The Plurality and Quasi-Anarchism of Drag

This post is part of the Bodies, Gender, and Domination OOPS Series. I am often told that the subject of my research, drag -- as a pastime, a spectacle, a performance, or an art form -- makes some people “uncomfortable.” The reasons offered as explanation range from (legitimate) concerns about transphobia ...
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The Plurality and Quasi-Anarchism of Drag

Nihilists with Good Imaginations

In what may be her most ambitious piece yet, Chiara Bottici recently published a call for a continuation of debates around intersectional oppression along the lines traced out by anarchist thought. Somewhat surprisingly, though, Bottici avoided making explicit reference to some of her previous work, which, though it may be ...

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Nihilists with Good Imaginations

Domination: One or Many?

This post is in relation to the Gender and Domination course in OOPS. When approaching the issue of domination and its many forms, one must not overlook that violence is a structural element of domination. However diverse in character different forms of domination may be, they all rely on some account regarding violence ...
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Domination: One or Many?

I Dreamed We Were Free

This post is in relation to the Gender and Domination course in OOPS. Reflecting on this week’s reading, I must admit that my previous relationship to the concepts of freedom and liberty was under-reflected. La Boetie wrote, “one never pines for what he has never known; longing comes only after enjoyment and constitutes, amidst ...
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I Dreamed We Were Free

The Specter of Fear

Europe after the Paris attacks

A specter is haunting Europe after the Paris attacks of Friday, the 13th of November. We feel this specter of fear as we hypnotically click onto news sites for updates, analysis and pictures of the latest terror attacks. There is an awful sense that we have been here ...

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Imaginal Politics

To any follower of the news, it may seem these days harder than ever to figure out what is real and what is delusional, and whether the delusional is an individual psychopathology or perhaps something more general. As Chiara Bottici puts it: “We live in a society of spectacles that ...
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The Disability Paradox

Further thoughts on inequality, disability, and the imaginal

Do you have a disability? Do you want to work? This seemingly innocent pairing of questions should immediately raise a red flag, for it is technically oxymoronic: in the United States, the disabled, by definition, are those who cannot work, at least in any significant sense. Granted, ...

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The Utopia of Art

Composition as construction of an alternate reality

[A]nd so there was, during “4’33”,” the marking down, the scribbling of pens and pencils, and the whispering of teenage ADHD cases, and the occasional cough (which cough has to have been the most consistent instrumental timbre across all the myriad performances of “4’33””), and then gradually there was consternation among the ...
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