Posted in Books, film, Music, Not just about Africa, tagged art galleries, Books, Chimurenga magazine, events in New York City, film, Music, New York happenings, The Kitchen on September 30, 2008 | 2 Comments »
No need to panic. No revolution or liberation wars on US shores. Yet.
Just literary heads, film and music in honor of The Chimurenga Library at The Kitchen in Chelsea on the West Side of Manhattan.
Flavorpill has the summary here. And here‘s a link to the original notice.
See you there.
Posted in blogs, tagged Bagnewsnotes, Blog Roll, blogs, It's a Blog, My favorite blogs on September 30, 2008 | 3 Comments »
First up BagNewsNotes.
“A progressive blog dedicated to visual politics, the analysis of news images, and the support of ‘concerned photojournalism.”
I love this site — despite it being overly American-centric — as a media scholar and as someone obsessed with politics. I’ve been a fan since it started in mid-2003
Posted in film, tagged Astra Taylor, documentary films, Examined Life, film, philosophers on September 29, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Filmmaker Astra Taylor continues her obsession with philosophers with her new documentary, “Examined Life.” Last time she followed Slavoj Zizek around. The new film includes interviews with Cornel West (in this clip), Avital Ronell, Peter Singer, Ghanaian-born Kwame Anthony Appiah, Martha Nussbaum, Michael Hardt, Judith Butler, and Slavoj Zizek (again). Here‘s a blogpost by Taylor (who I knew briefly a few years ago) written for the Toronto Film Festival’s website as well as the film’s website.
Posted in photography, tagged Araminta de Clermont, photography on September 29, 2008 | 3 Comments »
Slideshow of Araminta de Clermont’s photographs of tattooed prisoners and ex-convictis in Cape Town, South Africa on the Guardian’s website. Photographing ex-cons (mainly black men) in Cape Town is somewhat of a trope that not just confirm deep seated prejudices, but also comes with rewards on the art circuit. So I am not always sure what to make of this kind of photography.
Posted in politics, South Africa, tagged African National Congress, ANC, George Bush, George W Bush, Jacob Zuma, opinion, politics, South Africa on September 26, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Thabo Mbeki — unceremoniously dumped by his party as South Africa’s President last weekend — was routinely referred to by George W. Bush as his “point man” in Africa. For the leading member of a movement with historical ties to the Soviet Union that until recently was on the State Department’s terrorist watch list, Mbeki enjoyed an unusually close relationship with the Bush Administration. It probably had less to do with any ideological convergence than the fact the US needed someone to work as well as with the African National Congress‘s own transformation from a liberation movement to a conventional political party.
Made my Huffington Post debut today.
Posted in politics, South Africa, tagged African National Congress, After Mbeki, Jacob Zuma, Nelson Mandela, politics, South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, The Zuma Chronicles on September 25, 2008 | 1 Comment »
“One of the great ironies is that Zuma [now] sounds like a U.S. Republican … He wants tougher action against crime and freer markets. Any white person in the suburbs who’s listening and getting alarmed is clearly just feeding off prejudice.”
That’s Stephen Friedman, a newspaper columnist and a research associate at the Institute for Democracy in South Africa (I used to work for them) quoted in a long profile story in Newsweek by the magazine’s South African correspondent, Scott Johnson.
Further down in the story, Don Mkwanazi, chairman of the “Friends of Jacob Zuma,” an organization “that aims to raise several millions for the leader’s legal defense,” must have taken to heart another of the Republicans’ other legacies, pretending there’s something uniquely African about it:
“… In African culture, if I give Zuma a gift, it’s normal; it’s not a bribe. Some of my own white colleagues think Zuma is tainted, but not the majority of black South Africans. This is not London or Geneva—this is Africa.”
Posted in Books, South Africa, tagged book reviews, Books, Cape Town, South Africa on September 25, 2008 | 7 Comments »
I finally got around (on the subway, in a bus, waiting for my daughter after preschool, etc) to reading the edited volume A City Imagined. It’s a collection of short essays about Cape Town edited by Stephen Watson. The publisher (and Watson in the introduction) claims that the “… range of voices is wide, the angles of vision many” and that the portrait of the city is “infinitely more various, heterogeneous, complex even in its beauty, than that to be found in the standard treatments of the place.” Apart from the small (sic) matter that 16 of the 18 contributors are white, I found the writing a let down and just another “standard treatment” of the city. That’s with the exception of Jeremy Cronin’s contribution on his youth in Simon’s Town. That’s probably the only thing worth reading. I love Cape Town.
Posted in Not just about Africa, tagged Henry Paulson, John McCain, US presidential elections 2008 on September 25, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Dear American:
I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.
I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.
I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transactin is 100% safe.
This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.
Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.
Yours Faithfully Minister of Treasury Paulson.
[Source]
Posted in Not just about Africa, tagged ACAS, Concerned Africa Scholars on September 24, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
My day job is as an academic at a large, prominent midwestern university. That is also where my association with the Concerned Africa Scholars comes from.
This organization is largely US-based. Its members are largely scholars and students engaged in critical research and analysis of Africa and U.S. government policy; developing communication and action networks; and mobilizing concerned communities on critical, current issues related to Africa. ACAS is committed to interrogating the methods and theoretical approaches that shape the study of Africa.
ACAS was founded in 1979 by a group of scholars committed to developing an engaged community producing critical analysis of apartheid in South Africa. ACAS members now work on a range of issues, including U.S. military interventions, the politics of trade and development, the HIV crisis, and alternative means of generating knowledge about Africa.
A Board of Directors and Executive Committee governs ACAS. The chairpersons of ACAS have been: Immanuel Wallerstein and Willard Johnson (1977-1991), David Wiley and Jean Sindab (1991-1993), William G. Martin and Merle Bowen (1993-2001), Meredeth Turschen and Michael West (2001-2006) and Kris Peterson and myself since 2006.
Our interdisciplinary approach supports rethinking conventional interpretations of social and economic policy, globalization, development strategies, media representations, and nation building.
Anyway, go find out for yourself. You can even join.
