I had a conversation with a friend (New Internationalist author of Counterpower 2011, forthcoming) that went like this. I’ve reduced it from about 4,000 to about 2,000 words by excising the gossipy or irrelevant bits, but yes – that is still quite a lot of words. The reason I’m posting it is because I’m hoping [...]
Archive for the ‘culture’ Category
Tim and I discuss youth, newness, social movements, politics, tactics, and how the 80s fucked us
Posted in campaigning, culture, protest, revolution now, Zizek on August 25, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Co-opting my housemate’s Amanda Palmer related thunder …
Posted in culture on March 7, 2011 | 1 Comment »
My housemate Matt (who blogs here) is an Amanda Palmer fan. And I suppose in a moderate sense so am I; at least insofar as she is a body-positive imaginative queer thunderstorm. His biggest piece of news recently involved a snapshot he took at some concert a while back, of some streaker who threw herself [...]
What to add to the museum of broken relationships (Zagreb – www.brokenships.com) on my behalf …
Posted in culture on February 12, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
There is a Museum of Broken Relationships in Zagreb (featured here in The Guardian) and it contains a wind-up white rabbit, an axe, a frisbee, a candy G-string, and a garden gnome. I would add to it: a package of two unworn sarees a large violet mug I still use a card with moths on [...]
An acquaintance emailed me to object to my Facebook featured quote (“Charity degrades and demoralises…” Zizek) – a condensed response
Posted in culture, protest, revolution now on January 15, 2011 | 2 Comments »
An acquaintance, a well-meaning liberal, took enough offence at my Facebook profile’s featured quote from Zizek, about how charity has become our greatest aspiration – capitalism with a human face – to write to me to tell me that I was wrong. On the contrary, she said, charity was the one beautiful thing on Earth. [...]
One Eviction … One new occupation … BREAKING NEWS – Oxford residents open a new social space in resistance to #Tesco
Posted in culture, protest, squatting on December 5, 2010 | 1 Comment »
We are happy to announce the birth of a new social centre in Oxford! As of today the once derelict Fox and Hound pub on Abingdon Road/Donnington Bridge Road has reopened for the use of the local community as a space for free cultural expression and the growth of solidarity in a climate of austerity. [...]
“Tamlane” in Oxford: fairies vs. mortals straight up through incredibly professional modern ballet (but the misogyny of the fairytale form remains un-queered)
Posted in culture, feminism, gender on November 26, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
_ Wadham college breeds good things: radicalism, queer festivals, and lately, the show Tamlane. Unlike some incarnations of the former two, however, every aspect of this stunningly well rehearsed full-length fairytale choreography is charmingly unpretentious (like the personality of its creator, Hannah Moore). Not for her – or her thirty odd cast and crew – [...]
“EATING ORDERS”: anorexia/bulimia, feminism, gender identity and self help
Posted in culture, eating disorders, feminism, gender on November 17, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Yesterday, the attendance for EATING ORDERS (Facebook event here) was unexpectedly high. It was a challenging and exhilaratingly content-ful, thoughtful session. Hannah Tickle and Nicola Byrom presented two different aspects of their work pioneering Student Run Self Help, as well as their research in the Psychology Department. Laurie Penny described her personal and theoretical understanding [...]
Passionlessness: talk to me about how you don’t care, about your silently majoritary position, about the state of your hair
Posted in culture, Queer politics, revolution now, shock doctrine, Tory scum on November 8, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Passionlessness, or apathy, is partly – as David Meslin says in his TedX redefinition of the concept – engineered by our media of engagement. We allow our passions to be engaged by ephemera, and it is the trivial projects which attempt to engage us: entertainment coverage always comes with its ‘how to attend’ data prominently [...]
Nina Power on emotional labour
Posted in culture, feminism, gender, literature/critique on November 6, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Nina Power, senior lecturer in philosophy at Roehampton University and author of One Dimensional Woman, spoke on the concept of emotional labour from a Marxist perspective in Oxford this Thursday. As usual Wadham College attracted a good crop of radicals-in-training and the session was incredibly interesting. Nina outlined her thesis that Arlie Hochschild’s concept (in [...]
an excerpt the @Oxfordgef Relationships-Sexuality-Feminism session yesterday
Posted in culture, feminism, festivals, gender on November 6, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
[Amazing poster and artwork generally for Gender Equality Festival is by Kate Pocklington @phorid - phorid.yolasite.com] People are so much better at making a good world in their hearts and in their beds than they are at making a good world out there in the world. The one has to be the rehearsal for the [...]
one hundred objects for the history of the world
Posted in culture on October 23, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Is it all over then. Are we the children of the end of history. Radio 4′s series A History of the World in 100 Objects is over. Objects have been selected to cover the broadest possible chronological and geographical period, and tell a history of the world from two million years ago to the present day. [...]
The right is just wrong and moreover they’re burning the world
Posted in culture, Tory scum on September 8, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Of all the appalling Tory gloating we must face in this post-apocalyptic Coalition world, the Torygraph blogosphere’s latest has got to be the worst. I don’t know if I want you to read it or not. The force of its gynophobic, racist, anti-poor free-market evil-mongering is almost overpowering. I’m worried my bile is making me [...]
I don’t go to festivals. But I tried one.
Posted in culture, festivals on August 8, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
No great subject of reflection this time. I went to WOMAD this year. I’ve grown up in France, where this no real festival-going culture, and I have found during my 3 years in the UK so many assumptions and references that revolve around habituated knowledge of ‘Glasto’ or Secret Garden Party or Latitude or whatever, [...]
Sophie’s Twitter Feed
- Those speculating were huddled by the auctioneer's desk trying to haggle over crisis-stricken families' houses amid the beautiful din #o4o ~ 2 weeks ago
- Waiting now for nine arrestees at today's o4o sing-along-auction-blockade to be released at (cont) http://t.co/6gl6SUiL ~ 2 weeks ago
- #o4o action in Brooklyn Supreme Court kicked off just now, to resist banks' foreclosing on people's (cont) http://t.co/80aPmWLO ~ 2 weeks ago
Archive from lasophielle
What're you interested in?
dates of scribblings
April 2012 M T W T F S S « Feb 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 lasophielle
