BY SARAH STONICH The title of this novel might sound like the answer to a trivia question—points for anyone who can draw the Laurentian Divide on a bar napkin, extra to mark where it meets the St. Lawrence in northern Minnesota. At this juncture, rivers flow in three directions: east to the Gulf of St. … More Life on the edge in northern Minnesota border country.
BY BRIAN MASSUMI It is hard not to despair. The enormity of the problems dwarf the human scale, even though it is we, humans, who have created them. We seem to have fallen under the wheels of an economic system whose signature products are inexorably increasing social inequality, periodic crises from which only the top … More Occupy Surplus-Value: Toward the Revaluation of Value
JONATHAN P. EBURNEPennsylvania State University When I was in graduate school, an acquaintance of mine introduced me to a movie called Ruggles of Red Gap. Released by Paramount in 1935, the film—a quirky comedy—features the Canadian actress Maude Eburne (no relation), who made a career playing characters named “Ma.” Ruggles of Red Gap is perhaps … More Outsider Theory, Ruggles of Red Gap, and unforgetting: On the unfinished, ongoing work of political and intellectual struggle.
BY MICHAEL SCHUMACHERExcerpt from The Contest: The 1968 Election and the War for America’s Soul***** A political campaign is a dehumanizing rite. Its only purpose is power, and tends to bring out the worst in men. Repetition, exhaustion, anxiety, and pressure must be endured cheerfully. Instincts have to be disguised. Sleep and privacy are elusive. … More "History is nothing if not a collection of antecedents, one leading to the next": Michael Schumacher on the 1968 election and the war for America’s soul.
BY JACK ZIPESUniversity of Minnesota I first came across Pyotr Yershov’s fairy-tale poem, The Little Humpbacked Horse, when I was preparing my fairy-tale postcards for publication in my book Tales of Wonder. Among the Russian postcards in my collection, I kept finding cards illustrating The Little Humpbacked Horse by different gifted artists, often with short texts … More Jack Zipes: "Fairy tales evolve and spread in strange ways."
David ParisiAssociate Professor of Emerging Media, College of Charleston——-Preceded by Part I.——- Historicizing Haptic Hype Also in 2018, amidst the billowing excitement over the latest wave of haptic devices and the growing anticipation for Ready Player One, I published Archaeologies of Touch: Interfacing with Haptics from Electricity to Computing, where I explicitly attempt to provide … More 2018: The Year of Haptics? (Part II of II)
David ParisiAssociate Professor of Emerging Media, College of Charleston Based on popular press accounts, 2018 has been the year when haptics technology finally hit it big: by featuring haptics tech prominently in its depiction of a fully embodied virtual reality, Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One—an adaption of Ernst Cline’s 2011 novel of the same title—sparked … More 2018: The Year of Haptics? (Part I of II)
BY PATRICIA TICINETO CLOUGHProfessor of sociology and women’s studies at the Graduate Center and Queens College, City University of New York Following the publication of The User Unconscious, I had the occasion to revisit Donna Haraway’s “Cyborg Manifesto” and found myself challenged to articulate the relevant differences between what is proposed in The User Unconscious … More Patricia Ticineto Clough: Why the cyborg can no longer be a figure of either politics or ontology.
In May 2018, students in Prof. Lorena Muñoz’s University of Minnesota graduate seminar “GWSS 8620: Geographies of Sexualities and Race: Economies, (Im)Migrations, and Borders” read and discussed David K. Seitz’s book, A House of Prayer for All People: Contesting Citizenship in a Queer Church. Prof. Muñoz’s seminar taught first monographs to help demystify the transition from … More On constitutive contradictions, LGBT citizenship, and the church.
BY JOHN HULTGRENBennington College Academics are typically tasked with giving complex accounts of complex situations. We specialize in stories of nuance, where power operates with such subtlety that its movement through the social body requires explaining and unmasking. Simple explanations are to be suspect, as are prescriptions for immediate action. There are moments, however, when … More Children. Before. Borders.
