M-L-M Mayhem!

As regular readers of this blog will be aware, though I tend to be sympathetic to many of the positions expressed by some Maoist Third Worldist groups, particularly the Maoist Internationalist Movement [MIM], I identify with the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist movement that comes through the groups involved in the now-defunct RIM project, as well as the Communist Party India (Maoist) and the Communist Party of the Philippines.  Since I've outlined the reasons for this theoretical commitment elsewhere, I feel no reason to go into it here in any real detail, nor waste time expressing why I disagree with MIM's assessment and critique of the RIM experience (which, to be fair, would conversely contain a recognition of aspects of their critique of the RCP-USA).  I bring up this theoretical demarcation, therefore, not to get into it in any real detail but to highlight the fact that, despite this qualification, I still enjoyed––and indeed highly recommend due to the fact that I believe it is a

I'm slowly struggling through my reading list. That is, I'm getting to all those books that I've had on the back-burner for over a year, that I keep accumulating, but that I can only slowly get to due to: a) all the other books that have accumulated first; b) the stuff I have to read because of my job. Summers are always easier, because that's usually a period when I'm on EI, and so it won't be too long before I can eliminate a large swathe of my reading list. Generally my readings follow a particular instrumental hierarchy: texts connected to my organizational life (whether they be essays, position papers, or books), texts connected to my job (whether they be course material or student papers – argh Hegel's Philosophy of Right  again and hundreds of essays!), texts that are related to whatever paper or manuscript I'm working on, texts that follow the rule of my reading cue when this cue does not prioritize the previous categories. In any case, when it

Considering that over a month has passed without any posting, I figure that I should write something so as to not lapse into obscurity.  Let's be clear: my job, not to mention my life in general, has temporarily appropriated my energy––I've had very little time to blog.  For example, I really want to continue that Terrorist Assemblages  series of reviews , but how can I do that when I'm spending half of the week re-reading 19th century continental philosophy so as to teach it (which means, very slowly with a bazillion reading notes so as to lead class discussion), let alone all of the things I'm doing outside of this job?  Hell, when I have free reading time these days I generally focus on fiction because at least it's a good break from my state of affairs. (A tangent: I just discovered that Ngugi wa Thiong'o has a son who writes hardboiled detective genre fiction with an anti-imperialist twist!  I'm thinking about reviewing the first on my arts-inclined blo

In my previous entries in this series I worried about Puar's eclecticism.  By this chapter, however, it seems as if she is beginning to centre her theoretical approach around Agamben, particularly his concept of the "state of exception."  While I don't think this enough to allow her to escape completely from the charge of eclecticism (because I think Agamben is also somewhat eclectic), or from the charge of a very narrow idealism (Agamben's focus and over-application of a Schmitt-inspired concept has always revealed an obsession of appearance over substance, an inability to cut down to the material foundation upon which both the state of exception and homo sacer  are dependent), it does permit a greater level of coherency. Earlier I worried that Puar's concept of homonationalism, though perhaps useful for most imperialist countries, was very US-centric.  Unfortunately this chapter confirms my fears about how the theory has been conceived as nationally spe

This is the third part in my series of reflections on Jasbir K. Puar's Terrorist Assemblages .  The first part can be found here and the second here . The first chapter of Terrorist Assemblages is entitled "the sexuality of terrorism" and this immediately fills me with slight misgiving.  While I agree that, especially in light of this book's subject matter, it makes sense to examine "discourses of sexuality (and their attendant anxieties)––heterosexuality, homosexuality, queerness, metrosexuality, alternative and insurgent sexuality," I am not at all convinced that without these discourses, as Puar claims, "the twin mechanisms of normalization and banishment that distinguish the terrorist from the patriot would cease to properly behave." (37) To my mind an imperialist project accumulates particular and secondary ideologies and discursive frameworks that are always contingent upon its social-historical context––that is, contingent upon the way im

The following is part of a "Let's Read" series where I plan to blog, slowly and probably interspersed with other posts, about my reflections of Jasbir K. Puar's Terrorist Assemblages . This first of these posts, concerning the Preface and an explanation as to what this series is, can be found here .  Today I'm reflecting on the Introduction. Yes, every post in this series will most likely contain a variant of the book's cover. The fact that the Introduction is titled "homonationalism and biopolitics", combined with what Puar has already claimed about "biopolitics" in the Preface, is somewhat worrisome for a historical materialist who finds the entire category of "biopolitics" suspect.  Let's be clear: there is indeed something about the Foucauldian concept of biopolitics that is politically useful––it's even useful in the way that Agamben mobilizes it––but at the end of the day this strikes me as an avoidance of a