5:30pm, December 5, Melbourne
Who is afraid of decoloniality? Knowledge, Language and Culture as India’s new battlegrounds.
Professor Ira Raja (University of Delhi) joins us to discuss the risks of romanticising indigenous cultures while ignoring the internal hierarchies within colonized societies.
by Brendon O’Connor
The challenge ahead for the Democrats is the question of how the best aspects of the Harris campaign, with its multiracial openness and pro-women’s rights agenda, can be incorporated into a more Left-wing Democratic Party. The crushing defeat for Harris is an opportunity for the Democrats to develop policies that offer real solutions to America’s many social and economic problems.
Estelle Ferrarese, The Fragility of Concern for Others: Adorno and the Ethics of Care (Edinburgh University Press, 2021)
Reviewed by Howard Prosser
The Oxford World History of Empire (Oxford University Press, 2021)
Reviewed by Krishan Kumar
Contributors: Domonkos Sik, Mathew Abbott, Nikos Nikoletos, Fabian Cabaluz, Tomás Torres López, Harry Blatterer, Panu Minkkinen, Peter Beilharz and Frédéric Vandenberghe
by Rjurik Davidson
The King is dead, long live the King!” This ancient French phrase, dating to at least the Fifteenth Century, is the kind that might have set Fredric Jameson on one of his extended, languorous, alternately dense and playful, intellectually demanding examinations. Marxism’s preeminent cultural critic for more than fifty years, Jameson was the foremost proponent of dialectical thought, in which two seemingly contradictory phenomena were shown to be united by some underlying logic.
by Andrew Milner
Fredric Jameson died on 22 September 2024, aged 90, at his home in Killingworth, Connecticut.
I once met Edward Said early on in my Phd candidature. I told him about my research and he extolled the virtues of John Berger, but then added: “Whatever you do, just don’t go to visit him there. There are pigs and shit everywhere.” I said, “it sounds like my father’s village.” It was not a turn off to me. Once I got there, I didn’t see any pigs. The pig sty was empty. It later became a storeroom for all the books that John published. John, himself did not even keep copies of his books.
by Peter Beilharz
Transatlantic bluesman John Mayall died in California July 24 2024. He was ninety.
What’s the fuss? The record is well enough known. Mayall was a player, musical organiser, entrepreneur and publicist for blues music over six decades. He was champion of JB Lenoir, Sonny Boy Williamson 2, and Elmore James, all of whom he wrote songs for; the Kings, especially Albert and Freddie; Otis Rush and Spann. He was the platform provider for a bevy of brilliant guitar talent, Clapton, Green, Taylor, later Mandel, Trout etc. etc
by John Lechte
This year, 2024, marks the 50th anniversary of the original French edition Julia Kristeva’s epoch-making volume, La Révolution du langage poétique. L’avant-garde à la fin du XIXe siècle: Lautréamont et Mallarmé (1974) (Revolution in Poetic Language. The Avant-Garde at the End of the XIXth Century: Lauréamont and Mallarmé). The work was originally defended in 1973 in Paris as a doctorat d’état ès lettres. On the panel were Jean-Claude Chevalier (supervisor), Henri Lefèbvre, Pierre Albouy and Roland Barthes. The thesis was awarded the highest honour: mention très bien avec félicitations du jury.
thesis eleven 