Cathy Davidson’s The New Education provides interesting insights on how to better the current university machinery in the era of homo economicus and neoliberal rationality. Her proposal relies on an ethical assemblage of all the gears involved, achieved by interdisciplinary approaches and alliances with state-of-the-art educational technology. Her book showcases examples of engaging professors who […]
if you can make it there you will make it anywhere
When I woke up today, I lazily got rid of my comfortable and warm Chinese blankets and went to the kitchen to drink my Colombian coffee. I absently skipped through the news on my American computer while trying to explain to my Californian roommate that, despite what she had seen in films, Rio is not a jungle […]
Past Tense, Future Perfect
“Past tense, future perfect” is a combination of words oft-used by author Zadie Smither in her 1999 novel White Teeth about immigrant identities and dehumanization in late 20th century London. Something between past and future is a desiring, unrepresented present. This gap is widened by the the physicality of “tense” versus the grammatical association of […]
a dignidade da morte tupinambá
Uma condição constante de guerra ditava a tônica das relações entre os grupos , habitantes nativos da região da Guanabara, que sobreviveram menos de um século após a chegada dos colonizadores no Brasil. Guerreiros motivados pelo ciclo vital da vingança, entravam em embates corporais intertribais que terminavam, para os vencedores, com um banquete produzido a […]
for the week ironically titled “theories”
These texts come together as a braid, entangled and loaded with tension. Instrumentalizing human existence (and demise) like puppeteers (Mbembé, 14), the conquerors mentioned in these readings weave bodies and borders, denying the physical pain of tearing at roots. Most touching were the explorations into “body as place” (Mbembé, 28) and the very ways in […]
Race and the Process of Othering
The politics of race and death are, as Mbembe maintains in “Necropolitics,” inextricably linked. He cites Hannah Arednt, who traces this intertwining to “the shattering experience of otherness and suggests that the politics of race is ultimately linked to the politics of death” (17). Many of the examples Mbembe uses to illustrate his point are conflicts […]