2009-04-29
2009-04-28
2009-04-18
Community Garden Workday
The Garden workday is from 1-3pm on Sunday. Wear clothes you can work in and don't mind getting dirty.
The Community Garden is a student-led project that is attempting to increase the amount of organic produce that students consume on campus. We are currently building the garden; it's located on a small patch of land behind the Freeman center. It's not finished yet, but we're trying to get plants in the ground quickly. We're currently finishing some raised beds, digging a terrace, and erecting a fence; that's probably what we'll work on tomorrow.
To reach the Smart Home from East campus, drive down Campus Drive for about two minutes and take a right on Swift Avenue. Take another right on Faber Street.
To reach the Smart Home from Broad Street, Drive to the South end where it becomes Swift Avenue. Then take a left on Faber street.
The Community Garden is a student-led project that is attempting to increase the amount of organic produce that students consume on campus. We are currently building the garden; it's located on a small patch of land behind the Freeman center. It's not finished yet, but we're trying to get plants in the ground quickly. We're currently finishing some raised beds, digging a terrace, and erecting a fence; that's probably what we'll work on tomorrow.
To reach the Smart Home from East campus, drive down Campus Drive for about two minutes and take a right on Swift Avenue. Take another right on Faber Street.
To reach the Smart Home from Broad Street, Drive to the South end where it becomes Swift Avenue. Then take a left on Faber street.
2009-04-17
Day of Silence
Hi folks, today's the day of silence. It's a day when participants are silent "in recognition of those who are forced to be silent due to anti-LGBT bullying and violence." You can choose what media you choose to be silent in and how long you choose to be silent. If you'd like to participate in the protest, just pick up a button from the BC Plaza so people will know what you're doing. Otherwise, just pick a length of time and see what social effects emerge from your being silent.
2009-04-14
Event: Buy Me
BUY ME!
an anti-capitalist cavalcade| Host: | The Performance Collective |
| Type: | |
| Network: | Global |
| Date: | Friday, April 17, 2009 |
| Time: | 5:00pm - 11:00pm |
| Location: | Swain |
| Phone: | 9199634944 |
Description
A brilliant mostly non-narrative performance of resistance and obsession.Come enjoy many moments of heartbreaking beauty as the culmination of our class.
Swain Studio Six
Friday April 17 @ 5 and 8
Event: Love Art Laboratory
*This event is ***FREE*** and open to the public*
ADVENTURES OF THE LOVE ART LABORATORY
With Annie Sprinkle and Elizabeth Stephens
‘We, Elizabeth M. Stephens and Annie Sprinkle, are an artist couple committed to doing projects that explore, generate, and celebrate love. We utilize visual art, installation, theater pieces, interventions, live-art, exhibitions, lectures, printed matter and activism. Each year we orchestrate one or more interactive performance art weddings in
collaboration with various national and international communities, then display the ephemera in art galleries.
Our projects incorporate the colors and themes of the chakras, a structure inspired by Linda M. Montano’s 14 Years of Living Art. The Love Art Laboratory grew out of our response to the violence of war, the anti-gay marriage movement, and our prevailing culture of cynicism. We hope the Love Art Laboratory will help make the world a more fun, sexy, tolerant, love- filled place.
Love is the new sex! We hope you will join us for a show and tell afternoon."
Annie Sprinkle, Ph.D. is an artist and sexologist.
Elizabeth Stephens a professor of art and is the Chair of the Art Dept. at UCSC.
2009-04-11
2009-04-08
XCO SOCIAL METHODS / WEEK #1 / 090406-090413 / PROPOSED
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XCO SOCIAL METHODS / WEEK #1 / 090406-090413 / PROPOSED
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To be applied in experimental, individual, or coordinated fashion at confirmed XCO SITUATIONS for this week
We discussed these in class, but bring a camera and/or pointed ears to document and later represent what you/we were all doing and then post it on the blog and share with others
XCO SOCIAL METHODS / WEEK #1 / 090406-090413 / PROPOSED
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To be applied in experimental, individual, or coordinated fashion at confirmed XCO SITUATIONS for this week
We discussed these in class, but bring a camera and/or pointed ears to document and later represent what you/we were all doing and then post it on the blog and share with others
XCO SITUATIONS / WEEK #1 / 090406-090413
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XCO SITUATIONS / WEEK #1 / 090406-090413
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More information for the other weeks will follow soon, but I did not want to delay sending this.
I am also working on having a joint google.calendar platform ready soon that will help us coordinate all these events and ideas
Remember that we are still meeting every Tue at 2:50pm but for a much shorter time (2:50pm-3:30pm) mostly to coordinate each week's ideas for events and social methods, actions, and contextual experiments.
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Confirmed SITUATIONS for us to play out our SOCIAL METHODS this week will be:
WEEK #1
090406-090413
Mandatory
090408 - Wed 10-11pm
Jazz at the Mary Lou Williams Center
http://experimentalcommunities.blogspot.com/2009/04/playing-jazz-at-mary-lou-williams.html
We will also return on Wed 090414, 10-11pm
Mandatory
090409 - Thu 1-3pm
The Commons Conference: Negri & Balibar at Nasher Museum
if you cannot make it to that, go to at least 2hrs of any other part of the 2 day conference and be ready to talk/do something about it. I'll be there for all parts of both days.
Full info here:
http://experimentalcommunities.blogspot.com/2009/03/xco-events-09040910negribalibarothersth.html
Not Mandatory but Almost
090410 - Fri 6:30-7:30pm (time we'll be there, the reception goes from 6 to 9pm)
Classmate Cameron Ayres' exhibition reception at Arts Center in Carrboro
http://experimentalcommunities.blogspot.com/2009/04/invite-reception-for-my-stuff.html
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XCO SITUATIONS / WEEK #1 / 090406-090413
--------------------------------------------------------
More information for the other weeks will follow soon, but I did not want to delay sending this.
I am also working on having a joint google.calendar platform ready soon that will help us coordinate all these events and ideas
Remember that we are still meeting every Tue at 2:50pm but for a much shorter time (2:50pm-3:30pm) mostly to coordinate each week's ideas for events and social methods, actions, and contextual experiments.
--------------------------------------------------------
Confirmed SITUATIONS for us to play out our SOCIAL METHODS this week will be:
WEEK #1
090406-090413
Mandatory
090408 - Wed 10-11pm
Jazz at the Mary Lou Williams Center
http://experimentalcommunities.blogspot.com/2009/04/playing-jazz-at-mary-lou-williams.html
We will also return on Wed 090414, 10-11pm
Mandatory
090409 - Thu 1-3pm
The Commons Conference: Negri & Balibar at Nasher Museum
if you cannot make it to that, go to at least 2hrs of any other part of the 2 day conference and be ready to talk/do something about it. I'll be there for all parts of both days.
Full info here:
http://experimentalcommunities.blogspot.com/2009/03/xco-events-09040910negribalibarothersth.html
Not Mandatory but Almost
090410 - Fri 6:30-7:30pm (time we'll be there, the reception goes from 6 to 9pm)
Classmate Cameron Ayres' exhibition reception at Arts Center in Carrboro
http://experimentalcommunities.blogspot.com/2009/04/invite-reception-for-my-stuff.html
--------------------------------------------------------
XCO EVENTS 090413/YAMILA GUTIÉRREZ CALLISAYA/TOWARD THE COMMUNAL(THE CONSTITUTION OF THE BOLIVIAN STATE AND A THE DECOLONIAL RE-CONSTITUTION OF AYLLUS
Modernity/Coloniality and the Geopolitics of Knowledge Working Group
UNC-Duke Consortium in Latin American Studies invite you to
A WORKSHOP WITH
YAMILA GUTIÉRREZ CALLISAYA
CONSEJO NACIONAL DE AYLLUS Y MARKAS DEL QULLASUYU (CONAMAQ), LA PAZ, BOLIVIA
ON
TOWARD THE COMMUNAL
(THE CONSTITUTION OF THE BOLIVIAN STATE AND A THE DECOLONIAL RE-CONSTITUTION OF THE AYLLUS)
The workshop will be conducted in Spanish and coordinated by Marcelo Fernández-Osco (Department of Romance Studies, co-founder of THOA, Taller Historia Oral Andina)
Monday, April 13, 2009
5,45 pm to 8 pm
Friedl Building 225A (East Campus, right by the bus stop; parking available at the entrance on Buchanan and Trinity)
Light dinner will be served.
Noam Chomsky describes Bolivia as the most democratic country on earth at this point. Yamila Gutierrez will describe the crucial role that the re-constitution of the Ayllus is playing in this process and the role of the Ayllus in redoing political theory and political economy (e.g., the re-conceptualization of “the communal”), working toward de-colonial democratic futures. We are allowing ample time for debate and exchange of ideas.
For more information about CONAMAQ see http://www.conamaq.org.bo/
UNC-Duke Consortium in Latin American Studies invite you to
A WORKSHOP WITH
YAMILA GUTIÉRREZ CALLISAYA
CONSEJO NACIONAL DE AYLLUS Y MARKAS DEL QULLASUYU (CONAMAQ), LA PAZ, BOLIVIA
ON
TOWARD THE COMMUNAL
(THE CONSTITUTION OF THE BOLIVIAN STATE AND A THE DECOLONIAL RE-CONSTITUTION OF THE AYLLUS)
The workshop will be conducted in Spanish and coordinated by Marcelo Fernández-Osco (Department of Romance Studies, co-founder of THOA, Taller Historia Oral Andina)
Monday, April 13, 2009
5,45 pm to 8 pm
Friedl Building 225A (East Campus, right by the bus stop; parking available at the entrance on Buchanan and Trinity)
Light dinner will be served.
Noam Chomsky describes Bolivia as the most democratic country on earth at this point. Yamila Gutierrez will describe the crucial role that the re-constitution of the Ayllus is playing in this process and the role of the Ayllus in redoing political theory and political economy (e.g., the re-conceptualization of “the communal”), working toward de-colonial democratic futures. We are allowing ample time for debate and exchange of ideas.
For more information about CONAMAQ see http://www.conamaq.org.bo/
2009-04-07
PLAYING: Jazz at the Mary Lou Williams Center
Join us at the Mary Lou Williams Center for a Wednesday night tradition featuring Professor John Brown and his trio. Come enjoy free late-night snacks, bring your drink over from the Faculty Commons bar next door and listen to the sounds of jazz in the cool setting of the Mary Lou.
Co-sponsored by Duke University Union and the Mary Lou Williams Center for Black Culture
Where: Mary Lou Williams Center (above The Loop in the West Union Building; enter through the door under the archway between the plaza and quad and walk up one flight of stairs)
When: 9:30pm - 12:30am
Co-sponsored by Duke University Union and the Mary Lou Williams Center for Black Culture
Where: Mary Lou Williams Center (above The Loop in the West Union Building; enter through the door under the archway between the plaza and quad and walk up one flight of stairs)
When: 9:30pm - 12:30am
2009-04-05
Invite: Reception for my stuff
So, the reception is this Friday, April 10th from 6-9 at the ArtsCenter in Carrboro. Hope you guys can swing by.
Invitation: Muslims of Metropolis Reading
Hey fellow Experimental Communitarians,
My very dear friend Kavitha Rajagopalan is coming to town this week to read from her book, Muslims of Metropolis, at Internationalist books - this Wednesday at 7. If you can make it, I promise it will be worth it. I'm reading the book as we speak and am utterly fascinated, and Kavi herself is brilliant, beautiful and a hell of a lot of fun.
Rather than attempt a mini-précis, I decided to beg, borrow and steal from the dust jacket. Here's some info on the book:
Muslims of Metropolis: The Stories of Three Immigrant Families in the West
"Through the microcosm of three Muslim families in Western cities, Kavitha Rajagopalan makes legible features of international migration easily obscured by questions of religion and racism. She brings to life socio-cultural alignments in the larger story of globalization that in turn illuminate those thick microcosms. This is one of the most interesting accounts I have read about the subject." - Saskia Sassen
Bio Blurb:
Kavitha Rajagopalan has worked in international development and finance, and as a journalist in India, Germany and the United States. She is a senior fellow at the World Policy Institute.
Dust Jacket synopsis:
The Muslim population globally is comprised of hundreds of ethnic, linguistic, and religious sub-communities. Yet, more often than not, the public confuses these diverse and unrelated communities, branding Muslim immigrants as a single, suspicious, and culturally antagonistic group of people. Generalizations like these have compromised many Muslim immigrants' sense of belonging and acceptance in places where they have lived, in some cases, for three or four generations.
In Muslims of Metropolis, Kavitha Rajagopalan takes a much needed step in personalizing and humanizing our understanding of the Muslim diaspora. Tracing the stories of three very different families - a Palestinian family moving to London, a Kurdish family moving to Berlin, and a Bangladeshi family moving to New York - she reveals a level of complexity and nuance that is seldom considered. Through their voices and in their words, Rajagopalan describes what prompted these families to leave home, what challenges they faced in adjusting to their new lives, and how they came to view their place in society. Interviews with community leaders, social justice organizations and with academics and experts in each of the countries add additional layers of insight to how broad political issues, like nationalist conflict, immigration reform, and antiterrorism strategies affect the lives of Muslims who migrate in search of economic and personal happiness.
Although recent thinking about immigration policy in the United States and Europe emphasizes the importance of long-term integration, a global attitude that continues to sensationalize divisions between Muslim and other communities thwarts this possibility. Integration cannot occur with policy situations alone - people must feel that they belong to a larger society. Whether read as simple stories or broader narratives, the voices in this revealing book are among the many speaking against the generalization, prejudice, and fear that has so far surrounded Muslims living in the West.
My very dear friend Kavitha Rajagopalan is coming to town this week to read from her book, Muslims of Metropolis, at Internationalist books - this Wednesday at 7. If you can make it, I promise it will be worth it. I'm reading the book as we speak and am utterly fascinated, and Kavi herself is brilliant, beautiful and a hell of a lot of fun.
Rather than attempt a mini-précis, I decided to beg, borrow and steal from the dust jacket. Here's some info on the book:
Muslims of Metropolis: The Stories of Three Immigrant Families in the West
"Through the microcosm of three Muslim families in Western cities, Kavitha Rajagopalan makes legible features of international migration easily obscured by questions of religion and racism. She brings to life socio-cultural alignments in the larger story of globalization that in turn illuminate those thick microcosms. This is one of the most interesting accounts I have read about the subject." - Saskia Sassen
Bio Blurb:
Kavitha Rajagopalan has worked in international development and finance, and as a journalist in India, Germany and the United States. She is a senior fellow at the World Policy Institute.
Dust Jacket synopsis:
The Muslim population globally is comprised of hundreds of ethnic, linguistic, and religious sub-communities. Yet, more often than not, the public confuses these diverse and unrelated communities, branding Muslim immigrants as a single, suspicious, and culturally antagonistic group of people. Generalizations like these have compromised many Muslim immigrants' sense of belonging and acceptance in places where they have lived, in some cases, for three or four generations.
In Muslims of Metropolis, Kavitha Rajagopalan takes a much needed step in personalizing and humanizing our understanding of the Muslim diaspora. Tracing the stories of three very different families - a Palestinian family moving to London, a Kurdish family moving to Berlin, and a Bangladeshi family moving to New York - she reveals a level of complexity and nuance that is seldom considered. Through their voices and in their words, Rajagopalan describes what prompted these families to leave home, what challenges they faced in adjusting to their new lives, and how they came to view their place in society. Interviews with community leaders, social justice organizations and with academics and experts in each of the countries add additional layers of insight to how broad political issues, like nationalist conflict, immigration reform, and antiterrorism strategies affect the lives of Muslims who migrate in search of economic and personal happiness.
Although recent thinking about immigration policy in the United States and Europe emphasizes the importance of long-term integration, a global attitude that continues to sensationalize divisions between Muslim and other communities thwarts this possibility. Integration cannot occur with policy situations alone - people must feel that they belong to a larger society. Whether read as simple stories or broader narratives, the voices in this revealing book are among the many speaking against the generalization, prejudice, and fear that has so far surrounded Muslims living in the West.
2009-04-03
Proposal: Walking - turn left
I can't find her original text, but there's a Yoko Ono instruction piece where you walk until you have to turn, and then always make a left. I thought we might incorporate some sort of instructional (directional?) parameter on our walking day.
2009-03-31
PHOTOGRAPHY: Wendy Ewald and Brett Cook
Wendy Ewald (left) and Brett Cook (right)
Learning from two artists, collaborators, and community organizers
PROPOSAL: Playing
Hot seat (one person is in the 'hot seat' and we ask them any question we want...they don't necessarily have to answer...this could be played in the car!)
Campfire + songs
Name game (everyone puts a fake name [can be famous or just a random name] into a bowl and there is a process by which we attempt to guess who wrote what name)
Campfire + songs
Name game (everyone puts a fake name [can be famous or just a random name] into a bowl and there is a process by which we attempt to guess who wrote what name)
PROPOSAL: Giving
Painting the graffiti bridge.
Skill sharing workshop (get together and share one skill we each have).
Skill sharing workshop (get together and share one skill we each have).
PROPOSAL: Playing
We should cook a meal and eat together while listening to a CD that each of us has burned of music from our own collections.
PROPOSAL: Playing
We should rent bikes from Duke Bikes and do a bike tour of an area of Durham we want to know more about.
PROPOSAL: Playing
Doing "work". Outside. While we talk about our experience out loud. Duke Community Garden?
PRESENTATION: Obedience and Milgram
Stanley Milgram's (Yale University psychologist) experiment with obedience can be described as follows: There are three individuals involved--the teacher, the learner, and the experimenter. The teacher is teaching the learner a set of words and, if the learner gets something wrong, the teacher has been instructed (and encouraged) by the experimenter to give the learner a shock. The shock treatment increases with every answer the learner gets wrong. The teacher was the only one who did not know what was going on in this experiment. The learner and experimenter were actors and the shocks were simulated.
Though some teachers stopped after a certain shock level or after the learner was shocked to the point of being unconscious, many of the teachers actually went on. Milgram wanted to experiment with people's willingness to obey an authority figure.
I think these experiments are extremely interesting and disturbing. We all believe that we, ourselves, would never take part in such horrible actions but Milgram's experiments show that human nature is a lot more universal than we thought.
http://www3.niu.edu/acad/psych/Millis/History/2003/stanley_milgram.htm
Though some teachers stopped after a certain shock level or after the learner was shocked to the point of being unconscious, many of the teachers actually went on. Milgram wanted to experiment with people's willingness to obey an authority figure.
I think these experiments are extremely interesting and disturbing. We all believe that we, ourselves, would never take part in such horrible actions but Milgram's experiments show that human nature is a lot more universal than we thought.
http://www3.niu.edu/acad/psych/Millis/History/2003/stanley_milgram.htm
Presentation: Milgram Experiments
The Milgram experiments were designed by Stanley Milgram and began in 1961. They intended to answer the question as to whether it was possible that Nazi subordinates who killed and tortured were simply following orders. Thus, the experiment examines the effects of an authority figure giving instructions that conflict with individual consciences. The experiment was designed so that there was a teacher, learner and experimenter. The learner and experiment were separated by a wall and unable to see each other. The teacher was to attempt to teach word-pairs to the learner. He would read a list of word-pairs, then state the first word of a pair and give the learner four options. If the learner guessed wrong, the teacher was instructed to electrocute the learner with a shock, which he had sampled earlier. The teacher would hear screams from the learner, who supposedly had a heart condition. In reality, there were no shocks, the screams were pre-recorded, and the learner was always the same person. The voltage level would gradually increase, and the learner would bang on the wall and complain about his heart condition. Eventually, all responses form the learner stopped.
If the teacher ever wanted to stop the experiment, the experimenter would give four verbal prods:
1. Please continue.
2. The experiment requires that you continue.
3. It is absolutely essential that you continue.
4. You have no other choice, you must go on.
If he continued to try to quit after the fourth prompt, he would be allowed to go. Otherwise, the experiment would only end after three maximum-voltage (450 volts) shocks had been administered. 65% of the teachers reached this point. Locations were varied, but the rate of completion remained from 61-66%. Completion was maximized when the experimenter was there in person but not touching the teacher. This experiment raised considerable concerns about experimental ethics, given the undue stress placed on the teachers, but also revealed the ability of a human to inflict pain without consideration, given only an order.
Several theories used to explain the results are:
• The theory of conformism, based on Solomon Asch's work, describing the fundamental relationship between the group of reference and the individual person. A subject who has neither ability nor expertise to make decisions, especially in a crisis, will leave decision making to the group and its hierarchy. The group is the person's behavioral model.
• The agentic state theory, wherein, per Milgram, the essence of obedience consists in the fact that a person comes to view himself as the instrument for carrying out another person's wishes, and he therefore no longer sees himself as responsible for his actions. Once this critical shift of viewpoint has occurred in the person, all of the essential features of obedience follow.
Proposal: Giving/Recieving/Exchanging
I heard about a group of guys who stood out on busy street on some college campus and yelled complements at people passing by. We should do the same.
Presentation: Stanford prison experiment
The Stanford prison experiment was a small-scale simulation of a prison environment, where 24 college males were selected to play either the role of a prison guard or an inmate. Philip Zimbardo organized the experiment with the hope of proving that sadistic tendencies in prison could be traced back to personality traits. After a relatively tame first day, a riot broke out on the second day, after which the actors of either role began to deeply absorb their new identities. Prisoners, when given the opportunity to leave, would remain in the mock jail. Guards became increasingly sadistic and worked together to humiliate the prisoners. For example, the guards simulated homosexual sex with some of the prisoners, forced some to sleep on the concrete floor, forced others to give up their mattresses to free an inmate in solitary confinement, and removed the waste buckets from some of the cells, causing conditions to rapidly deteriorate. After a visiting graduate student called attention to the poor conditions of the experiment, it was shut down after only 6 days instead of the original intended 14.
The experiment has been criticized on a number of grounds, particularly the deterministic nature of the roles. Individuals tended to conform to roles based on hat was expected of them; for example, one of the guards imitated the warden from Cool Hand Luke. Also, language used to describe the experiment may have primed the behavior of the participants, as the setting of the prison likely did as well. Criticisms published in several leading psychology journals challenged the experiment’s conclusions that people slip mindlessly into roles and points out the importance of a leader, in this case, Zimbardo, in the development of tyranny, thus suggesting that Zimbardo’s briefing of the guards also primed them for sadistic action.
Proposal: Giving/Recieving/Exchanging - A Secret
Exchange with the person next to you something that you've never told anyone else.
Proposal: Giving/Recieving/Exchanging - Joseph Cornell
Joseph Cornell's boxes (assemblages) were conceived as gifts, often for people he admired from afar - a 19th century ballerina for instance - or Lauren Bacall, a Medici. I don't have a specific proposal, but I like the idea of surreal gifting.
Proposal: Playing - Streets of Southpoint
Those fountains with the fake children are just begging to be played in.
Proposal: Playing - The Plastic Ono Bowl
I've had a fantasy recently of getting a bunch of people dressed as either John Lennon or Yoko Ono to go out bowling.
2009-03-30
XCO EVENTS 090409+10/Negri+Balibar+Others/The Common & Forms of the Commune:Alternative Social Imaginaries
Event: Symposium | The Common & the Forms of the Commune
"Featuring Public Conversation w/ Etienne Balibar & Antonio Negri"
What: Lecture
Host: Franklin Humanities Institute
Start Time: Thursday, April 9 at 1:00pm
End Time: Friday, April 10 at 5:00pm
Where: Nasher Museum (Apr 9) & East Duke Parlor (Apr 10)
The Common & Forms of the Commune:
Alternative Social Imaginaries
Thursday April 9, 2009 - Nasher Museum Auitorium
1:00-3:00 PM
ON THE COMMON, UNIVERSALITY AND COMMUNISM
A conversation between Étienne Balibar and Antonio Negri
3:30-5:15 PM
THE COMMON AND ITS PRODUCTION
- The Common in Communism
Michael Hardt, Duke University
- The Institutions of the Common
Gigi Roggero, Universita Di Bologna
- Discussants: Pedro Lasch, Duke University & Aras Özgün, New School
===
Friday April 10, 2009 - East Duke Parlor
10:30 AM - 12:15 PM
THE COMMON AND COMMODITY FETISHISM
- Socialism, Community, and Democracy
David Ruccio, Notre Dame and Antonio Callari, Franklin and Marshall College
- The Common without Copies
Debora Jenson, Duke University
- Discussant: Federico Luisetti, UNC-Chapel Hill
1:15 - 3:00 PM
“MODES” OF COMMUNITY
- Engendering Feudalism: Modes of Production Revisited
S. Charusheela, University of Nevada-LasVegas
- Producing Solidarity
Ken Surin, Duke University
- Discussant
Kathi Weeks, Duke University
3:15 - 5:00 PM
DIFFERENCE IN COMMON
- Translating Difference and the Common
Anna Curcio, Duke University
- Subjectivity and the Forms of the Commune
Ceren Özselçuk, Duke University and Yahya Madra, Gettysburg College
- Discussant: Alvaro Reyes, Duke University
"Featuring Public Conversation w/ Etienne Balibar & Antonio Negri"
What: Lecture
Host: Franklin Humanities Institute
Start Time: Thursday, April 9 at 1:00pm
End Time: Friday, April 10 at 5:00pm
Where: Nasher Museum (Apr 9) & East Duke Parlor (Apr 10)
The Common & Forms of the Commune:
Alternative Social Imaginaries
Thursday April 9, 2009 - Nasher Museum Auitorium
1:00-3:00 PM
ON THE COMMON, UNIVERSALITY AND COMMUNISM
A conversation between Étienne Balibar and Antonio Negri
3:30-5:15 PM
THE COMMON AND ITS PRODUCTION
- The Common in Communism
Michael Hardt, Duke University
- The Institutions of the Common
Gigi Roggero, Universita Di Bologna
- Discussants: Pedro Lasch, Duke University & Aras Özgün, New School
===
Friday April 10, 2009 - East Duke Parlor
10:30 AM - 12:15 PM
THE COMMON AND COMMODITY FETISHISM
- Socialism, Community, and Democracy
David Ruccio, Notre Dame and Antonio Callari, Franklin and Marshall College
- The Common without Copies
Debora Jenson, Duke University
- Discussant: Federico Luisetti, UNC-Chapel Hill
1:15 - 3:00 PM
“MODES” OF COMMUNITY
- Engendering Feudalism: Modes of Production Revisited
S. Charusheela, University of Nevada-LasVegas
- Producing Solidarity
Ken Surin, Duke University
- Discussant
Kathi Weeks, Duke University
3:15 - 5:00 PM
DIFFERENCE IN COMMON
- Translating Difference and the Common
Anna Curcio, Duke University
- Subjectivity and the Forms of the Commune
Ceren Özselçuk, Duke University and Yahya Madra, Gettysburg College
- Discussant: Alvaro Reyes, Duke University
XCO EVENTS 090404/Angel Luis Lara at El Kilombo/INSTITUTIONS OF THE PROCOMMON AND THE WARS OF HARRY POTTER
INSTITUTIONS OF THE PROCOMMON AND THE WARS OF HARRY POTTER: CONFLICTS OF AUTONOMY IN THE GLOBAL CRISIS
Angel Luis Lara: international activist, sociologist at the Universidad Complutense in Madrid, and rock musician
Saturday, April 4, 2009
5:00pm, at El Kilombo Social Center
324 West Geer Street, Durham NC 27701
(919) 688-8768
Directions can be found at:
http://www.elkilombo.org/about/about-directions.php
**Event will be in Spanish, with translation into English**
Please join us for the fourth and final segment of our Spring 2009 Speaker Series, where we conclude our investigations into the current crisis of capitalism. In our previous events, we discussed instantiations of the crisis in the struggle against gentrification, the attempt to reclaim a connection between artistic creativity and community building, and ever-growing movements for dignified life. We have arrived at the perspective that the real crisis of capitalism resides in the forms of life that overflow the existing geography of the institutional right and left. In his eccentric manner, Angel Luis Lara will look at specific examples of everyday practices that open paths to autonomy in his talk, “Institutions of the Procommon and the Wars of Harry Potter: Conflicts of Autonomy in the Global Crisis.”
Angel Luis Lara: international activist, sociologist at the Universidad Complutense in Madrid, and rock musician
Saturday, April 4, 2009
5:00pm, at El Kilombo Social Center
324 West Geer Street, Durham NC 27701
(919) 688-8768
Directions can be found at:
http://www.elkilombo.org/about/about-directions.php
**Event will be in Spanish, with translation into English**
Please join us for the fourth and final segment of our Spring 2009 Speaker Series, where we conclude our investigations into the current crisis of capitalism. In our previous events, we discussed instantiations of the crisis in the struggle against gentrification, the attempt to reclaim a connection between artistic creativity and community building, and ever-growing movements for dignified life. We have arrived at the perspective that the real crisis of capitalism resides in the forms of life that overflow the existing geography of the institutional right and left. In his eccentric manner, Angel Luis Lara will look at specific examples of everyday practices that open paths to autonomy in his talk, “Institutions of the Procommon and the Wars of Harry Potter: Conflicts of Autonomy in the Global Crisis.”
2009-03-28
Monochrome Landscape (Green)
Monochrome Landscape (Green) by Laura Kurgar intro by Yates McKee (p. 534)
I think Kurgar's projects adds a new demention to law and environmental regulation. My question is; to what extent can satellite
immagery be trusted and used as evidence of transgrassion in courts, as photographs can virtually seamlessly be faked
in photoshop and other programs of that kind? Who will be inchage of global environment surveillance, and how will it be funded?
How do we make sure that it is fair towards all, and that superpowers are not exceptions to the regulations inforced?
2009-03-24
Presentation: Beyond Freedom and Dignity by B. F. Skinner
Beyond Freedom and Dignity is a book written by American psychologist B. F. Skinner and first published in 1971. The book argues that entrenched belief in free will and the moral autonomy of the individual (which Skinner referred to as "dignity") hinders the prospect of using scientific methods to modify behavior for the purpose of building a happier and better organized society.
Beyond Freedom and Dignity may be summarized as an attempt to promote Skinner's philosophy of science, the technology of human behavior, his conception of determinism, and what Skinner calls 'cultural engineering'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_Freedom_and_Dignity#A_Technology_of_Behavior
Presentation: Walden Two by B. F. Skinner
"Walden Two (1948) is a utopian novel by behavioral psychologist B. F. Skinner, describing a small, thousand-person, rural planned community of happy, productive, and creative people. Planners and Managers govern a community requiring only four daily hours of work from each person, and that promotes the arts and applied scientific research. The community subscribe to a code of conduct based upon, and supported by, a behaviourism resembling that of author Skinner.
Walden Two challenges contemporary U.S. social conventions such as the value of modern education, the effectiveness of university professors, excessive work volume, and posits a planned economy, critical of inefficient capitalism. The community's government is not democratic; children are reared communally, outside the nuclear family, and loyalty to community, instead of parents, is encouraged. Childbearing is encouraged as soon as possible, in pursuit of a great growth policy, and eugenics are considered in possibly creating a Golden Age.
Walden Two is controversial for its rejection of democracy as effective government, viable socialist economy, an atheist society, the narrow range of available emotional expression, its appeal to dictators and to emulators of T.E. Frazier, the emotionally unstable protagonist. "
The plot
"Six visitors arrive at a thousand-person community then ten years old. A decade earlier, T.E. Frazier wrote an article asking people join him in founding a community based on philosopher H. D. Thoreau's ideas. Two soldiers, returned from the war, seek Frazier, and enlist Professor Burris's help; he finds and communicates with Frazier, then joins the visit to the community. Prof. Burris invites Prof. Augustine Castle, and, with the two soldiers, Rogers and Steve Jamnick, and their girlfriends, Mary Grove and Barbara Macklin, they visit Walden Two.
The story concerns the arguments among founder Frazier and Prof. Castle and Prof. Burris, which exposit the reasons for the community's structure, its past and its future.At story's end, one couple stay in the community, while the other visitors leave, however, in a sudden change of heart, Prof. Burris quits his university post and returns to the rural community."
Creating a "Walden Two in real life are detailed in Hilke Kuhlmann's Living Walden Two[10] and in Daniel W. Bjork's B.F.Skinner."
"Some of them include:
- 1955 In New Haven, Connecticut a group led by Arthur Gladstone tries to start a community.
- 1966 Waldenwoods conference is held in Hartland, Michigan, comprising 83 adults and 4 children, coordinated through the Breiland list (a list of interested people who wrote to Skinner and were referred to Jim Breiland).
- 1966 Matthew Israel forms the Association for Social Design(ASD), to promote a Walden Two, which soon finds chapters in Los Angeles, Albuquerque, and Washington, D.C..
- 1967 Israel's ASD forms the Morningside House in Arlington, Massachusetts.
- 1967 Twin Oaks Community (web site) is started in Lousia, Virginia.
- 1969 Keith Miller in Lawrence, Kansas founds a 'Walden house' student collective that becomes The Sunflower House 11.
- 1971 Roger Ulrich starts Lake Village in Michigan originally conceptualized as a 'scientific behaviorist experiment'.
- 1971 Los Horcones (web site), is started in Hermosillo, Mexico.
- 1972 Sunflower House 11 is (re)born in Lawrence, Kansas from the previous experiment.
- 1979 East Wind in south central Missouri.[12]
- 1998 Efforts by Mike Ray of Turlock, California, since 1998 to discuss and plan a community based on Walden Two. See his Walden Two web site."
- Bibliography:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walden_Two
http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/images/9780252029622.jpg
http://www.coverbrowser.com/image/bestselling-sci-fi-fantasy-2006/1128-1.jpg
PROPOSAL: GIVING/ RECEIVING/ EXCHANGING 2
We should make/bring each other food and exchange it and eat it.
PROPOSAL: WALKING 3
We should work in Durham again taking pictures similar to the exhibit we saw about a walk through Mexico City.
PROPOSAL: GIVING/ RECEIVING/ EXCHANGING 1
We should make each other postcards and exchange them in class!
2009-03-23
2009-03-17
Proposal/Walking: 1
Proposal/Walking: 1
We should walk from East Campus to West Campus taking pictures on our way. Similar to the exibit we saw that recorded the walk in Mexico City.
Proposal/Playing: 3
We should play different card games and in the process teach each other new card games. 
NONGOVERNMENTAL POLITICS:Dilemas of Home improvement
NONGOVERNMENTAL POLITICS: Dilemas of Home improvement: Can Clean Energy Technology Mediate Civic Involvement in Climate Change. (p. 368 by Noorje Marres)
Questions:
Why are we depending and relying so little on solar energy?
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