M-L-M Mayhem!

I have another book coming out with Zero Books:  Methods Devour Themselves , co-written by one of my favourite SFF authors, Benjanun Sriduangkaew. As some of you might know I have been a long time SFF fan. On my lesser read "cultural" blog I have written more frequently about SFF, particularly the work of Sriduangkaew . Collaborating with her on a book that was a combination of story and essay was something of a dream come true. In fact, seeing my name along with hers on the cover of a publication was one of those SFF fan "squee" moments––but in a more professorial manner befitting of a jaded leftist and academic pushing 40. Methods Devour Themselves  is a conversation between Sriduangkaew's stories and my essays, where one begets the other and vice versa, a dialogical experience that becomes a liminal literature. The question guiding the book's structure was: what philosophical exploration will this story provoke and what story will be provoked by th

Now that a very busy semester is nearly over, my marking is almost finished, and I'm about to enter a jobless EI summer between contracts, I'm finally going to have time to do some reading that is not job related. Thinking about the amount of reading time that has opened up has also got me thinking about the books coming out this year that I've marked in my to read  lists. In lieu of a substantial post, and in an effort to stop this blog from being empty, I've decided to provide a list, in no particular order, of the soon-to-be-published books on my radar. 1. Ottawa and Empire by Tyler Shipley A year and a half ago I had the opportunity to help with some thesis-to-book editing of this upcoming work on Canadian imperialism in Honduras. The problem with doing this kind of editing on a piece-meal basis is that it is difficult to get a picture of the book as a whole since you're focused on the minutia. I'm looking forward to reading it as a completed coherent w

In To Our Friends  the Invisible Committee writes: "Historically, the anti-globalization movement will remain as the first attack of the planetary petty bourgeoisie against capital––a touching and ineffectual one, like a premonition of its coming proletarianization." (223-224) Back in 2014 I wrote The Communist Necessity  as a critique of the movementism that, following a sequence from the anti-globalization movement to Occupy, was enshrined as dogma amongst the first world left. The Invisible Committee's earlier work was a defense of this dogma. My argument then was that this movementism was indeed the manifestation of a petty-bourgeois politics on the part of a privileged first world social class that was about to face an economic crisis that would drag it down to the level of the proletariat. It is thus interesting that the Invisible Committee has since recognized the "ineffectual" nature of the opening chapter of movementism approaching closure with a "

Since the release of Continuity and Rupture  in December I have been busy hustling this book at launches in various cities. Thankfully it's doing quite well (or so it seems) and so far has garnered two favourable reviews: one by Hamayon Rastgar in Marx and Philosophy Review of Books , and one over at Tiger Manifesto . In lieu of editing, laying-out, and posting the final section of my Right against Right  extended essay, I've decided to blog a little (that is, shamelessly self-promote) on my book launch experiences to date. 1. Toronto Launch Hosted by Another Story Bookstore , this launch was packed with Toronto colleagues, comrades, and fellow travellers. Anjula Gogia, formerly the key organizer of the late Toronto Women's Bookstore , was the Another Story  events coordinator who made the event a success and I'm very thankful for her kindness and acumen. She was also generous in allowing me to have a panel where the politics of the book were discussed rather than

The Toronto launch of Continuity and Rupture  yesterday evening went better than expected. Indeed, I was quite surprised by the turn out and support. Although this is my second book, and so I should be a little familiar with launches, since C&R  was shorter than The Communist Necessity , less a polemic and more of a rigorous examination of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, and the result of three years of writing and rewriting, I was far more anxious about its reception. Moreover, the DIY aesthetic of my first Toronto book launch (it happened in the back room of a bar) made it feel less official and thus less nerve-wracking than this one which happened in Toronto's oldest still operating independent book store. Hence, I feel that I need to deliver an extended thank-you to the people who made yesterday night's event a success. First of all, I want to thank Another Story Book Store  that took a chance on me and provided a comfortable launch space. Another Story  has been my favourit

Having finally received advance hard copies of my upcoming book and, preparing for the necessary book launch and promotional activities, I want to alert faithful readers to a number of things I've written in anticipation of Continuity and Rupture 's publication. I did them on Medium ( as I advertised when the first one was up ) mainly as a change of pace from archiving PDFs on this blog. I'm not sure if these writing exercises will help to promote the book (one can only hope!) but they were definitely fun. First, there's my most recent and very short article,  The Story of Continuity and Rupture . This was written as an article submitted to the online marketing page of Zero Books guided by the ethos of "tell the story of the book in question." That is, I tried to think of Continuity and Rupture  like a story and explain something about that story rather than just writing a boring "this is a general summary of my book." I hit upon referring to a

Long time readers and supporters! My upcoming book with Zero, Continuity and Rupture , will be released early December and I hope that all of you, if you possess the means, will support it so as to let progressive publishers know that the Maoist turn in theory/philosophy is not unpopular. Since many of you supported my last book with Kersplebedeb (and from what I heard there was recently a reading group dedicated to The Communist Necessity  in Austin) I figure you'll do the same with this one… But because it's larger and with Zero it's about three times more expensive in dead tree (around $30 instead of $10) but much cheaper as an ebook. Yeah, I sympathize with the wallet strain and I get that the pricing of this kind of book is a detriment to those it speaks to most directly. All I can say is that I hope that those of you who do possess the means, or can at least plan ahead to salvage the means, care enough about supporting this sort of politics to let Zero know that it&

I'm finally reading my doctoral supervisor's seminal work on Antonio Gramsci: Gramsci's Historicism  by Esteve Morera. Originally published in 1990 but rereleased in 2011 as a "Routledge Revival", Gramsci's Historicism was influential for a whole generation of Gramsci scholars (many of whom are now seen as Gramsci "authorities") who broke from post-modern and post-colonial appropriation of Gramsci in order to return to this thinker's Marxist roots. Although my doctoral work was not on Gramsci (it was a philosophical engagement with anticolonial theory in the present conjuncture of ongoing settler-colonialism ), Morera was the departmental Marxist who was happy to work with anyone doing radical philosophical work in this tradition. Since his brilliance was quiet and humble, he never tried to force his own work on me, or demand that I put more Gramsci in my project, but instead encouraged my thought in an organic manner. [My second reader, Lo

Usually I review books and not essays but Josephine Armistead's  The Silicon Ideology  was such a clear, timely, and engaging twenty pages that I believe it deserves a review post. Indeed, I think it is best understood as an extended abstract to a book that needs to be written [or might have already been written if the soon-to-be published Neoreaction A Basilisk  by Phil Sandifer is anything like an expanded version of Armistead's essay] particularly since the centres of global capitalism are witnessing the rise of various fascisms and ur-fascisms. Ostensibly about neo-reaction and the alt-right, The Silicon Ideology  also attempts to provide a "unified theory" of fascism so as to demonstrate that the neo-reaction/alt-right ideological milieu is united around an emergent fascism that is connected to the old fascisms and multiple contemporary fascisms. Rather than focus on the more seemingly popular fascist movements (fascist political parties in Europe, the Trump po

For those who are interested, the Journal of Socialist Studies is looking for a Book Review Editor, more Reviewers, and more Submissions. The journal is a "peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary, and open-access journal with a focus on describing and analysing social, economic and/or political injustice, and practices of struggle, transformation, and liberation." My article Quartermasters of Stadiums and Cemeteries  was in the latest issue , which also includes authors such as Himani Bannerji. For more information about being a book review editor or reviewer, contact: Sandra Rein, PhD Associate Professor of Political Studies Editor, Socialist Studies: A Journal of the Society of Socialist Studies University of Alberta, Augustana Faculty 4901-46 Avenue Founders' Hall 4-30 Camrose, AB T4V 2R3 Office direct line: 780-679-1553 Fax: 780-679-1590 editorsocialiststudies@gmail.com For submissions check out this link .

I'm over a month behind in making this assessment but, as regular readers of this blog will recall, I've usually provided a "year in review", at the beginning of a new year, where I list my most popular posts of the preceding year.  The problem with 2015, though, is that I posted less frequently. This infrequence was due to a combination of work, childcare, and organizational responsibilities; I apologize for letting my readers down, in this regard, but it was unavoidable.  In any case, the lateness of such a post is thus due, in large part, to my general posting sluggishness during 2015.  But here are the top ten posts, late as they are, of this infrequent year… I never get tired of this joke. 10. Let's Read Terrorist Assemblages! (Preface) : The first entry of my still incomplete "phenomenological review" of Jasbir Puar's influential book.  I finished the book because of my decision to do this series of reflective chapter-by-chapter reviews

I probably should have posted this promotion weeks ago, but I haven't been in an online/bloggy mindset for a while.  In any case, the Toronto branch of the PCR-RCP is holding an event to celebrate the organization's founding anniversary (belatedly, I believe) this Friday.  Being a supporter and member of one of the party's mass organizations, I am planning to attend. (I think holding this party [this "party-party"?] on Friday the 13th is the most appropriate thing a communist can do.  You know, intentionally saying "screw you" to superstition is the sort of things commies are supposed to be about, right?) If you are on facebook (unlike me who stubbornly resisted joining since its inception) then the event page is here .  Hope to see you out on Friday.

It's that time again––that time where I use a post to promote the most popular posts of the year, thus saving me from the hard work of creating something new.  2014 was a year where MLM Mayhem witnessed less posts than usual (around 20 less than 2013), partially because of living disruptions and the fact that we took our daughter out of daycare in September, meaning more domestic responsibilities (a toddler is exhausting!).  There's also the fact that I was able to release a book this year , which also took up a lot of time during the hours I might have spent blogging. I never tire of this shit! In any case, here is a list of the blogposts that were the most popular (and/or controversial) in 2014… 10) The Hard Sell of Revolution in the First World A close contender to an earlier and less popular post about internet leftism , and in some ways a more thorough companion piece to that rant.  After all, as I recall, some people were offended by my post about internet le

Due to the onslaught of work, organizational commitments/responsibilities, spotty internet access resulting from my housing situation, and my book launches in Toronto and Montreal (which both went very well, thank-you very much), I haven't had the time or energy to post anything substantial for quite some time.  Although I briefly considered responding to Don Hamerquist's critical review of my book (which I felt was something of a straw-person critique that misrepresented aspects of The Communist Necessity but still made some good points), since I didn't respond to Gabriel Kuhn's critical review (which I felt was actually a very measured and precise review that also made some good points) I decided that it probably wasn't a good idea.  There are always going to be negative reviews regardless of what you write, because not everyone agrees with your position, and it is probably unprofessional to engage in a back-and-forth; better to fix the problems of your book that

I recently got ahold of the new edition of J. Sakai's Settlers , repackaged and given a new typesetting by Kersplebedeb and PM Press.  For those unaware of the importance of this book, I refer interested readers to my "meta-review" of the earlier edition of the book where I engage with what I took to be dishonest and unfair criticisms of Sakai's position.  Generally speaking, Settlers  is a significant radical text, possessing subterranean seminal status, for a variety of reasons, the most important of which is its creative use of the concept of the labour aristocracy in order to explain the particular contradictions that emerge in a capitalist mode of production that emerged through the process of settler-colonialism.  Although some readers have taken issue with Sakai's historiography (one important Marxist online group complained that it was "cherry-picking" but without, for all that, really providing a sustained criticism to demonstrate how this was