ISSN 2562-9948
Critical analyses of the active and sublimated political stances that have become the norm of regular academic life; the inherent politics of “professionalism”; forces against positive social and political change within the academic setting
If this was a good time for Canadian academia, you would not be able to tell from the blanket of almost absolute silence that has been pulled over universities. There is no euphoria, no celebratory mood, no applause for the changes that are happening. There is, however, a degree of infighting, mutual suspicion, recrimination, and […]
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I know that I am not the first person to ask this, but when did universities start having “views”? When some professors indulge their rights to free speech or put academic freedom into practice, they can sometimes express views that some members of the public find controversial, distasteful, or reprehensible. In such cases, one frequently reads their […]
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While it is an odd mix of physics, biology, and geometry that has captured the communications strategy of military planners, the messages themselves are very telling about how such planners go about envisioning US global domination, and the parts to be played by others in assuring that dominance. Some thus speak about the “center of […]
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The interview below was originally published in the January 31-February 2, 2014, edition of CounterPunch. It is reproduced here in part because of the close attention we paid to the persecution of Ward Churchill, and in continuation of our support for his cause. The case, involving as it did the politicization of the university, unfortunately […]
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This statement, written by Ryan Anderson, Jason Antrosio, Sarah Kendzior and myself, is a response to a post on the American Anthropological Association blog that discusses our recent writings about adjuncts, anthropology, and academia. We are gratified that the American Anthropological Association has taken note of our critical commentary on the vagaries of the academic […]
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“Sometimes,” remarked a wise colleague of mine many years ago, “It seems all I know how to do is critique.” We were postgraduate students, I in anthropology, she in sociology, but our paths crossed several times in the classes of a VFM whose task it was to bathe us in the critical light of dialectics. […]
Read More…“Move along folks, you’re blocking a cash point.” This pithy synopsis of the neoliberal logic driving the policing of student protest was delivered unironically by one of London Met’s Finest to the milling crowd at a recent demonstration at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, whose inmates gazed down apprehensively from their glass cubicles […]
Read More…The evangelical neoliberalism which erupted in the US House of Representatives in 2008 and spread like the mange to the UK House of Commons is coming soon to an English university near you. The free market rapture comes courtesy of a man so dreadfully incompetent he couldn’t even be trusted to run BP: Edmund John […]
Read More…As some readers already know, Henry Giroux was one of the U.S.’ leading critical scholars, until 2005 when he “defected” to Canada to take up the the Global TV Network Chair in English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. Even those who have never read his work are likely to have heard […]
Read More…Here is a simple, factual observation [even this opening line is rendered comical by the critical questions and points that followed the publication of this deeply flawed post, maintained here only for the benefit of others who might learn from these mistakes]: Concordia University ranks first among Canada’s three institutions of higher learning …if one […]
Read More…How about that? Foreign Policy has released its rankings, based on ballots cast, of the world’s top 100 public intellectuals, and Columbia University based, Ugandan anthropologist Mahmood Mamdani is ranked 9th — well ahead of the likes of Stephen Colbert who is sure to make some fuss about his lesser status. You can see the […]
Read More…Elitists, isolated in their ivory towers, serving out life terms in self-imposed exile. It’s a great image, if you are writing a comedic novel, or perhaps aiming to produce a take on Great Expectations applied to an academic setting, or likewise some rendition of One Hundred Years of Solitude. One can indeed think of how […]
Read More…Another page to add to the book of “useful” research, not much different from what has already been talked about on this blog in terms of “useful anthropology.” This item comes from the Sydney Morning Herald for 19 May, 2008, in an article by Harriet Alexander titled “Social sciences robbed of usefulness“: THE mantra “publish […]
Read More…A variety of thoughts on the “uses” and “usefulness” of anthropology were provoked by Lorenz Khazaleh’s synopsis on African anthropology, which also contains links to online papers of the World Anthropologies Network, a source of especial importance to some of the issues I wish to cover in this blog. Within the North American context it […]
Read More…“The choice to rely … on cultural anthropologists in the rebuilding of a defeated enemy has particular resonance now as the United States struggles to rebuild a stable and viable Iraq. … As the occupation of Iraq appears more complex by the day, where are the new Ruth Benedicts, authoritative voices who will carry weight […]
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ZERO ANTHROPOLOGY 