Friday, March 26, 2010

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon - Now at MySpace


Cold Hands & Quarter Moon - Now at MySpace

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon are now at MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic

You can hear the band play, 'Human Herbs', and the quality of the recording is much better than on YouTube. The band had access to some proper recording facilities for this version of 'Human Herbs'.

For a detailed profile on Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, see: http://rikowski.wordpress.com/cold-hands-quarter-moon/

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski
The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk
All that is Solid for Glenn Rikowski: http://rikowski.wordpress.com

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Education, Capitalism and Crisis


EDUCATION, CAPITALISM AND CRISIS

Journal of Education Policy – After 25 Years


2010 is the 25th year of JEP. To mark the occasion we will running a special seminar and publishing a special issue of the Journal.

JEP25 Seminar, 24th June 2010, Institute of Education, London

Education, Capitalism and Crisis

The day will be organised around and in response to Andrew Gamble’s recently published book The Spectre at the Feast: Capitalist Crisis and the Politics of Recession, and Professor Gamble will introduce the seminar. Also taking part are: Susan Robertson, David Hartley, John Clarke and Janet Newman, Ivor Goodson (other speakers to be confirmed).

Places will be limited: to book a place email: s.ball@ioe.ac.uk

Stephen J Ball FBA AcSS
Karl Mannheim Professor of Sociology of Education
Editor Journal of Education Policy Education Foundations and Policy Studies
Institute of Education
University of London
20 Bedford Way
London WC1H 0AL
United Kingdom

Institute of Education, University of London

EFPS - 'critical research for social justice': http://www.ioe.ac.uk/ceceps
JEP - http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/authors/tedpauth.asp
CeCEPS - http://ioewebserver.ioe.ac.uk/ioe/cms/get.asp?cid=10954

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski
All that is Solid for Glenn Rikowski:
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The Flow of Ideas:
http://www.flowideas.co.uk
Cold Hands & Quarter Moon at:
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The Ockress: http://www.theockress.com
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Systems of Accumulation


SYSTEMS OF ACCUMULATION

Call for Paper and Panel Proposals


For “Beyond the Crisis”, First International Conference in Political Economy organised by the International Initiative for Promoting Political Economy in conjunction with the Greek Political Economy Association

Rethymnon, Crete, 10-12 September 2010

A key challenge for scholars working within critical and Marxist traditions of political economy is making the transition from an understanding of abstract categories such as class and value to an understanding of the more concrete historical forms of class relations and capital accumulation in particular time and place.

The idea that particular Systems of Accumulation evolve over time has been developed in order to understand specific forms of capital accumulation, the role played by the state and finance, and how this impacts more widely on economy and society. There are a number of ways in which a system of accumulation may be conceived. These include the Regulation School and its concept of a Regime of Acumulation (Boyer, 1990), commonly used with reference to understanding neoliberalism; the Social Structures of Accumulation approach (Kotz, McDonough and Reich 1994); as well as the study of South African Political Economy as a specific system of accumulation developed by Fine and Rustomjee (1996).

The idea remains underesearched, however, despite is potential relevance and application to a number of debates across the social sciences. These include understanding the relationship between the national and the global within capitalism which forms an important part of debates about globalisation; discussions of so-called ‘varieties of capitalism’; or debate about market and bank based systems of finance.

The aim of this call for papers and panel proposals is to link together researchers in the field to further this research agenda both theoretically and in its application to specific cases of historical and contemporary relevance. This is a large area of research, and as such we welcome papers of an exploratory nature as well as those which are more developed. In particular we would welcome papers and proposals around the following themes:

* Consideration of different theoretical approaches to Systems of Accumulation;

* Addressing theoretical gaps in the literature on Systems of Accumulation, particularly in relation to Systems of Accumulation and Value Theory;

* The application of a Systems of Accumulation approach to specific case studies, both historical and contemporary

Please send abstracts and panel proposals to susan.newman@wits.ac.za and samantha.ashman@wits.ac.za by the 31st March 2010.

For more information about the International Initiative for Promoting Political Economy (IIPPE) go to http://www.iippe.org

Sam Ashman
Senior Researcher
Corporate Strategy and Industrial Development (CSID)
School of Economics and Business Sciences
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
Private Bag 3, Wits 2050
South Africa
E: Samantha.Ashman@wits.ac.za
T: +27 - 11 - 717 – 8026; F: +27 - 11 - 717 – 8136; C: +27 - 72 - 558 - 0139

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski
The Flow of Ideas:
http://www.flowideas.co.uk
Wavering on Ether:
http://blog.myspace.cim/glennrikowski
Cold Hands & Quarter Moon at:
http://rikowski.wordpress.com/cold-hands-quarter-moon/
The Ockress: http://www.theockress.com Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Friday, March 12, 2010

Academies, Trusts, 'Free' or 'New' Schools: How Far Should Privatisation Go?


ACADEMIES, TRUSTS, ‘FREE’ OR ‘NEW’ SCHOOLS: HOW FAR SHOULD SCHOOL PRIVATISATION GO?

Seminar organised by the TUC and the Anti Academies Alliance

Speakers:
Professor Stephen Ball, Institute of Education, University of London
Ann-Christin Larsson from Lararforbundet, Sweden's largest teachers union
Alasdair Smith, Anti Academies Alliance
John Bangs, NUT assistant general secretary
Christina McAnea, UNISON head of education

Chaired by Tom Wilson, TUC

7pm, Wednesday 17th March

The Wilson Room, Portcullis House, Victoria Embankment, London, SW1A 2JH

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski
All that is Solid for Glenn Rikowski:
http://rikowski.wordpress.com
The Flow of Ideas:
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The Ockress:
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Wavering on Ether:
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Friday, March 5, 2010

Academic Repression


ACADEMIC REPRESSION

http://www.akpress.org/2010/items/academicrepression

Academic Repression: Reflections from the Academic Industrial Complex

Peter McLaren (Editor), Steven Best (Editor), and Anthony J. Nocella II (Editor)

The extreme repressive attacks on Churchill, Finklstein, Fontan, Best, Massad, the “Dirty Thirty,” and many others represented in this book demonstrate the repressive logic of “US democracy,” whereby political elites, the mass media, and the education system establish and police the parameters of acceptable discourse. Churchill became America’s own Salman Rushdie terrorized by the fatwa of the right. Unprecedented for the media coverage given to a professor (in a mass media culture that virtually ignores substantive ideas in favor of spectacle and sensationalism) the Churchill affair was, however, just one of many cases of attacks on academic freedom that eerily evoke the tyranny of the McCarthy era where actors were blacklisted and professors were fired for having even liberal views or showing dissent against state repression. While there has been much research on political repression carried out by the Bush administration, FBI, and various law enforcement agencies, there has been little discussion on political repression in academia and how the shockwaves of 9/11 have reverberated throughout academia. This anthology brings together prominent academics who contribute original essays commissioned for this volume. The writers are known and respected figures in their respective fields, and many have experienced academic repression first-hand.

This volume aims to be a cogent intervention in debates over free speech, culture wars, and academic freedom. Given that the importance of free speech to academic life, and the crucial role universities play in the intellectual life of cultures as a whole, a volume addressing the political environment of universities in the current period promises to make a significant contribution.


Academic Repression: Reflections from the Academic Industrial Complex (AK Press), is a much needed book on a topic that has seen little attention. Since 9/11 the Bush Administration has ventured to every campus influencing and forcing change by administration to handover faculty, staff, and student work to be flagged as possible signs of threatening behavior. While there have been numerous books on academic freedom, that topic is outdated and something that arguably does not exist on U.S. campus soil anymore. This volume addresses not only overt attacks on critical or radical thinking, it also – following socioeconomic trends unfolding for decades – engages the broad structural determinants of academic culture. Slowly but surely, the university is being transformed from a space for free thinking, experimentation, and philosophical education in the broadest sense into a narrow, restrictive, utilitarian institution that serves the technical needs of corporations, government, science and technology, and the military. Thus, as emphasized by numerous contributors, the ultimate cause of repression is not the academy itself, but contemporary capitalist society as a whole, which strongly shapes the structure, function, and priorities of higher education. This volume shows that while universities are crucial sites of socialization in capitalist ideologies and utilitarian performance, they are not monolithic citadels or homogeneous systems of thought that grind out in assembly-line fashion each and every student into the service of capitalism. For just as universities can train tomorrow’s FBI and CIA agents, so they can breed the next generation of radicals, resisters, saboteurs, and revolutionaries.

The university is a contested political space for three reasons. First, it is home to a diversity of viewpoints, ranging from far-right to far-left, from Christian to Muslim, from white to black, Indian, or Chicano/a, from speciesist to animal liberationist, and from heterosexual to gay/lesbian. Second, despite broad and growing trends of repression, there are varying degrees of tolerance for the discussion of non-mainstream or radical ideas in classrooms and campus life. Third, however uncritical, conditioned, and conformist some students might be, they have the potential (often actualized) to discuss, debate, and think critically about issues such as US colonialism, slavery, sexism, and speciesism, and professors, staff, and students - consciously or unconsciously – cannot socialize all of them into their own worldviews and politics.

-- Nocella, Best, and McLaren About the Editors:

Anthony J. Nocella, II is completing his doctoral work at Syracuse University. He is a Visiting Scholar of SUNY Cortland's Center for Ethics, Peace and Social Justice (CEPS) and is teaching classes in Sociology and Criminology at Le Moyne College.

Steven Best is Associate Professor of Humanities and Philosophy at the University of Texas, El Paso.

Peter McLaren is Professor of Education, Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles.

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT THE BOOK:

This courageous and chilling book reminds us that the Academy is always a context for intellectual exchange and political struggle. Don't miss it! -- Cornel West, Princeton University

This book takes us into the Corporate University, and it's not a pretty sight. From firing critical thinkers to putting students in debt, the system is failing America. Time to take it back by fighting for free higher education. -- Jim Hightower, populist speaker and editor of the "Hightower Lowdown"

The university should be a place of freedom not a battlefield where the military industrial complex is launching its most violent attack yet on the future of education. Nocella, Best, and McLaren shows us that education must be protected if we want peace and social justice for the world. Read now! -- Cindy Sheehan, Peace Activist and Founder of "Gold Star Families for Peace"

To the litany of claims by academics that the university is a safe haven for intellectual and political dissent, this book offers a convincing counter-argument. Academic Repression is a long overdue collective study of the long and sorry history of violations of academic freedom, iconoclastic thought and political dissent in US institutions of higher education. The editors have assembled an impressive group of scholars who, often through personal experience as much as analytic acuity, have supplied us with commentary as much as documentation of the central thesis of the book. This book should be required reading in all of the social sciences, humanities and education courses. -- Stanley Aronowitz, author of "The Knowledge Factory: Dismantling the Corporate University and Creating True Higher Learning"

Absolutely and utterly indispensible as we chart a way forward and attempt to finally turn the page on an era best left in the dustbin of history. It's a first round knock out. -- Dave Zirin, author APHOS

For over half a century, matters of knowledge and education have been central to the political struggles shaping our world, and the university has been a primary battleground. This collection is a chilling and powerful survey of contemporary battles, their stakes and possibilities. We should all be scared, and we should all concerned enough to take a stand. -- Dr. Lawrence Grossberg, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Using the tired canards of anti-semitism, terrorism and radicalism, rightwing zealots are carrying out a merciless campaign of ideological cleansing on American campuses, often with the shameful complicity of university administrators. Academic Repression takes you to the frontlines of this fierce battle for the mind, telling stories of purges, institutional cowardice and resistance. Here at last is a strategic plan for how to fight back against the New McCarthyites. Read it twice and then throw the book at them. -- Jeffrey St. Clair, author Born Under a Bad Sky, co-editor of CounterPunch

Freedom of speech in the academy is a cornerstone of democracy -- fascism always creeps closely behind intellectual repression, and we are not immune from the virus. If you want to understand how rocky our freedoms are today, pick up this book, read it, and join the fight to end censorship in all of its imperialist forms. -- Joshua Frank, co-author with Jeffrey St. Clair of the forthcoming Green Scare: The Government's New War on Environmentalism

The powers-that-be are uncomfortable with academic freedom because when one investigates any political, social, economic or even scientific issue thoroughly, a leftwing analysis will tend to emerge. Thinking is dangerous for them. This book is full of the stories and observations of some of the greatest thinkers alive today. -- David Rovics, Singer-Songwriter

The editors have drawn together a diverse and competent group of scholars to assess critically the climate of academic repression. This is an essential book for anyone with a deep concern for the future of the academy. It will help raise awareness of crucial issues that face the universities. We ignore this challenge at our peril. -- Dr. Andrew Fitz-Gibbon, Director, Center for Ethics, Peace and Social Justice, SUNY Cortland

As the editors and contributors of this valuable collection make clear, American academia has long been a combat zone, and never more than today. Eternal vigilance, and constant struggle, remain the watchwords if the free expression of thought upon which a good society depends is to be realized. -- Joel Kovel, author of "Overcoming Zionism: Creating a Single Democratic State in Israel/Palestine"

---------------------------------------------------

CONTRIBUTORS TO THE BOOK:

William Armaline

John Asimakopoulos

Bill Ayers

Liat Ben-Moshe

Michael Bérubé

Carl Boggs

Marc Bousquet

A. Peter Castro

Ward Churchill

Dana Cloud

Sumi E. Colligan

Maria E. Cotera

Christian Davenport

Victoria Fontan

Takis Fotopoulos

Henry Giroux

Adam Habib

Joy James

Robert Jensen

Richard Kahn

Caroline Kaltefleiter

Doug Kellner

Mark LeVine

Bill Martin

Peter McLaren

Micere M. Githae Mugo

Mechthild Nagel

Cary Nelson

Michael Parenti

Emma Perez

Mark Rupert

Rik Scarce

Deric Shannon

Stephen Sheehi

Amory Starr

Gregory Tropea

Ali Zaidi

Howard Zinn

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski
All that is Solid for Glenn Rikowski:
http://rikowski.wordpress.com
The Flow of Ideas:
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MySpace Profile:
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Lost Generation

LOST GENERATION

Originally from Ruth Rikowski News Updates Progression:
http://ruthrikowskiupdates.blogspot.com/

Patrick Ainley, a friend and writing colleague of ours, has a new book coming out which he has co-written with Martin Allen. Here are the details:

‘Lost Generation: new strategies for youth and education’ by Martin Allen and Patrick Ainley, Continuum: London, 2010ISBN 9781441134707 (pbk)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lost-Generation-Strategies-Youth-Education/dp/1441134700/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267391315&sr=8-1
The book looks at what has gone wrong in schools, colleges and universities and how this relates to the changing relationship between young people and educational qualifications. It goes right through from primary schools to postgraduate schools. Ainley and Allen argue that a new pedagogy is needed, along with a new educational politics, which will bring students and teachers together in new concepts of education and democracy.

Wes Streeting, President of National Union of Students says that the book is“A thought-provoking critique of the education system at a critical time for Britain’s “lost generation” of young people.”

To place an order, email
orders@continuumbooks.com

This book builds on and develops Martin Allen and Patrick Ainley’s previous publication, which is:

‘Education Make You Fick, Innit?: What’s Gone Wrong with England’s Schools, Colleges and Universities and How to Start Putting it Right’, Tufnell Press: London, 2007. ISBN: 1872767672; 978-1872767673 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Education-Make-You-Fick-Innit/dp/1872767672/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1267435143&sr=8-2-fkmr0

I think that what this book is about is fairly self-evident from the title!

Ruth Rikowski

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski
The Flow of Ideas:
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Cold Hands & Quarter Moon at:
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The Ecstacy of Community and the Foreclosure of the Political Field


THE ECSTACY OF COMMUNITY AND THE FORECLOSURE OF THE POLITICAL FIELD

Dr Margret Grebowicz

Date: Wednesday 17th March
Time: 4pm – 5.30pm
Venue: Birt Acres Lecture Theatre, Bute Building
Host: JOMEC, Cardiff University
Contact: Paul Bowman,
BowmanP@cf.ac.uk

Feminist critiques—and defences—of pornography have been around for decades. But how does the advent of porn as an internet phenomenon change the way we think of the relationships between speech, freedom, and sex? Engaging with Baudrillard and Butler, I argue that cyberporn has important consequences for political ontology in general, which should reorient critics of pornography to focus on questions of community, sexual/political intelligibility, and the conditions of the possibility of social change.

Dr Margret Grebowicz (Goucher College, Baltimore) is spending 2009-10 as a Researcher at The University of Dundee. She is interested in social and political philosophy through a continental lens, with particular emphasis on gender and the production of knowledge and culture. She is editor of Sci-Fi in the Mind’s Eye: Reading Science through Science Fiction (2007) and Gender After Lyotard (2007). Her most recent projects concern internet pornography, radical democratic theory, and animal studies—sometimes even in conjunction. She is currently working on two books: one on Donna Haraway's later work, and the other, a short book on internet pornography and American democracy.

ALL WELCOME

Dr Paul Bowman
JOMEC, Cardiff University
http://cardiff.academia.edu/PaulBowman

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski
The Flow of Ideas:
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Wavering on Ether:
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What Would it Mean to Win? Turbulence Book


WHAT WOULD IT MEAN TO WIN? TURBULENCE BOOK

Our book, ‘What Would it Mean to Win?’ is published by PM Press in April 2010. It contains all the articles from the now out-of-print first issue of the magazine, our collective text ‘Move into the Light? Postscript to a Turbulent 2007’, and a previously unpublished extended interview by PM Press author Sasha Lilly with Turbulence editors Michal Osterweil and Ben Trott. John Holloway has written a Foreword.


BACK COVER BLURB: “Movements become apparent as ‘movements’ at times of acceleration and expansion. In these heady moments they have fuzzy boundaries, no membership lists – everybody is too engaged in what’s coming next, in creating the new, looking to the horizon. But movements get blocked, they slow down, they cease to move, or continue to move without considering their actual effects. When this happens, they can stifle new developments, suppress the emergence of new forms of politics; or fail to see other possible directions. Many movements just stop functioning as movements. They become those strange political groups of yesteryear, arguing about history as worlds pass by. Sometimes all it takes to get moving again is a nudge in a new direction… We think now is a good time to ask the question: What is winning? Or: What would–or could–it mean to ‘win?’”

REVIEWS

“Where is the movement today? Where is it going? Are we winning? The authors of the essays in this volume pose these and other momentous questions. There are no easy answers, but the discussion is always insightful and provocative as the writers bravely take on the challenge of charting the directions for the Left at a time of ecological crisis, economic collapse, and political disillusionment.” – Walden Bello, Executive Director of Focus on the Global South

“Turbulence presents an exciting brand of political theorising that is directed and inspired by current strategic questions for activism. This kind of innovative thinking, which emerges from the context of the movements, opens new paths for rebellion and the creation of real social alternatives.“ – Michael Hardt, co-author of ‘Commonwealth’ , ‘Multitude’ and ‘Empire’.

“The history of the past half-century and particularly the last decade is as easily told as a series of victories as defeats, maybe best as both. Sometimes we won–and this is what makes the ‘What Does It Mean to Win?’ anthologysuch a powerful vision of the possible and the seldom-seen present. The authors of this book connect some of the more remarkable events of the last decade–in Oaxaca, in the banlieus of Paris, in the crises of neoliberalism– into aconstellation of possibilities and demands, demands on the world but also demands on the readers, to think afresh of what is possible and what it takes to get there. As one author begins, ‘The new movements embodied and positeddeliberate reactions to the practical and theoretical failures of previous political approaches on the left.’ This is the book about what came after the failures, and what’s to come” – Rebecca Solnit, author of ‘Hope in the Dark’ and ‘A Paradise Built in Hell.’

CONTENTS

‘Preface’, by Turbulence Collective

Foreword: 'Hope Moves Faster than the Speed of Thought’, by John Holloway

‘Are We ‘Winning’?’, by Turbulence Collective

‘Politics in an Age of Fantasy’, by Stephen Duncombe

‘Enclosing the Enclosers’, by Gustavo Esteva

‘Singularisation of the Common’, by Sandro Mezzadra and Gigi Roggero

‘A New Weather Front’, by Paul Sumburn

‘Money for Nothing’, by Max Henninger

‘Walking in the Right Direction?’, by Ben Trott

‘Organise Local, Strike Global’, by Valery Alzaga and Rodrigo Nunes

‘Solidarity Economics’, by Euclides André Mance

‘Compositional Power’, an interview with Todd Hamilton and Nate Holdren

‘‘Becoming-Woman?’ In Theory or in Practice?’, by Michal Osterweil

‘Politicising Sadness’, by Colectivo Situaciones

‘Commonism’, by Nick Dyer-Witheford

‘The Crazy Before the New’, by Kay Summer and Harry Halpin

‘Move into the Light? Postscript to a Turbulent 2007’, by Turbulence Collective

‘An Interview with the Turbulence Collective’, by Sasha Lilly with Michal Osterweil and Ben Trott

BOOK DETAILS
Author: Turbulence Collective
Publisher: PM Press (Oakland, CA)
ISBN: 978-1-60486- 110-5
Published: April 2010
Format: Paperback
Page Count: 160
Dimensions: 9 by 6
Subjects: Politics, Philosophy, Activism

ORDER A COPY FOR YOUR LIBRARY

Ask your university, city or town library to order to a copy of the book. Just provide them with the ‘Book Details’ above and they should be able to do the rest themselves.

REVIEW THE BOOK
We’re looking for individuals and publications interested in reviewing the book. If this takes your fancy, drop us a note letting us know your name, address and the publication you’re considering writing for and we’ll get the publisher to send you a copy of the book.

LAUNCH EVENTS
We’ll be organising a series of events to launch the book, the first of which will take place in the San Francisco Bay Area, California, on March 14, 15 and 16.

For more information, see: http://turbulence.org.uk/2010/02/turbulence-events-in-san-francisco-bay-area-in-march/

Turbulence:
http://turbulence.org.uk

AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER FROM:

PM PRESS: https://secure.pmpress.org/index.php?l=product detail&p=193

AMAZON.COM: http://www.amazon.com/What-Would-Mean- Win-Press/dp/160486110X/ref=sr_1_ 1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266057060&sr=8-1

BOOKS-A-MILLION: http://www.booksamillion.com/product/9781604861105

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski
All that is Solid for Glenn Rikowski:
http://rikowski.wordpress.com
The Flow of Ideas:
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MySpace Profile:
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The Ockress: http://www.theockress.com
Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://rikowski.wordpress.com/cold-hands-quarter-moon/