TuTh 2:00 - 3:20, HH 226
taught by professors and PhD candidates in Comparative Literature and guests
organized by R. Terada, terada@uci.edu
office hours TuTh 3:00-4:00, HIB 270
course MESSAGEBOARD: https://eee.uci.edu/toolbox/messageboard/m12456/
ALL TEXTS, if not given in links in these pages, are available as PDFs from the course DROPBOX: https://eee.uci.edu/toolbox/dropbox/index.php?op=openfolder&folder=269562
Marker and Marret FILM (April 5) is available at MUBI.com: http://mubi.com/films/be-seeing-you
Pontecorvo FILM (May 24) is available on YouTube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmH5gqyin9E&list=UU9OvkaIloUnd3a3n1zrAB0Q&index=8&feature=plcp
COURSE DESCRIPTION
Through guest lecture-discussions, readings, and cultural materials, this course examines the Occupy/Decolonize movement of the last year, in the context of previous ways of thinking about such things as class, action, resistance, and revolution. We'll explore how Occupy/Decolonize draws on and contrasts with aspects of anarchism, labor movements, student protest, liberation movements, and social movements such as feminism and civil rights struggle. Some of the issues we will consider include: What kind of thinking leads to the act of holding space? Can a movement that claims to represent 99% of a population still constitute a "class" politics? How have debt and global financial crisis changed social landscapes? How have various movements been shaped or not by their assumptions about redress? How is recent dissent in different locations, including China, Egypt, Iran, Syria, Tunisia, and the U.S., differently inflected? How do Occupy/Decolonize groups negotiate their disparate political and tactical views, and how are these in dialogue with questions of gender and race? What is the future of the models for citizenship that are now developing?
There are four threads in the course. The lectures belonging to the four threads mostly go in sequence 1-4, but there are some crosslisted lectures and some that are out of sequence. So each thread is keyed to a symbol so that you can see how each lecture is related to the whole by the symbols associated to it. The threads and their symbols are:
(1) antecedents/fundamentals: class, anarchism, and revolution: *
(2) methods and figures of resistance: +
(3) external and internal dynamics and conflicts: violence, gender, and race: #
(4) sites: †
REQUIREMENTS
Participation 33%
Posting on electronic messageboard 33%
UNGRADED Midterm (comments only) 0%
Group final project and presentation 33%
Participation means not only attending but speaking and specifically, bringing things up that you want to talk about, changing the subject, helping the class to move in some direction, and especially, asking challenging questions of the speakers! Attendance is obviously a prerequisite for participation. You can miss up to 3 classes without harming your participation performance. Beyond that please bring a medical excuse.
ABOUT ELECTRONIC POSTING
Before each class for which a text or film is being discussed, go to the class messageboard on EEE (https://eee.uci.edu/toolbox/messageboard/m12456/) and post your thoughts about the text or film that we’re discussing. A good post is a longish-paragraph long; there is no particular kind of thing you should write, except that hopefully it would be honest and thoughtful. Please do read what others have posted and respond to them if you feel like it. I’ll be reading the messageboards in the late nights before class and will sometimes participate by commenting. One thing: to get credit you have to post the night before (up to 2:00 a.m. is fine) and not in the morning of the same day of class—that’s too late for me to get it. If you’d like to see some sample posts from a previous class please visit https://eee.uci.edu/toolbox/messageboard/m2858/.
SCHEDULE
(all instructors are from UC Irvine unless otherwise noted.)
antecedents/fundamentals: class, anarchism, and revolution: *
*Thursday April 5 - Rei Terada: Class Consciousness(?) and Politics vs. Action
Chris Marker and Mario Marret, Be Seeing You (À bientôt,j'espère):
available on MUBI.com for $2.95: http://mubi.com/films/be-seeing-you
Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, “The Fight for ‘Real Democracy’ at the Heart of Occupy Wall Street”, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/136399/michael-hardt-and-antonio-negri/the-fight-for-real-democracy-at-the-heart-of-occupy-wall-street
David Graeber, Direct Action: An Ethnography, Ch. 5: “Direct Action, Anarchism, Direct Democracy”
*†Tu Apr 10 - Ghada Mourad: The Arab Uprisings: Roots, Unfolding, Perspectives
James Gelvin, The Arab Uprisings: What Everyone Needs to Know, Ch. 1 (OPTIONAL) and Ch. 2
short articles:
"The New Meaning of the Arab 'Street'": http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/new-meaning-arab-%E2%80%9Cstreet%E2%80%9D"Arabs are democracy's new pioneers":
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/24/arabs-democracy-latin-america
"Theses on the Arab 'Spring'":
http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/4184/theses-on-the-arab-spring
"The Seven Wonders of the Revolution":
http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/4776/the-seven-wonders-of-the-revolution"Islamists in North Africa and the Turkish Model":
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/islamists-north-africa-and-turkish-model
methods and figures of resistance: +
+Th Apr 12 Nasser Mufti: The General Strike
Georges Sorel, "The Proletarian General Strike," from Reflections on Violence
+Tu Apr 17 Eyal Amiran: Occupation as a Spatial Figure
Henri Lefevbre, Production of Space, pp. 130-140, 223-227, 305-309
Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, "Introduction" to Anti-Oedipus, especially last paragraph
*Th Apr 19 Morgan Adamson, University of Minnesota [via Skype]: Occupy
Student Debt
Adamson, “The Financialization of Student Life: Five Propositions on Student Debt”
Joshua Clover, "The Time of Crisis": http://libcom.org/library/time-crisis
Reclamations special journal issue on student debt: http://www.reclamationsjournal.org/issue_debt_archive.htm
+*Tu Apr 24 Kirsty Singer: Anarchistic citizenship (organizational structures and logics of the movement)
David Graeber, Direct Action: An Ethnography, Chapter 7 (on meetings)
Saul Newman, “Post-Anarchism and Radical Politics Today” (dropbox)
*Th Apr 26 Adriana Johnson: critical education
from Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Chs. 2 and 4
Tu May 1 May Day
*+Th May 3 Susan Jarratt: rhetorics of Occupy
Claire Tancons , “Occupy Wall Street: Carnival Against Capital?
Carnivalesque as Protest Sensibility”:
http://www.e-flux.com/journal/occupy-wall-street-carnival-against-capital-carnivalesque-as-protest-sensibility/#_ftn1
Gavin Grindon, “Carnival Against Capital: A Comparison of Bakhtin, Vaneigem and Bey”: dropbox or http://kingston.academia.edu/GavinGrindon/Papers/170606/Carnival_Against_Capital_A_Comparison_of_Bakhtin_Vaneigem_and_Bey
K. Ruby Blume (Institute of Urban Homesteading, Oakland, CA), “History
of Radical Puppetry”: http://www.rogueruby.com/radpup.html
“Declaration of the Occupation of New York City” and comments, http://www.nycga.net/resources/declaration/
external and internal dynamics and conflicts: violence, gender, and race: #
#Tu May 8 James Goebel: “nonviolence” as a state production
Ward Churchill, Pacifism as Pathology, selections
Peter Gelderloos, How Nonviolence Protects the State,
selections
Nathan Brown, “Open Letter to Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi”
http://occupyca.wordpress.com/2011/11/19/open-letter-to-chancellor-linda-p-b-katehi/
“Open Letter to the UC Davis Students to explain to them why we are not signing the petition for
Chancellor Linda Katehi’s resignation”:
http://occupyucdavis.org/2011/11/open-letter-to-the-uc-davis-students-to-explain-to-them-why-we-are-not-signing-the-petition-for-chancellor-linda-katehi%E2%80%99s-resignation/
Videos:
UC Berkeley Police Violence (November, 9 2011)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=buovLQ9qyWQ
UC Davis Pepper Spraying (November, 18 2011)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmJmmnMkuEM
UC Davis Silent Protest
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmfIuKelOt4
Optional film:
Un Poquito de Tanta Verdad (2007), Jill Friedberg
http://balafria.wordpress.com/2008/08/23/un-poquito-de-tanta-verdad/
*#Th May 10 Emma Heaney, Occidental College: feminist autonomous organizing
Sylvia Federici, “All the World Needs a Jolt: Social Movements and Political Crisis in Medieval
Europe”
WATCH: “On the Recent Occupations”
#Tu May 15 Ameeth Vijay: What Does "Decolonize" Mean?
Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe, pp. 6-16 [dropbox]
Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, Ch. 5, "The Fact of Blackness," pp. 109-140 [dropbox]
Also required:
http://unpermittedla.wordpress.com/2011/10/16/statement-from-decolonize-la/
http://occupyseattle.org/blog/2011-10-25/declaration-decolonizeoccupy-seattle
http://decolonizeoakland.org/2012/04/26/for-people-who-have-considered-occupation-but-found-it-is-not-enuf/
http://youtu.be/r_s3X0uW9Ec
Optional:
http://hiphopandpolitics.wordpress.com/2011/12/08/editorial-should-we-occupy-or-decolonize/
http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2011/10/06/indians-counter-occupy-wall-street-movement-with-decolonize-wall-street-56946
Sites: †
+#Th May 17 Robert Wood: Port Shutdown Controversies: Questions of representation, social justice, and the legacy of the labor movement, through the vexed relationship between Occupy and unions
Bill Fletcher Jr. and Fernando Gapasin, Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path toward Social Justice: please read as much as possible from Ch. 1 through p. 92, and at least pp. 9-58 (dropbox)
Optional:
http://labornotes.org/2012/02/ue-occupies-chicago-window-plant-again-and-wins-reprieve
http://labornotes.org/2012/02/longshore-union-takes-risks-breaks-rules-gets-deal-grain-company
http://labornotes.org/2011/11/occupy-oakland-shuts-port-unions-hustle-keep
†Tu May 22 Alexander Jabbari: Iran and Syria: Opposition, Imperialism, Hegemony
James Gelvin, The Arab Uprisings: What Everyone Needs to Know, pp. 100-118
articles:
Salwa Ismail, "The Syrian Uprising: Imagining and Performing the Nation" (PDF - dropbox)
"The Green Movement Awaits an Invisible Hand" (June 2010): http://www.merip.org/mero/mero062610
"The Green Movement in Iran: A Divided Coalition" (June 2010): http://en.qantara.de/wcsite.php?wc_c=7033
"Iran's Green Movement: Life, Death, Rebirth" (April 2011): http://www.opendemocracy.net/nazenin-ansari/irans-green-movement-life-death-rebirth
#*†Th May 24 Parisa Vaziri (black revolution and postcolonial liberation)
Gillo Pontecorvo, The Battle of Algiers : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmH5gqyin9E&list=UU9OvkaIloUnd3a3n1zrAB0Q&index=8&feature=plcp
Jules Dassin, Uptight!
Frank Wilderson, "The Vengeance of Vertigo: Aphasia and Abjection in the
Political Trials of Black Insurgents"
†Tu May 29 Victoria Hsieh: Jasmine Protests in China
open letter for the Jasmine Protests: http://www.hrichina.org/content/4895 (there is a link to the Chinese version on this site as well)
Yu Hua, “The Spirit of May 35th”: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/
06/24/opinion/global/24iht-june24- ihtmag-hua-28.html
Introduction to a project to collect terms used to escape
censors: http://chinadigitaltimes.net/space/Introduction_to_the_Grass-Mud_Horse_Lexicon
Wiki of these terms: http://chinadigitaltimes.net/space/Grass-Mud_Horse_Lexicon
Th May 31 Student group presentations
Tu June 5 Student group presentations
Th June 7 Student group presentations and conclusion
