African Style Democracy?

Alarmingly a question being increasingly asked is whether democracy has failed in Africa, or similarly, whether democracy is unworkable or perhaps not suitable for Africa: this, given the fact that many African countries, which are supposedly democratic, are characterised by dreadful human rights abuses, ethnic conflicts, life presidents and economic ...

Read More
African Style Democracy?

Argentina in Shock

A mysterious death in Buenos Aires raises questions about the true sources of power inside Argentina’s state

A federal prosecutor in a democratic state accuses the elected president of a major cover-up. Alberto Nisman is scheduled to explain the cover-up in Argentina's congress when, hours before testifying, he mysteriously dies in his apartment. What kind of democracy allows this to happen? In the context of such events, ...

Read More

9/11 and the Visual Culture of Disaster

I remember the week after September 11, 2001, when the subway from Brooklyn into Lower Manhattan was back in limited service, getting off at Broadway-Lafayette and feeling somewhat disoriented when my usual landmark indicating south, the World Trade Center, was missing from the downtown skyline. The specter of the World ...

Read More
9/11 and the Visual Culture of Disaster

The Weird Global Media Event

It will be made of half-facts and one-and-a-half facts. And made quickly, as the desire for a media story quickly outstrips the reliable data. Certain corrections will later have to be made -- silently. It is only global in appearing to speak of a world; somewhere indifference reigns. But it does ...
Read More
The Weird Global Media Event

When the Far Enemy becomes Near

Reflections on the Charlie Hebdo killings

The heinous killing of 12 journalists and staff from Charlie Hebdo needs to be interpreted with at least two different focal lenses. There is a French (or French-European) dimension, but there is also an international dimension of these killings, one that connects the spread of ISIS with the strategy of the two ...

Read More
When the Far Enemy becomes Near

All Power to the {Historical} Imagination!

Kojin Karatani’s The Structure of World History (Duke University Press, 2014) is an astonishing work of synthetic historical theory. Karatani views world history as a history of modes of exchange. He rejects the classical Marxist view of history though as modes of production, to which political, religious and cultural levels ...
Read More
All Power to the {Historical} Imagination!

Compose Yourself!

After yet another review in the New York Times Book Review about some book about Scott Fitzgerald, I felt it was time to write something about Kate Zambreno’s book Heroines. I taught some of it this semester past and made at least a couple of Zambreno converts. Zambreno’s Heroines (Semiotexte 2012) ...
Read More
Compose Yourself!

Season’s Greetings and the War on Christmas

Consider season’s greetings. For many, these are unselfconscious gestures. But for others, they are loaded with significance. While we can together celebrate Christmas, Kwanzaa, and Hanukkah after Thanksgiving, along with the new New Year, showing respect for each other, some prefer to exclude. There are the combatants against <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/03/bill-oreilly-war-on-christmas-2014-fox-news_n_6264254.html" ...

Read More
Season’s Greetings and the War on Christmas