Posts Tagged ‘anti-utopia’
Tuesday Morning Links!
* On April 10th-12th, 2015, UF will be hosting its 11th annual Conference on Comics and Graphic Novels, “Comics Read but Seldom Seen: Diversity and Representation in Comics and Related Media.”
* The Review of Capital as Power (RECASP) announces an annual essay prize of $1,000 for the best paper on the subject of capital as power. Open to anyone who does not currently hold a Ph.D. (including current graduate students).
* Happy belated Labor Day: The True Story Of How One Man Shut Down American Commerce To Avoid Paying His Workers A Fair Wage. Labor Day against Work.
* Non-published, non-peer-reviewed study concludes that college football coaches must be worth the money because otherwise they wouldn’t be paid that much. Glad that’s sorted.
* So what happened to the GOP, from the time of Nixon to the present, to turn an environmental leader into an environmental retrograde? According to a new study in the journal Social Science Research, the key change actually began around the year 1991—when the Soviet Union fell. “The conservative movement replaced the ‘Red Scare’ with a new ‘Green Scare’ and became increasingly hostile to environmental protection at that time,” argues sociologist Aaron McCright of Michigan State University and two colleagues.
* UIUC will forward Salaita’s appointment to the Board of Trustees after all. Sadly I suspect this is a CYA maneuver after realizing they were in material breach of their contract — though I suppose it’s for the lawyers to decide if they have take-backs on that issue or not.
* From the archives: How Higher Education in the US Was Destroyed in 5 Basic Steps.
* The Darren Wilson fundraiser mystery.
* Guantanamo Defense Lawyer Resigns, Says U.S. Case Is ‘Stacked.’
* The terrifying true story of the garbage that could kill the whole human race.
* Man Nearly Dies In Ice Bucket Challenge After Plane Drops Water On Him.
* Are domestic airlines making money by fleecing consumers? No! That’s not true! That’s impossible!
* Archaeologists Confirm That Stonehenge Was Once A Complete Circle.
* The A.V. Club reviews David Mitchell’s latest, The Bone Clocks.
* I’ll give you this: Censoring the books your kid reads does seem pretty dystopian. “Divergent” and “Hunger Games” as capitalist agitprop. Utopia and Anti-Utopia.
Bad Monkeys, Fallen, Wicked Souls
What is the political charge of an eco-apocalypse like climate change, or ocean acidification, or Peak Oil? How are we to understand these visions of bad futures as they come to us from scientific projections and risk calculation spreadsheets? Is the coming catastrophe the dystopian clarion that warns us we must change-or is it the anti-utopian proof that we will refuse to change, even at the cost of civilization, or the planet itself?
I have a not-exactly-an-excerpt from Green Planets over at SF Signal, pontificating on the distinctions between utopia, anti-utopia, dystopia, and anti-dystopia…
Literally and Precisely 100% of Friday Night’s Links
* Modest Requests From a Pair of Job Seekers.
* The University of Arizona is pleased to announce a cluster hire of 4 tenure-track faculty positions in transgender studies over the next two years. Two positions are being offered this year in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences (SBS), with a start date of fall 2014. Two positions to be based elsewhere in the university will be advertised next year, with a start date of fall 2015. This cluster hire is one element of the University of Arizona’s unprecedented investment in the field of transgender studies. Other elements include support for a new peer-reviewed journal, TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, which will be published by Duke University Press starting in 2014, with the editorial office housed at the University of Arizona’s Institute for LGBT Studies; a new interdisciplinary Center for Critical Studies of the Body; and an anticipated graduate degree program in transgender studies.
* Nein! Nein! Nein! Bill seeks to make English official language of Wisconsin.
* Scottish Castles Are Cheaper than New York Apartments.
* The Southern Poverty Law Center and The Bismarck Tribune revealed that the man, Paul Craig Cobb, 61, has been buying up property in this town of 24 people in an effort to transform it into a colony for white supremacists.
* Alabama wants to ban The Bluest Eye? That’s nuts. Makes me wish I were teaching it this semester.
* Poverty Has Same Effect On The Brain As Constantly Pulling All Nighters.
* To not to have entirely wasted one’s life seems to be a worthy accomplishment, if only for myself.
* And RIP, Seamus Heaney. MetaFilter’s been gathering poems and remembrances.
‘Omelas State University’
At Pennsylvania State University, a grown man found a blameless child being put through hell. Other grown men learned of it. Each of them had to make their choice, and decide, fundamentally, whether the continuation of their utopia — or at very least the illusion of their utopia — was worth the pain and suffering of that one child. Through their actions, and their inactions, we know the choice they made.