Political Education for Everyday Life
Bad Subjects: Political Education for Everyday Life seeks to revitalize progressive politics. We challenge progressive dogma by encouraging readers to think about the political dimension to all aspects of everyday life. We seek to broaden the audience for leftist and progressive writing through a commitment to accessibility and contemporary relevance. more »
featured articlesBye Bye, Facebook Facebook is sharing all my data with the US government. Private companies, and governments like Egypt, can get my Facebook data too. Forget that. read » The University of the Commons: a New Progressive Alternative in San Francisco People were excited at the promise of starting a really great project for higher learning, and to be able to teach what we wanted, as we wanted, without money and profit motives and administrative harnessing to get in our way. read » The Speciousness of Origin: Notes from Palermo
On a visit to our sewn and preserved fellow species in a Palermo natural history museum, the author ponders our inveterate need to diminish and hold out of sight our connectedness in the mesh of all life and the invalidities of our politics and presumptions resulting from our rigorously maintained blindness. read » National Psychoanalysis The author considers the present political situation as a psychomachia, a drama in which what any of the dramatis personae say or any of the bi-partisan accords they enact do no more than mask the “Unthought” that conceals the hidden heart of the matter. The Neoliberal/Right-wing Psyche
In this first "diagnosis," the author examines the neoliberal psyche. read » The Liberal Psyche: Session One
The Liberal Psyche: Session Two
The Liberal Psyche: Session Three
Natoli's last examination of the American cultural psychic drama, or psychomachia, focuses on a repressed, suppressed and devilized leftist ideology. read » Cyber-liberty, Democracy and the Arab Psyche
We in the West typically refrain from couching international insights in culturally sensitive ways. In the Arab world the freedom to converse and not the mere googling of information is what can trigger political change and social networks make this possible. read » Word of Click: Social Networking and the Arab Spring Revolutions
Social networking's political value in the U.S. may not exceed its distracting/seductive values but such has not been the case with the Arab Spring Revolutions. read » reviewsmore »Our Brains, Our Pocketbooks: A Review of Empathy Imperiled: Capitalism, Culture, and the Brain In his book Empathy Imperiled: Capitalism, Culture, and the Brain, Gary Olson explores the connections between biology, empathy, and capitalism. read » "Falling in Love Is Such an Easy Thing to Do": The Secret Life of the American Teenager’s Confusing Rhetoric on Sexual Ethics and Consequences The Secret Life of the American Teenager ended its five-season run on June 3, 2013. The series often (and awkwardly) walked the line between liberal and stodgy, realistic and unrealistic. read » Miss Education: Thank You, Lauryn Hill This album meant everything to me when it came out. read » Music Books on an Austere Media Diet: Bliss and I WANT MY MTV Two books shed light on my own peculiar and prejudicial diet of media, both print and televised. read » The Stooges' Ready to Die Punk rock is youth and rebellion, and old punks don’t die. read » KISS MONSTER The rock gods, in blue jeans and black sport jackets, slipped into a back room where they could press the flesh with fans. read » Problems of the History Painter: Niagara, Detroit and "War Paint" Elegant women in Niagara's "War Paint" exhibit make the conflagration seventy years ago into the best of fun. read » Jung, Clarke, Kubrick: Dark Monoliths, Stone Temples Motifs and coincidences involve the lives and work of the psychologist, the writer and the filmmaker. read » Robots All: A Letter to Kurt Vonnegut on the Anniversary of Breakfast of Champions Your book gives the impression, not only that most humans act like machines, but that the universe itself is like a machine. read » See Bad Reviews for earlier reviews |
new issue (2013)Bad Subjects Issue #84: Crafts Editors: Tamara Watkins & Mike Mosher Craft is political. The London Review of Books Christmas Number, 20 December 2012, has two pieces affirming that. Ramachandra Guha notes how Karl Marx wrote that colonial rule in India destroyed local craft traditions “through the brutal interference of the British tax-gatherer and the British soldier.” Neil Ascherson mentions Wanda Telakoska, promoter of traditional Polish arts and crafts who believed “beauty is for everyday and for everybody", but despite directing Poland's Bureau for Supervision of Production Aesthetics, her designs were ignored by penny-pinching factories. read » recent issueBad Subjects Issue #83: Election 2012 Editors: Tamara Watkins & Mike Mosher This issue discusses the politics, media, and meaning of the 2012 election season. Hello, we're calling to ask you to take a short, three-question political poll.... No, we're not. We're as tired of the Election 2012 season as you are. However, we would be remiss if we didn't take this opportunity to discuss the political insanity that current grips our nation. read » editorialsmore »The Free Exchange of Ideas: Our New Normal
by Joseph Natoli
Got a TV Eye on Me: Video, State Surveillance, and Resistance It's the cameras around us, and the ones in our pockets, and the software and servers that monitor our texts and clicks, that make, and record, history in 2013. read » Prison for Peace Some are arrested, go to trial, and leave family and community for jail and prison, all in the cause of peace. read » George Zimmerman: Out Looking for Trouble The insidious racism in this country is at the case's heart. read » "Maggie, Maggie, Maggie,..." The news came on Monday, April 8th that Margaret Thatcher was dead. read » Bad Subject Stephen Perkins, blogging from Cairo, posts photos of the street art of Egypt's evolving revolution that's displayed in Tahrir Square. Who Gives a Cluck What Dan Cathy Thinks? On July 16, 2012, Dan Cathy, President and COO of Chick-fil-A confirmed that his company is decidedly anti-gay marriage. The chain's conservative politics have long been suspected; however, no one from the (heteronormative, thank you very much) Chick-fil-A family publicly stated it. This proclamation wasn't very surprising for liberals who patronize the chain. Chick-fil-A is notoriously Christian. If you want a banana shake on a Sunday, you're out of luck. look » Costumed for Life and Love: San Francisco LGBT Freedom Day 2012 The City marched, danced and celebrated in its finery on Sunday, June 24th. look » God Save My Mum: A Not So Warm and Fuzzy Take on the Queen of England's Jubilee All the love and adulation heaped upon her should have been heaped upon my Mum, and other widows and veterans of Her Majesty's Armed Forces, once shipped off to an obscure place called Christmas Island. read » It's Springtime!
Oakland (after William Blake) I wander down each corporate street,/There where the corporate cop cars go... read »
In an effort to transform Florida’s economy and draw businesses to the state, Governor Rick Scott announced that college students should abandon the humanities and social sciences to pursue degrees and careers in science, engineering, and math (or STEM). read »Predator Drones, Reaper Drones, and Total Disconnect by Rosalie Riegle In commemoration of the endless Afghanistan war and as a final activity of a national Catholic Worker gathering, activists sat down in front of an entrance to Creech Air Force Base in Indian Springs, Nevada. read »See Bad Editorials for earlier editorials
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