). Anybody who opposes is stigmatised as anti-modernisation. I wonder if we are witnessing what Frederick Winslow Taylor did to the steel factories? What next time and motion studies for academics?

Comment on At the Edge of the Frame by Kishore Budha

Kishore Budha — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 06:48:33 +0000

Thanks for the insights and keeping the fire of critical thinking alive. With initiatives such as “Media Studies 2.0″ there is a real danger here of the subaltern-ing of such critical thinking within the academic system. Sample what David Gauntlett has to say about writings such as the one here. What did you think of the points being made here http://www.theory.org.uk/mediastudies2.htm

IN particular, I would like to draw your attention towards Gauntlett’s persuasion that “Media Studies 1.0″ has:

“A tendency to fetishise ‘experts’, whose readings of popular culture are seen as more significant than those of other audience members (with corresponding faith in faux-expert non-procedures such as semiotics);”

“A belief that students should be taught how to ‘read’ the media in an appropriate ‘critical’ style;”

Comment on Representing White Supremacy/Digital Slavery by Subaltern Studies » Blog Archive » Representing White Supremacy/Digital Slavery

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 23:13:38 +0000

[...] has a great response to the controversial Intel Sprinter advert, which the company has turned into a virtue by [...]

Comment on State of Exception? by Kishore Budha

Kishore Budha — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 06:21:21 +0000

It is interesting how the US government support for the Contras had a backdraft in terms of turning a blind eye to the trade of cocaine back from Nicaragua to the streets of US, which had a direct impact on the poor black communities.

Comment on Orientalism now by tabularasa

tabularasa — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 23:34:43 +0000

I agree totally with your critique of the pursuit of authenticity in Asian cultures, but the question I would ask in the context of the piece is whether this is operating within a racialised discourse? The notion of a racialised whiteness that is being posited is one that is effectively an ideological formation which interpellates subjects - this identification is open to all not just to Whites. One needs to be precise here - the argument is that racialised whiteness as constituted by colonial modernity is in crisis - the turn to Asian cultural forms in the west at this historical moment is at once a sign of the unraveling of the universality of whiteness and an attempt to reconfigure white supremacy.

I agree that the situation is complex but isn’t this complexity the very form in which postmodern racism works - the wager here for us is that ‘race’ - which is constituted through the project of white universality - remains an essential concept in understanding the complexity of contemporary neoliberal power - otherwise we are just left with contingent cultural conflicts, outside of history.

Of course Asians can be racist but the key issue is how is racism operating now. The multiple circuits of geo-political power is the very logic of postcolonial racism - it presents itself as multicultural, even anti-racist, as it denies its racial power. The analysis attempts to delineate this ideological formation.