Category Archives: Culture

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Reading: Ruth Mandel – Cosmopolitan Anxieties: Turkish Challenges to Citizenship and Belonging in Germany

Having somewhat fallen into reviewing what I’m reading instead of the intended writing about why I’m reading a particular book, herewith I attempt to return to the point of all this writing about reading. Ruth Mandel’s Cosmopolitan Anxieties: Turkish Challenges … Continue reading →

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Reading: Anne Fausto-Sterling: Sex/Gender – Biology in a Social World

Anne Fausto-Sterling’s Sexing the Body is one of the few crucial texts on identity that I’ve read, along of course with Judith Butler (take your pick, though Undoing Gender is rather fine), and she is sadly one of those writers who publish … Continue reading →

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Reading: Kim Stanley Robinson – 2312

My book for Antwerpen, Kim Stanley Robinson’s 2312 is up for a Hugo this year, and needing something sci-fi to read I thought it might appeal. I also have Saladin Ahmed’s Throne of the Crescent Moon sitting here, which is the only … Continue reading →

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Post-BRX/TIL

Back in Berlin with the usual pouring-of-day-down-toilet that is economy airlines. Really, I’d get the train everywhere if Deutsche Bahn (and others) weren’t so scandalously overpriced. I’d get work done for a start, and Brussels to Berlin is only a … Continue reading →

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One of the most symptomatic manifestations of this…

One of the most symptomatic manifestations of this onslaught on any real critique, i.e. critique that does not limit itself to mere window dressing, is no doubt today’s insistence on constructive critique. What has become completely unacceptable is to ‘merely’ criticize, that is, to critically diagnose and analyse society’s contradictions without at the same time offering a concrete alternative or solution for the predicaments analysed. The latter has become the sole criterion according to which every criticism is judged.

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It is therefore clear that the demand for constructive criticism deals a direct blow to any real critique. After all, radical critique – by its very nature – cannot immediately be made productive within the existing order since the latter is radically put into question.

Always Choose the Worst Option - Artistic Resistance and the Strategy of Over-Identification, Bavo