Category Archives: Uncategorized

Machete Event: Friday, March 10

maar-picasso-guernica-smaller-e1488822534557Machete: Art in Times of Political Crisis

What can–or should be–the role of artistic practice in situations of political crisis? How are we to best understand and theoretically explicate the political contributions of the cultural world? To address these and related questions, the Machete Group proposes to explore a trans-cultural constellation of flashpoints in the global struggle of the arts:

-Participatory art in Latin America that merges with left social movements and works to denounce state and economic terrorism.

– The international political economy surrounding Guernica and the struggle against Nazism, which challenges the well-known critique of Picasso’s political impotence developed by Sartre and Adorno

– Omid Shekari’s paintings that embody an Iranian gaze that confronts Western viewers with the harsh realities of conflicts within the Middle East that have been sublimated and distorted by mainstream media.

Join Machete members David Dempewolf, Sebastien Derenoncourt, Jennifer Ponce de León, Gabriel Rockhill and Yuka Yokoyama for a challenging collective discussion concerning the role of cultural producers in the darkest of political times.

Friday, 10 March 2017, Marginal Utility Gallery, Philadelphia, 7:00-9:00pm. For more information, and to download the pre-circulated texts, click here.

Arabic Translation of Article on CIA and French Theory

A special thanks to Rubee Talal for publishing an arabic translation of significant parts of my article “The CIA Reads French Theory.” Click here to read it.

Update: a complete arabic translation of the article is now available here.

Texto sobre mi artículo “La CIA lee la teoría francesa”

Muchas gracias a Héctor Meléndez por este texto sobre mi artículo “La CIA lee la teoría francesa.” Haga clic aquí para leer.

Article on CIA Reading French Theory


My latest article, “The CIA Reads French Theory: On the Intellectual Labor of Dismantling the Cultural Left,” was just published in the LA Review of Book’s “The Philosophical Salon.” Click here to read in full.

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Excerpt: “While other tentacles of the worldwide spy organization were involved in overthrowing democratically elected leaders, providing intelligence and funding to fascist dictators, and supporting right-wing death squads, the Parisian central intelligentsia squadron was collecting data on how the theoretical world’s drift to the right directly benefitted US foreign policy. […read more]”

Parution de “Contre-histoire du temps présent”

41ch4pig7bl-_sx316_bo1204203200_Je suis ravi de pouvoir annoncer la parution de mon prochain livre, Contre-histoire du temps présent : interrogations intempestives sur la mondialisation, la technologie, la démocratie, chez CNRS Editions. Voici la quatrième de couverture :

« Il est communément admis que nous vivrions une ère mondiale où un réseau économique et technologique relie toujours davantage les quatre coins du globe et où la démocratie s’impose comme la condition nécessaire de la vie politique. Pourtant, cette image d’un âge global aussi avancé que civilisé est loin d’aller de soi ou d’être anodine. Enracinée dans un champ de forces sociopolitiques et économiques, elle sert souvent de véhicule clandestin pour des projets redoutables. Une telle vision du temps présent, ainsi que l’imaginaire historique et politique qui l’a produite, demandent à être interrogés, en particulier les concepts clés de mondialisation, technologie et démocratie. Et ceci non point pour présenter une description alternative de notre époque à partir des mêmes phénomènes de base mais pour développer une contre-histoire visant à reconfigurer le possible historique. Tenter d’ouvrir une brèche pour participer à un véritable futur, autre que celui qui s’impose à nous, en nous enfermant dans le destin intransigeant d’un avenir à subir, tel est l’objet de ce livre. »

Article in the New York Times

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My latest piece, “Unraveling Love Stories,” was just published here in The New York Times. I am very pleased to have had the opportunity to collaborate again with Peter Catapano and Simon Critchley for The Stone.

Excerpt: “A crisis is a crack in the code. It can occur when everything laid out for you, and all of the things that you have half-wittingly accepted, meet a desire to be something more than the skeletal image of your own dead dreams […read more].”

APA Blog Feature on Latest Book

Interventions_Cover

 

The feature published here on the APA blog provides a concise overview of some of the fundamental stakes, claims and concerns in my most recent book, Interventions in Contemporary Thought: History, Politics, Aesthetics (Edinburgh University Press, 2016).

The book was published in hardback in the fall, and a paperback edition will be coming out in the spring.

Sortie du prochain livre le 16 février

Mon prochain ouvrage, Contre-histoire du temps présent. Interrogations intempestives sur la mondialisation, la technologie, la démocratie, sera publié le 16 février 2017 par CNRS Éditions. Il est annoncé ici sur le site de la FNAC et ici sur amazon.fr.

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Persian Translation of Article on Trump Resistance

A Persian translation, by Rahman Bouzari, of my op-ed in Counterpunch “What Is to Be Done When Empire Is Trumped?” was published recently in Shargh Newspaper.

 

Machete Redux Event in Philly 12/10

ANNOUNCEMENT
Machete Redux: Art, Theory, Politics in the Present

This is not a time to bury the hatchet. It is a time to dig up a machete. After years underground and various experiments and metamorphoses, the Machete Group has decided to see what it would be like to come back in full force by staging a series of collective, interactive symposia.

71-7136-escm100zAn intellectual hothouse that is as much an artistic workshop as an underground political cell in the making, Machete is a collective whose borders have always been uncertain but whose exigencies have consistently sought to recuperate the meaning of cutting edge from its vacuous appropriations by consumer society and the culture industry.

To engage in a collective, confrontational and uncomfortable conversation that seeks to rethink the state and stakes of contemporary art, theory and political praxis, join us on Saturday Dec. 10 from 7-9 p.m. at Marginal Utility Gallery. We will use the constellation of artifacts available on Marginal Utility’s website to begin a discussion concerning how we can make sense of—and intervene in—the present. Participants in the conversation will include, but nowise be limited to, Avi Alpert, David Dempewolf, Sebastien Derenoncourt, Gabriel Rockhill and Yuka Yokoyama.