Posts Tagged ‘postcapitalism’
Weekend Links!
* Clear your calendars for the An und für sich Star Trek: Discovery blog event, beginning Monday!
* A student project from my Tolkien class gets a great writeup at Marquette’s Digital Scholarship Lab.
* KSR’s next book has a cover.
* The MCU vs. America. What Black Panther can teach us about international relations. Weapons of Black Panther. And Žižek shows up two weeks late with a Killmonger-was-right take.
* The science of late sleepers.
* Why I’m Writing Captain America (And Why It Scares the Hell Out of Me).
* Mueller news you can use: almost all the Mueller leaks are from witnesses and tell us little or nothing about the true scope of the investigation or its likely outcomes.
* Hardware Wars: A People’s History.
* Wildcat teachers’ strike in West Virginia (but not on MSNBC). Onward to Oklahoma!
* Phew! Lucky coincidence.
* Buying a gun around the world. How Defective Guns Became the Only Product That Can’t Be Recalled. The Florida legislature’s push to arm teachers, explained.
* Public schools have been re-segregating for decades.
* Florida Public School Teacher Has A White Nationalist Podcast.
* NASA releases time-lapse of the disappearing Arctic polar ice cap. The age of climate migration.
* Homelessness in the Magic Kingdom.
* Great story about retirees who cracked the lottery.
* Brooklyn man wins nearly $1M lawsuit after NYPD cop tried to frame him on DWI charge.
* I’m Gen X again, maybe for good.
* I predicted this would happen: There is no psychohistory, and there never will be.
* I’ve used this as a hypothetical in class for years; let’s say I’m skeptical.
* The last word in Firefly fan physics: The Ultimate Solar System.
* A right-wing online “university” is on track for a billion views in 2018, its professors are some of the best-known conservatives in media, and its founder wants to put it in real schools. So how come you’ve never heard of it?
* And your micro-game of the week: Post/Capitalism.
Wednesday Links!
* In case you missed it yesterday: the CFP for SFRA 2018 (7/1-7/4 at Marquette)!
* “We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.” Rest in peace, Ursula K. Le Guin. The art of fiction. Fantastic.
* CFP: Petrocultures 2018 (Glasgow University).
* 19 Long-Lost Historical Words You Absolutely Need In Your Life.
* A new study finds an alarming rise in a novel form of psychological distress. Call it “neoliberal perfectionism.”
* But what if forty years of neoliberalism’s violently reiterated dogma that “there is no alternative” has left us incapable of imagining not only better worlds but also worse ones? On dulltopia.
* How Twitter Hooks Up Students With Ghostwriters.
* There are some things no man was meant to know: Should vegetarians assume they can eat French fries?
* U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan, Democrat of Niles, accompanied Amer Othman Adi to immigration headquarters Tuesday morning for what they thought would be a routine meeting. Instead, Adi, 57, was jailed and told he would be held until his deportation, which was over a dispute about the validity of his first marriage to an American in 1979.
* ‘I won’t fly refugees to their deaths’: The El Al pilots resisting deportation. Same sex couple sues State Department over decision on son’s citizenship. Border patrol arrests ASU adjunct who gave food and water to immigrants. ICE deporting its own protestors.
* Stochastic terrorism watch: Man threatened to kill CNN employees.
* Tourism to U.S. under Trump is down, costing $4.6B and 40,000 jobs.
* “Afghan Pedophiles Get Free Pass From U.S. Military, Report Says.”
The report, commissioned under the Obama administration, was considered so explosive that it was originally marked “Secret/ No Foreign,” with the recommendation that it remain classified until June 9, 2042. The report was finished in June 2017, but it appears to have included data only through 2016, before the Trump administration took office.
* A New Jersey college fired a professor, claiming they were “immediately inundated” with complaints of “fear” after she defended a BLM event on Fox News. We sued to look at the complaints. Total number of complaints in the first 13 days: one.
* The future is not good: South Korea, gripped by suicide epidemic, criminalizes suicide-pacts.
* What I’ve learned from my tally of 757 doctor suicides.
* Illustrated thought experiments.
* Nintendo headquarters, c. 1889.
* Rate My Professor and the adjunct professorate.
* Know your ethical conundrums. Free will. Scalars vs. vectors. When God closes a door, he opens a window.
* And when they knew the Earth was doomed, they built a ship.
Call for Papers: Science Fiction Research Association Annual Conference 2018 (7/1-7/4, Milwaukee, WI)
SCIENCE FICTION RESEARCH ASSOCIATION ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2018
Sunday, July 1- Wednesday, July 4, 2018
Marquette University (Milwaukee, WI)
Conference Theme: The Future of Labor
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Peter Frase (author of Four Futures)
Rebekah Sheldon (author of The Child to Come)
The Science Fiction Research Association invites proposals for its 2018 annual conference, to be held on the campus of Marquette University in Milwaukee, WI. In keeping with Milwaukee’s long history as a site of labor activism and union struggle, including the famous Bay View Massacre of protestors striking for the eight-hour-workday and the longest Socialist mayoral tenure in US history—as well as ongoing and increasingly urgent global concerns about the rise of machine learning, artificial intelligence, and autonomous robots—the overarching theme of SFRA 2018 will be “The Future of Labor.” When machines think and work—at speeds and efficiencies humans cannot match, and perhaps can no longer even understand—what will become of human beings?
Possible subtopics might include:
- artificial intelligence, machine learning, and algorithmic culture;
- the rise of the machines; automation and labor;
- the Singularity;
- drone warfare;
- automated and robotic care labor;
- the gig economy and hyperexploitiation;
- hyperexploitation and technology in the academy;
- automation and the digital economy;
- automation and the environment, especially climate change;
- automation and disability;
- automation and race, gender, sexuality, and class;
- nonhuman labor and nonhuman laborers;
- genetic manipulation, computer prosthesis, and other modes of cognitive enhancement;
- games, gamificiation, and other brainhacks;
- universal basic income and other modes of postcapitalism;
- the politics of artificial intelligence, utopian, dystopian, and otherwise;
- representations of nonhuman, robotic, artificially intelligent, and postcapitalist labor across the last two centuries of science fiction texts.
Of course we also welcome papers on topics relevant to science fiction research broadly conceived that are not specifically related to the conference theme.
Graduate students are encouraged to apply and attend; as with previous SFRA conferences, the first day of conference programming will include roundtables and workshops devoted to targeted at early-career teachers and researchers working in SF studies and in the study of popular culture more generally.
300-500 word abstracts should be sent to SFRAMilwaukee@gmail.com by March 30, 2018. Notification of acceptance will occur by April 15, 2018. We also welcome submission of preconstituted panels and roundtables.
Questions concerning the call for papers can be directed to SFRAMilwaukee@gmail.com with the subject line “CFP QUESTION,” or to the conference’s local organizers, Gerry Canavan (Marquette University, gerry.canavan@marquette.edu) and Peter Sands (UWM, sands@uwm.edu).
ABOUT MILWAUKEE
Milwaukee is a lovely summertime destination, a city on a lake with festivals nearly every week, a rich ethnic tradition reflected in architecture, neighborhoods, and foods, and many worthwhile sights and activities within a day’s drive, from Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin North to the west, Chicago to the south, and Lake Michigan’s shoreline itself to the east. It is also a perfect site to contemplate labor’s past and future: the city has a long history with the labor movement and civil rights—from the tragedy of the 1886 Bayview Massacre, in which seven people were killed during a demonstration in favor of the eight-hour work day, to the late 1960s marches which led to Milwaukee being called “Selma of the North,” to the longest-running Socialist administration in U.S. cities, one which focused on “sewer socialism” in recognition of the needs for basic infrastructure to support working people. Wisconsin itself was instrumental in the development of the modern union movement and Robert LaFollette’s Progressive movement, but has also been at the bleeding edge of the current anti-union movement troubling labor throughout the United States. A perfect place to labor over labor.
Marquette University is the home of the J.R.R. Tolkien manuscript collection, containing the original manuscripts for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. As a conference bonus, conference attendees will be invited to a lecture on the manuscript collection by the curator of the collection, William Fleiss, which will include a display of some of the collection’s greatest treatures. The conference will also be supported by Marquette’s new interdisciplinary research hub, the Center for the Advancement of the Humanities.
LOGISTICS
Hotel: Due to seasonal and holiday fluctuations in ticket prices, fully furnished, single-occupancy dormitory rooms have been reserved for conference attendees at low cost on Marquette’s campus. These rooms will be significantly cheaper than a traditional conference hotel rate. Attendees who wish to stay at a hotel anyway are advised to make their reservations sooner rather than later due to the proximity of the July 4 holiday and to the “Summerfest” music festival held in Milwaukee during the conference dates.
Travel: Milwaukee is served by an international airport, airport code MKE. Some travelers in search of lower fares and/or direct flights may prefer to search at Chicago O’Hare (ORD), approximately 70 miles away and accessible by train, bus, and rental car. The drive from O’Hare is very easy, on a dedicated highway with very little traffic, and parking will be available on Marquette’s campus for approximately $10/day.
Food: The conference will include two keynote lunches and an awards banquet the last night. Marquette’s campus is a short, safe walk from downtown Milwaukee with many dining options available there; there is also a smaller area closer to campus called “Campustown” with a number of cheap, good restaurants.
Fees: Conference fees are still being formalized but will be commensurate with previous SFRA meetings.
Additional questions concerning logistics or the conference more generally can be directed to the conference email address, SFRAMilwaukee@gmail.com, with the subject line “LOGISTICAL QUESTION,” or to the conference’s local organizers, Gerry Canavan (Marquette University, gerry.canavan@marquette.edu) and Peter Sands (UWM, sands@uwm.edu).
Even More Tuesday Links
* “More toyetic”: The cast and crew of Batman and Robin explain what went wrong.
* Preposterously bad idea watch: Breaking Bad Spin-Off With Saul Goodman In The Works. Has to be a very dry joke on Vince Gilligan’s part.
* What is the political situation in the Mario universe? It is a never-ending condition of war within and war without, fraught and constantly changing as one faction or another vies for control, riven along racial and ideological fault-lines and held together only by the intervention of foreign interlopers, propping up the dominant superpower and whose ultimate motivations are shrouded in secrecy.
* Kim Stanley Robinson on postcapitalism.
* A much larger revenue stream comes from federal student loans—$108,641,000 in 2011. In 2010, NYU had $659 million in total student debt, a figure bigger than the gross domestic product of twelve countries, and it is a national leader in the debt carried by its graduates, at 40 percent more than the national average. According a recent Newsweek ranking, NYU is now the fourth “Least Affordable School” in the United States. And in the latest Princeton Review college rankings, its financial aid and administration ranked first—for being the worst. The projected $5 billion expansion plan is certain to increase the student debt burden. Most of current student loans are federal money, so we can add these on to the public inputs received by this private university at a time when public universities are being put to the sword.
* For Full-Time Instructors, Work Off the Tenure Track Has Become Its Own Career.
* Reframing the statement “don’t go to graduate school” to one that fully addresses the attack on tenure helps us to see and recognize each other, and our labor. I think it also helps us to identify new partners who might be able and interested in challenging or modulating some of the forces at work in educational restructuring.
* Rebecca Schuman responds to her critics, and a critic responses to the response.
* North Carolina seeks to criminalize muckraking of animal abuse while doing nothing about animal abuse. Outstanding.
* Guess Who Waits Longest to Vote? You’ll never guess!
* Authorities are still investigating how the younger child obtained the .22-caliber rifle: New Jersey 4-year-old shoots 6-year-old neighbor in the head.
* Ringling Bros. Elephant Shot in Mississippi Drive-By.
* Taxodus: the tax avoidance game.
* Why Bitcoin “millionaires” could accidentally become tax felons.
* And I think I remember this movie: Lockheed Martin Harnesses Quantum Technology.
Gerry Canavan 