Post Election Message

Ralph Nader

First of all, thank you so very much to the thousands of volunteers, our
Corporate Crimebusters, State, Regional and Campus Coordinators, our valiant
staff here in Washington, DC, all of our generous donors and every one of
you who voted for Nader/Camejo 2004.

Well, it should now be clear to all: the Democratic Party cannot get the job
done against the worst Republicans in a long time. So much time and money
was spent by the Democrats, only to push a message that ultimately said,
"Don't vote for George W. Bush." It's a shame.

If losing to George W. Bush
isn't the breaking point for Democrats who have been fed up for years by the
leadership in their party, then I can't imagine the indignities that they
are further willing to endure.

New Cultural Studies: Adventures in Theory

Call for Contributions

Edited by Clare Birchall and Gary Hall

Contracted by Edinburgh University Press

Brief Description

New Cultural Studies: Adventures in Theory is intended as an
authoritative guide to theory's past, present and most especially future
role in cultural studies, written from a cultural studies perspective
that is sympathetic to, but not necessarily uncritical of, 'Theory' with
a capital 'T'. The aim of the book is to reposition cultural theory
(after the attacks of the likes of Terry Eagleton) and reaffirm its
continuing intellectual, and indeed political relevance, to both
cultural studies and culture and society at large.

"Material Culture" Symposium

Winterthur, Delaware, Aprill 23, 2005

The Center for Material Culture Studies at the University of Delaware
is pleased to announce the Third Annual Material Culture Symposium for
Emerging Scholars (MCSES) to be held Saturday, April 23, 2005 at the
Winterthur Museum, Garden, and Library in Winterthur, Delaware.

Purpose of the Forum: This symposium provides emerging scholars with a venue
for interdisciplinary dialogue centering on material culture. By freeing
scholars of chronological and topical restraints, the symposium encourages
discussion across perceived boundaries of time, space and discipline.

New York RAT, First Issue Published

New York RAT

The first issue of the New York RAT was printed last week and
is being distibuted all over the city. Look for your copy at
Bluestockings, St. Mark's Books, Clovis Press (in the free drawer),
and various coffeeshops around the city.

If you have any suggestions about where else we can distribute
them, or if you want to help out with distribution, please email us!
We are hoping to get some feedback about the first issue as
well as contributions and suggestions for the next issue. Hope to hear
from you!

Love & resistance,

The Black RAT collective

¡MayDay!: Europrecarious and Flexworkers in Action

Precarious Workers European Meeting

Málaga, December 3-6, 2004

Life conditions in the neoliberal age are no longer conjugated in the
third person.

A galaxy of wage-earning work atypical figures has ceased to belong
exclusively to the "horror catalogues" of the labor relations´
devastation, of the social guarantees´ neoliberal breakdown. From the
exclusion statement they are passing through to the joyful passions of
affirmative resistance, to the exigency of guaranteing the conditions
in which the "new species" can combine its productive cooperation
power with new spaces for the public act and speech, with new freedom
conditions for everybody, against the concentration of the workfare
and forced flexibility universe that seems to be at the core of the
European Constitution project´s social doctrine.

First International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, May 5-7, 2005

The First International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry will take place at
the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, from May 5-7, 2005. The theme
of the First International Congress of Qualitative Research focuses on
"Qualitative Inquiry in a Time of Global Uncertainty." The mission of the
conference is to provide a forum for conversations on the interdisciplinary
implications of positivist legislation and academia for critical qualitative
scholarship especially in indigenous, border, feminist, race, queer, and
ethnic studies, and to build and expand the already robust tradition of
Qualitative Inquiry.

hydrarchist writes:

Eminem's Anti-Bush Video

Undoubtedly Eminem's video for his anti-Bush rap "Mosh"is all over the web at this point but I think it's an interesting thing which people should see.

It can be downloaded using Bit Torrent from Internet Vets For Truth. The video was made by Guerrilla News Network, who have shot some excellent pieces with Talib Kewli and have a political slant. On the other hand they produced some materials on 911 which have a clear conspiracy slant and include the dodgy Mike Rupert. Nonetheless this is yet another "intervention" in the US election and it has a weird tone which vacillates between encouraging insurrection, makes a class-based case against Bush but whose bottom line is vote, get him out.

If you are having any technical problems please ask, or check the Fahrenheit 911 thread where quite a few people cut their teeth using p2p to download video. To watch it install Mplayer or Video Lan Client.

“The Post-National Nation: Ideology and Institution in the Global Era”

March 25-26, 2005, Rice University, Houston, Texas

Call for Papers

In academic and public contexts, the nation-state has long served as a point-of-origin for discussing and articulating identity, ideologies, economies, histories and literary or cultural productions. As our title suggests, the ascendancy of global paradigms have brought new urgency to long running analyses and interrogations of the nation-state model.

"Redrawing Democracy"

Visual Resistance

The Visual Resistance collective calls on all all artists, graphic designers, stencilists, graffitti writers and audacious amateurs! The last time you heard from us, we were gearing up for the protests against the Republican National Convention in New York City. After some jail time and a short rest, we're launching a new site that will document and archive political art from NYC and across the globe.

"Objection or Obstruction:

The Culture of Protest in the Twenty-First Century"

M/C Reviews, Co-editors: Jodi Crome and Kate Cuthbert

Throughout the twentieth century, protest has been instrumental in
revealing weaknesses in social, political, and environmental foundations.
In the last twelve months, protest documentaries such as Fahrenheit 9/11
and The President vs. David Hicks have foregrounded once again the ability
of protest to bring salient socio-political issues and concepts to greater
public attention. However, the potency of protest has also spurred debates
over its effectiveness as a tool for social change: can protest educate,
or can it only coerce?

Today's heightened political environment — springing from inquiries into
the Iraq war, questions about choices made in the Middle-East, and
elections on both sides of the Pacific — has reawakened the protest debate.
We would like to examine the concept of the protest and its potential
success or failure in the twenty-first century.

M/C Reviews is looking for new contributors. M/C Reviews is an ongoing
series of reviews of events in culture and the media. It includes the
themed sections 'events', 'screens', 'sounds', 'style', and 'words' which
publish reviews as they come to hand. It also publishes feature issues,
themed groups of reviews centring on a particular cultural event,
category, or genre.